Outdoor Art Gallery

The downtown Vedado neighbourhood of Havana possesses the Colon Cemetery, named for Christopher Columbus and declared a National Heritage Monument in 1987 for its wealth of sculpture.

The burial ground was founded in 1876 based on a project by Galician architect Calixto Arellano de Loira y Cardoso and was originally placed outside the city limits. With the passage of time and the demographic, economic and social growth of the 19th Century, the city ended encircling it and today its main entrance is located at Zapata Street, close to the popular corner of 23rd and 12th Streets.

A Byzantine-style entrance, named Puerta de la Paz (Gate of Peace), opens to the more than 800,000 graves. It is a beautiful triumphal arch with three gates, crowned by a truncated pyramid. On the top rest three marble statues representing three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity, placed in 1901 and made by Cuban sculptor José Villalta Saavedra. The work bears the Latin inscription: Janua Sum Pacis, hence the name Gate of Peace.

Among the more than 500 major mausoleums, chapels, and family vaults, visitors and tourists might find the signatures of leading Cuban and foreign artists who honored the dead with their skills