The apartment blocks of Nuevo Vedado, built largely in the 1960s–80s with Soviet technical assistance, represent the most complete surviving example of Soviet-style prefabricated housing in the Caribbean. The blocks — called granjas in Cuba — used a standardised panel system developed in the Soviet Union and adapted for the Cuban climate. They are architecturally distinctive and historically significant, representing the physical legacy of the Cuba-USSR relationship.
Walking through the residential streets of Nuevo Vedado gives a different architectural experience than the Spanish colonial and Art Deco buildings of the historic centre. The scale is different — lower density, more open space between blocks — and the relationship between building and street is more Soviet than Spanish.