Development Design

Erica Morawski examines five hotels across the Hispanic Caribbean to show how architecture, interiors, landscaping, and material design were instrumental in broader development and nation-building projects.

Focusing on case studies in San Juan, Ciudad Trujillo, and Havana, the book connects tourism design to colonial and imperial histories, race, gender, and politics.

Morawski argues that hotels functioned as visible monuments of modernity and were deployed by governments and private interests to craft national images and economic strategies.

Using archival materials, visual analysis, and interviews, the book traces tropical, modern, and historic themes that persist in contemporary tourism landscapes.

It situates hotel design as a site of negotiation and contestation, revealing both local agency and imperial dynamics.