Cultural Sites
The Devastation of Haiti’s Cultural Heritage
The Cultural Recovery Project works on cultural sites and on collections damaged by the January 2010 earthquake and endangered in the aftermath.
A high priority site is Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. The Cathedral, along with its famed organ, was destroyed. Only a few walls, largely along the north side, remain standing. Before the earthquake, the Cathedral hosted 15 murals painted between 1947 and 1951, under the direction of DeWitt Peters and Selden Rodman from the Centre d’Art. Only three murals survived the earthquake— Native Street Procession by Prefete Dufaut, Baptism of Our Lord by Castera Bazile and The Last Supper by the Nativity by Philome Obin.
The Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral before the earthquake, after, and now.
Other cultural sites include the Centre d’Art, which was destroyed. Art work was rescued and placed in truck containers; other paintings remain in the ruble. At the Nader Museum, most of the building collapsed. While thousands of paintings were saved, others remain on site under the crumbled concrete.
