The Palacio de los Capitanes Generales is the former official residence of the governors (Captains General) of Havana, Cuba. Located on the eastern side of the Plaza de Armas in Old Havana it is home to the Museum of the City of Havana (Museo de la Ciudad). It houses exhibitions of art and historical artefacts and many of the rooms are preserved with their original Colonial decoration. It is considered the most important architectural work of all the Baroque development in Cuba. History The plan for the building was put forward to the city council on 28 January 1773 by the governor Felipe de Fondesviela y Ondeano, marqués de la Torre. He proposed that the Parroquial Mayor church be demolished, the square be redesigned in keeping with the grandeur of the developing city and the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales constructed on the eastern side of the square in imitation of Royal Post Office (which would later become the Palacio del Segundo Cabo, the residence of the vice-governors) which had been constructed on the northern side of the square alongside the Castillo de la Real Fuerza. Construction from the designs of the Cuban engineer and architect, Antonio Fernández de Trebejos y Zaldívar, who had already been responsible for the much-admired post office, commenced in 1776. Much of the material used in the construction was imported to ensure it was of the finest quality: the bricks from Málaga, wrought-iron grilles from Bilbao and marble from Genoa, but the building work was carried out by slaves and progressed so slowly that the new governor (the sixth since de Fondesviela), Luis de las Casas y Aragorri, was not able to occupy the building until 1791, and work was not completed until 1792. The building originally housed the governor's residence and a prison, as well as being used as the meeting place for the city council, as the original council offices in Plaza San Francisco had been badly damaged by a hurricane in 1768. The prison, located in the west wing, was closed in 1834. The last of the Colonial governors vacated the palace in 1898 when Cuba gained independence under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, and it was used by the US military governors from 1899 until 1902. It was used as the presidential palace of the Cuban Republic from 1902 until 1920, when the president relocated to the building which