Our cultural thumbprint is a maze of structures, built from indigenous materials, tailored to local dwellers’ needs, and assimilating styles brought by colonists and colonizers.
Silay-born Leandro Locsin, national artist for architecture, was once quoted as saying that Filipino architecture is an “elusive” thing, being a residue of the different overlays of foreign influences left in the Philippines over the centuries; one could venture that it is elusive only because we make it so, when we neglect what is left of our built heritage and fail to preserve our past.
The bahay na bato (stone house) which later became the bahay na bato at kahoy (stone and wooden house) may have been popularized in the 19th century within the Spanish colonial period, but it is derived directly from the bahay kubo (native hut) on stilts, and follows the local system of construction with wooden pillars and minimal use of stone walls because this could better withstand natural calamities.
“The bahay na bato is a development of hundreds of years trying to adapt to the local conditions, that is, earthquake, floods, a very high humidity, terrible rainfall, typhoons and everything. Let’s face it, when the Spanish tried to introduce the Spanish style of architecture, they couldn’t do it. First of all, it’s a different culture. So when it came here, it morphed, there were changes,” said architect Rene Luis S. Mata, professor at the UP Diliman College of Architecture, treasurer of the Heritage Conservation Society and the man who adapted a Tabacalera into the Museo Ilocos Norte in Laoag.
“People think it’s inferior, it’s a bland copy [of something Spanish] — it's not, it's original… If you build a house or church here, even though there are influences, or there is something that comes from the Spanish community, it’s Filipino. You cannot find churches like this in Spain, houses like this in Spain, not even in Mexico, because it is a different context, a different area, because we are tropical… The final question of conservation comes in because it is so difficult to let people appreciate what is theirs,” Mr. Mata told BusinessWorld.
SILAY HERITAGE (L-R slideshow): Manual Severino Hofileña Heritage House; Balay Negrense; ceiling detail in Balay Negrense. Photos by Lynne Poblete, 2007.
A closer look
Filipino Style, a coffee table book first published in 1997 (photography by Lucia Invernizzi Tettoni and Tara Sosrowardoyo, and text by Rene Javellana, Fernando Nakpil Zialcita and Elizabeth V. Reyes) takes great pains to illustrate that colonialism was also a platform for cultural exchange. Just as Asian traditions were assumed by Westerners, European artistic movements were adopted and modified here — i.e. Filipinized — and one finds architectural nods to Baroque (17th and 18th century), Rococo (circa 1780), and Revivalist (Neoclassical, neo-Romanesque, neo-Gothic, neo-Renaissance, 19th century) colonial art. This segued into a Modernist International style (1960s) that departed from indigenous traditions, then later a postmodernist return to Spanish and American colonial traditions in “modern buildings with a distinctly Filipino approach” (1970s upwards).
Examples of these movements can be found everywhere in the country and there would be more in Manila itself if not for the destruction of World War II. San Agustin Church, one of the only structures left standing in Intramuros, is one example of the Baroque style (with Renaissance and Mexican influences, and some Chinese touches added in); the Tomas Mapua mansion on Taft Avenue and also the Mapua-designed La Salle University in Manila are prime examples of the Art Deco style (the contested 1918 Luneta Hotel in Kalaw St. is a derelict but still pretty example of Art Deco in the French manner); and the U.S. Embassy building, like most government buildings in Manila, has neoclassical columns in the American Colonial style.
Mr. Mata notes that examples of Filipino architecture which are taken for granted include the buildings of the fiercely patriotic Philippine Independent Church (commonly known as Aglipayan churches); the Iglesia ni Cristo churches following a Filipino-Gothic style as designed by Architect Carlos A. Santos-Viola; and even the modernist buildings around the Quezon Circle area which he credits to Fernando Ocampo, who, together with fellow Filipino architect Juan Nakpil, assisted American architect William E. Parsons (responsible for the Manila Hotel prior to Leandro Locsin’s postwar reparations) in designing the buildings in the UP Diliman complex.
Most Filipinos do not necessarily connect architecture to cultural identity and it’s anyone’s guess how many would be able to identify the Filipino elements that make even colonial architecture distinctly our own. Heritage Conservation Society President/CEO Gemma Cruz-Araneta opined that lack of historical information, not necessarily lack of appreciation, and “the way our history is taught or not taught,” are reasons why this is so. They are addressing the issue by providing training workshops called “heritage identification and architectural documentation,” as a sort of reorientation.
“[As it stands right now], if nobody important was born [there], nobody important died [there], no battle was fought, no massacre took place, then it’s not important. No matter that the building is very beautiful, it just doesn’t rate. The National Historical Institute does not put a plaque [on it], nobody pays attention to it, it falls into disrepair. There is such a thing as architectural heritage,” said Ms. Araneta, a sentiment echoed in Mr. Mata’s dour pronouncement, “Somebody has to pee in the church before it becomes heritage, some hero… If you have a fantastic building, it is socially and culturally significant in itself, not because some historical guy slept there.”
Some conscientious owners manage to either maintain their cultural property or apply the principles of adaptive reuse, using it for a purpose it was not designed for, without destroying it. One example is the Villareal house on Pablo Ocampo St., which was integrated into a nine-storey modern structure that became the Orchid Garden Suites. Part of conservation, said Mr. Mata, is to ensure that one’s new building blends in harmoniously with the old surroundings.
The most recent attempt at conservation are the efforts to save the Metropolitan Theater, built in 1931 by Juan M. de Guzman Arellano (whose works include the National Museum, the Manila Post Office Building, an Jones Bridge), containing murals by Fernando Amorsolo and sculptures by Francesco Riccardo Monti. National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Executive Director Cecile Guidote-Alvarez told BusinessWorld in a phone interview that total restoration costs are estimated at P300 million, with the “teatro para sa masa” (theater for the masses) fully operational by December.
Conservation battles
It can’t be denied, however, that indifference (the Met, for one, would not have been restored but for the intervention of the President herself), ignorance, or even over-zealousness has degraded some of our heritage structures.
For every success story — intact Spanish colonial ancestral houses in nearby Taal City in Batangas, Vigan City in Ilocos Norte, and Silay City in Negros Occidental (where you can find the Victor Gaston colonial house renamed Balay Negrense, the Bernardino-Jalandoni house which is the first national heritage site marked by the National Historical Institute, and the Hofileña heritage house which was the first in the city to be opened to the public, all of which became museums) — there are also losses, be it the leveling of an old structure to make way for a new one, the bastardization of old theaters in Avenida into prostitution hubs, or the “renovation” of an old church that destroys its authentic look (the result of a human desire to leave one’s mark, which Mr. Mata refers to as “the edifice complex”).
Given that there are few true restoration architects in the country — who trained abroad since the architecture colleges are not offering a restoration architecture course — even well-intentioned attempts at conservation have gone awry.
In cases where the heritage structure is broken down and rebuilt plank by plank, the Heritage Conservation Society have many misgivings. They argue that structures are “built for a reason within a certain cultural and historical background,” and shouldn’t be taken out of its context, citing with disfavor the controversial assemblage of old buildings (including the old Enriquez home in R. Hidalgo St. that became the Escuela De Bellas Artes or the first UP College of Fine Arts) transferred by Jose “Jerry” Acuzar to his property, Ciudad Real de Acuzar in Bagac, Bataan.
Perhaps the most celebrated incidence of this kind is the dismantling, trucking and remounting of the 1917 Santos-Andres house from Navotas to Antipolo, a two-year project (2000-2002) spearheaded by Architect Roberto Y. Quisumbing and interior designer Amando V. Araneta, each step documented in the coffee table book Tahanan: A House Reborn in 2003. Sensitivity to the history of the house, faithfulness to the original structure (60% of the old wood used, and damaged parts replaced as close to the original as possible), and an almost apologist rationalizing of the move in the foreword (it was either move or abandon), mitigated censure.
Still in the long list of “endangered’ edifices are the private houses along Taft Avenue, old buildings along San Marcelino, San Miguel and Binondo, even the San Lazaro Hospital, Philippine General Hospital, and Bilibid Prison, the latter a testament to the technology of its founding era and where revolutionaries (like Gen. Macario Sakay) were hung by the Americans. Ms. Araneta also mentioned the Times Theater designed by Luis Z. Araneta; whereas a group of Lyceum University graduates who made a documentary about saving old theaters in 2007 add the Scala Theater and Galaxy Theater designed by Pablo Antonio along Avenida, among others.
“These structures have to be saved. Because inside these great establishments are remnants of the great history of cinema of the Philippines. These establishments bore witness to the Golden Age of Cinema. If they cannot be re-structured to the way it was before and serve as a cinema, then turn [them] into museum[s] or another worthwhile establishment, but let [them] keep [their] aesthetics and beauty,” Jonathan H. Dionisio, writer of the aforementioned documentary, e-mailed BusinessWorld.
“The gravest offense to culture is the destruction and demolition of our irreplaceable heritage. Binondo used to have very, very typical Filipino architecture, even if it’s colonial, it’s all gone, except maybe in some isolated building. Singapore, which has one street in Old Chinatown, they restored it and it’s become a wonder for the residents and tourists. But in Binondo it’s all high-rise, you will never recognize it from the old pictures of Binondo, even Bonifacio’s home,” said Senator Edgardo J. Angara, who, with other policy-makers, is pushing for the passage of a National Cultural Heritage Bill consolidating all previous measures pertaining to the protection of cultural property, from the contents of a building, to the building itself, to the landscape surrounding it or the general site/zone, to the very name of the street.
ARCHITECTURAL REMAINS: One of the few remaining original buildings in Binondo is its Spanish era church (top); La Immaculada Concepcion in Misamis Oriental features a sky-blue patterned ceiling and is more than a century old (bottom). Photos taken by the author in 2008.
Among other things, the bill mandates the establishment of a Philippine Registry of Cultural Property (currently there are separate lists by the National Historical Institute and the National Museum for the Filipino People); allows for heritage agreements to be made between owners of cultural property and cultural agencies (this tackles financial assistance, public access to said property, etc.); and grants the NCCA the right of first refusal on the sale of national cultural treasures, the power to issue a cease and desist order suspending all activities that will affect the cultural property, and the power to issue a compulsory repair order when a privately owned heritage site cannot be maintained by the owner or has fallen into disrepair.
Not yet addressed in the conservation bill, observed Mr. Mata, is the issue of self-sustainability, for the restored edifice to maintain itself by becoming a business apart from being a tourist draw. Mr. Angara assures that such matters will be resolved by the implementing agencies.
“This I think is the missing link in our nation-building, the awareness that we have got a very rich heritage, we have got to protect and preserve it, and we must invest money in its preservation, in the training of preservation and conservation architects and designers and artists. By and large, the Filipino is artistic by nature, and so we can tap into that richness and into that fund of creativity. It’s time we do that… if we wait one minute longer, then we will be a cultural desert,” said Mr. Angara.
Originally published on 20 March 2009 in BusinessWorld, as the main feature of the Weekender section.