The Filipino soul in architecture
The question of what was Filipino architecture was standard fodder for debate in academe and in professional circles that only died down in the 1980s.
M odern Filipino architecture has been a century in the making. The fight for independence from Spain and the struggle against American rule at the turn of the 20th century also marked the start of the evolution of local architecture able to reflect the identity, aspirations and soul of a nation.
The opportunities to address these lofty goals emerged in the early 20th century, as local architects, many trained in the United and stopped development.
After the Second World War there came the biggest chance for Filipino architectural expression. This was for the buildings that were to make up the new National Capitol Complex at the new capital, Quezon City. The original master plan was hatched before the war with most of the civic buildings arranged around the Elliptical core of the plan. Revisions of the plan in 1949 moved the civic core to what is today the Batasang Pambansa area in Novaliches.
By the mid 1950s work was to commence on actual designs of buildings. By that time there were more architects on the scene and the old guard led by Juan Arellano and Antonio Toledo had already States as “pensionados,” started designing civic structures for the Bureau of Public Works. Pioneers like Juan Arellano, Tomas Mapua and Antonio Toledo, prepared designs for landmarks like the Post Office, the Philippine Legislature, Manila City Hall, the Rizal Memorial Stadium, along with provincial capitol buildings and complexes.
The style of choice was Neo-Classic or revivalist architecture, which American architects used for civic buildings on the mainland. The buildings of Washington DC were designed in this style.
The structures designed here were elegant and imposing, but left little latitude for local cultural expression. The exception was the statuary used in friezes composed for classical pediments like the one atop the Legislative Building at the Luneta. Filipino architects populated these with characters in Filipino dress and looks, rather than gods and goddesses of Greek or Roman origins.
The introduction of the Art Deco style in the late 1930s allowed more freedom of architectural expression in both form and ornamentation. A classic example is the Metropolitan Theater. But the war interceded retired from service. There was also a call by private architects to be allowed to bid for the commissions to design these new civic projects. Government architects, they asserted, had lorded it over private practitioners for decades. A consequence, they argued, was the lack of progress in modern architecture in the country.
The government heeded this call and divided the work for the new capitol
complex into three groups, each covering one of the three branches of government and the clusters of buildings allocated for them.
The legislative group of buildings housing the Congress, the Senate and the archives was given to government architects. The executive group for the new Malacañang Palace was assigned to the League of Philippine Architects. The judiciary group, hosting the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals and other related structures was given to the Philippine Institute of Architects.
The first to complete the design work were the government architects. A model of their design was made and this, along with illustrations and a scale model of the complex was displayed.
The set of design guidelines for the groups was established by the Capital City Planning Commission. The legislative group was to be made up of a Central Hall of Fame housing the Library of Congress, just like in Washington DC. The halls for the senate and congress would be on either side.
The design philosophy stated that the buildings “should possess a personality and spirit that is distinctly Filipino, drawing on the people’s history and folklore for inspiration.”
The design that the government architects came up with was had modernist forms using distinctive roofs of different geometries, in thin-shell concrete for the senate and congress halls. The central library and Hall of Fame was a tower that outwardly had a façade shaped as a Kalinga shield. Filipino motifs and ornamentation were also used liberally in the architecture and interior design.
A weekly magazine covered the exhibit and elicited critiques from a number of established private architects. The question raised was “How best to translate, in terms of architecture, the Filipino soul?” Needless to say, the designs were controversial and much criticized. A sampling of the comments follows.
The young architect and planner Gines Rivera, who prepared the master plan for the then new Ateneo de Manila campus, commented, “While boldly… accepting the challenge posed by a project of such scope and magnitude, authors of the plan should… realize their technical limitations. Basic errors lie in site planning (which is) beyond the province of architects. Available local talent for site planning has evidently not been tapped.”
Antonio Toledo, architect of the Manila City Hall and the Cebu Provincial Capitol, opined, “So important a project as the Capitol of the Philippines, which affects the pride and honor of local architects, should be of the best. The design lacks unity, dignity, and character.”
Juan Nakpil, of Rizal Theater and the SSS headquarters fame, argued that “Making the structure housing the Congressional Library as the dominant motif, with the offices and halls for the Senate and the House of Representatives as mere wings, is misleading.”
Federico Ilustre, the chief architect of government at the time and head of the team that produced the scheme, replied to the criticism of their designs being to literal: “The suggestion that this capitol need not be allegorical is to ignore the very principle of liberty for which our fathers have unselfishly dedicated their lives that the present generation may enjoy the blessings of self-government. It is to disregard the importance of our history, our patrimony, our culture, our traditions.”
The controversy raged for months after the first display of designs. The designs were eventually revised and came out looking a bit like the buildings of Oscar Neimeyer, modernist towers and blocks that were being built in Brasilia at the time. Construction of the buildings started a year later, but never went past the erection of the first steel superstructures before funds ran out. It would take another fifteen years and a new design before the Batasan Pambansa was built. The other complexes never saw the light of day.
The philosophical and ideological arguments that ensued led to a much wider debate that rocked Philippine architecture to its core in the late 1950s and well into the 1970s. The question of what was Filipino architecture was standard fodder for debate in academe and in professional circles that only died down in the 1980s.
Today, globalization has taken a toll on Philippine architecture. Much of what we see, in terms of iconic buildings in the Philippines nowadays, is either designed by foreigners, or are derivative designs mimicking copies of copies of western forms.
The search for the Filipino soul in our architecture seems to be the Holy Grail that has been forgotten in the race to catch up with the rest of the world. And what of our national government center? Other than the Batasang Pambansa, which houses our Congress, neither of the other two clusters were ever built and our national government offices are scattered all over the metropolis, many in rented premises costing the taxpayers billions of pesos a year in inefficiencies.
Filipino architecture is still searching for its soul. We must try hard in this quest and convince government and private clients that it is a necessary endeavor, and that Filipino designers should be given the opportunities now going only to foreign consultants. Otherwise, we may resort to just buying a cheap knockoff of architectural soul from China.