Spanish Colonial Interior Design:

A Case Study of
“Bahay-na-Bato”
 Interior Design
a practice concerned with anything that is found inside a space -
walls, windows, doors, finishes, textures, light, furnishings and
furniture.

All of these elements are used by interior designers to develop the

most functional space for a building's users.
Bahay-na-Bato
Features of Bahay na Bato
Juan Luna’s “Tampuhan”
The interior of Bahay na Bato
 Zaguan

•The Zaguan, from an Arabic term meaning "passageway", is the

ground floor space of the house, normally having several rooms
which served as storage for carrozas, grain harvest, and old
furniture.
•It is through the Zaguan that the “carruajes” entered, dropping off
passengers by the stairs.
•A huge Puerta Mayor with smaller Postigos leads guests into the
zaguan
Entresuelo

•The word Entresuelo literally

means “between floors”.

•This is the area where clients,

tenants or estate managers
•(if the owner was a rich
landowner) wait before being
admitted to the oficina (office).
Despacho or Oficina
•This is where the owner of
the house conducted
business together with his
clerks or accountants. Much
of the furniture here are
locally made.

•One finds indigenous motifs

such as the lubi-lubi (life
plant) carved on the legs of
the partner's desk.
 Cuartos
Rooms in the entresuelo can
serve various purposes.

They may be used by the owners

when they take their siesta (nap)
between two o'clock and five
o'clock in the afternoon. It is
cooler here in the afternoons.

The Filipino family is quite

extended. More often than not, an
unmarried aunt or uncle lived with
the nuclear family, not to mention
the grandmother and the
grandfather. They may occupy the
bedrooms in the entresuelo
 The Caida or
Antesala

•The caida (from the Spanish word "caer" meaning to drop or to let fall) is
the traditional receiving area, where women would let fall of the hemlines
and trains of their saya (long skirts), which they clip as they navigate the
staircase.

•The antesala (anteroom) is also called caida. Probably from the Spanish
caer (to fall). During the day, the family uses the area for playing parlor
games, entertaining close friends, or having merienda (mid-morning or
afternoon snack).
Sala Mayor

•The Sala Mayor is a place for parties known as tertulias. Its decoration takes
influence from the Spanish ayuntamiento.

•The chairs and tables were made of light materials that can be moved to the
sides during tertulias or dances.

•Planks of the local hardwoods balayong and narra compose the woodworks
which cannot be pierced by ordinary nails. Pegs, dowels, and tongue-and-
groove were used to secure the wood in place.
 Sala or Sala Menor
Very important people are
entertained in the sala (living
room). This is therefore
decorated to show off one's
status in society.

Tertulias and bailes (dances)

are held here. Held in the late
afternoon, tertulias had the
young ladies of the house
singing or playing the piano.

There is also dancing and

poetry reading. Older people
discuss the latest in politics,
business, fashion, etc.
 Oratorio
The family gathers in the
oratorio every night to pray the
Angelus and the rosary. Some
recite all the fifteen Mysteries
followed by novenas to saints,
prayers for the dead, etc.

Large santos (religious icons)

kept in glass cabinets are often
found in the homes of prominent
families.

These are usually brought out

and robed, sometimes made up
(with cosmetics), for annual
town processions dedicated to
the patron saint.
 Blue Room
The wall paintings are taken from
Pompeiian motifs of the neo-
Classical style. This style began
in Europe during the late 18th
century.

Its influence was felt in the

Philippines from the early 19th
century onwards.

It is usual for old homes to have

connecting doors between
bedrooms.

Privacy is not of primary

importance to family life.
 Cuarto Principal
The aparador de tres lunas (armoire with three sections),
the tremor (dresser with swinging full-length mirror), and
the lavabo (washstand) of marble were status symbols
then.

Filipino hospitality dictated that the master offer his room

to important guests staying overnight.
Comedor

•Crystal chandeliers hung low from the ceiling over the dining table
while aparadores for the crystal, silver and chinaware stand against
the walls.

•Punkahs or ceiling cloth fans hung low at both sides of the

chandelier, which a servant used to pull with a long cord as her
masters were dining-in.
 •The cocina is
sometimes a
Cocina separate structure
from the house
because it is
considered a fire
hazard.

•It is connected to
the house by a
causeway.

•The cocina is an
area for activities
such as cooking,
grain pounding
and clothes
ironing.
 Baño
The bathroom contains two sizes of bañeras (bathtubs).
These usually large bathtubs are made of stoneware
from China. Houses of the affluent class have many
servants (at least twenty).

The master just sits in the tub while the servants pour
water. After bathing, the servants unplug the cork from
the tubs, draining the water to the floor.
 Azotea
Activities requiring plenty of water such as the laundry is
done near the water source, the aljibe (water cistern).
Butchering pigs or chickens for family meals is also done
here.

Rainwater collected from the roof gutters is collected

through the stone column which led to a filter of layered
charcoal, gravel and sand, and then to the cistern.
•Smaller houses as well as palaces or buildings were built around
a patio, usually colonnaded and with modelled or carved friezes,
columns, and bracket capitals.

•Window grilles, or rejas, often form an important part of the

decorative scheme, the ironwork being traditionally of a high
degree of excellence.

•Love of closely patterned decoration, enveloping all surfaces that

could easily be carved or modelled, is an important characteristic
of early Renaissance work in Spain
AMERICAN
ERA
•Reconsideration and correlation of the space needed
in living areas broke down traditional room divisions.

•The new interior, with its invitation to movement,

both actual and implied, was in harmony with the
times.

•Changes of colour, texture, and materials

consequently became the chief resources of
decorative design, taking the place of ornament.
•The demands of space made it necessary to keep movable pieces
of furniture to a minimum and encouraged the use of built-in
units.

•An earlier overemphasis on straight lines and angles was

countered by greater use of curved and molded forms in furniture
design.

•As the average house became smaller and more efficient in its
use of enclosed space and as the desire for outdoor living grew,
there was a tendency to replace at least one of the enclosing walls
of both living room and bedroom with glass.
•The style that emerged from the Bauhaus, called
the International Style, was felt by many to be
lacking in human warmth.

•Its boxlike forms, its hard and glassy surfaces, its

use of metal tubing and plywood, and its lack of
colour and of ornament.
 1950’s
transition from the two storey residential houses of the
American Period to three distinct types of building
 Bungalow

a low one storey house made of light wood sometimes

with little stone and cement, with low ceilings, smaller
windows covered with wooden jalousies, granolithic
flooring on the living dining areas and T&G for the
bedrooms, a small kitchen off the dining room with the
side door leading to a garage.

The colors of the interiors were limited to varnishing if

there was wood, and pastel colors for the bedrooms
 Split Level
One enters the house to find a living dining area; the floor
splits four steps or more up to the bedroom area, and
down to a rumpus or den which could be opened to a
backyard.

The split affords a higher ceiling for the social areas

which makes the houses a little more airy.

Walls were either adobe stone or stone cut panels, the

floor also granolithics or crazy-cut marble, and the ceiling
of painted wood with some false beams as accents.
 Apartment Houses
row upon row to storey residences sharing common
walls.

One enters to see a living area, cut in the center by stairs

leading to the second floor.

At the rear is the kitchen and dining room combination

and single bathroom in the apartment.
 1960’s
houses in the Philippines were almost all influenced by
contemporary design in the West.

With the coming of industrialization, many western

architects and designers modified handcrafted items that
could be manufactured by a machine, giving birth to
modern pieces that had both honesty of construction.
The interiors of homes in the early sixties were still
simple, with adobe or painted walls, granolithics or
marble flooring, tiles for bathrooms and kitchens, center
ceiling fixtures, jalousie windows with wrought iron grilles,
panelled doors.
One could just buy a set of furniture which was either
made of wood and sometimes with glass and metal
combination and place them right smack into a living and
dining room.
The windows were covered either with local Thai silk or
glass curtains which were purchased in Divisoria, from
Larry's or Africa, Roma's or House of Decor.
Lights were purchased in Divisoria, from Moremci's, Key-
stone or Palayan Lamps. If one needed carpeting, there
was the House of rugs, or Lepanto Crafts, and later on
Tai Ping.
Barcelona chair, Eero Saarinen's monoleg,

Marcel Breuer's tubular steel pieces,

Bertoia's wire cafeteria chairs.

Thonet's bentwood pieces

These was later maximized with other developments inspired
by the changes in the other areas such as the music of the
Beatles and the miniskirt, a time of upheaval that ushered in a
new generation of the young and the upbeat.
Soon enough it gave way to the flower generation and the
drug culture, and the student activism that become rampant
throughout the world.
Pop culture, glorifying everyday items such as Coca-Cola. the
hamburger, the local gas station and Marilyn Monroe founds
its way in art, in fashion and a new life style that depends on
no rules.
Thus it was okay to mix a Barcelona chair with with modern art
and Philippines antiques, with a background of adobe, wood
panelling, and glass.
 1970’s
on our way towards the glass and steel age and the
International Style of the twentieth century characterized
by modern skyscrapers, cantilevered building methods,
glass walls, centralized aircondition, specialized lighting,
heat and noise control, music and sound systems and a
myriad other items that spelled out progress.
What resulted was a very sleek, hard-edged interior that
used all the modern furniture coming out of the west
blended with synthetics such as rubber foam, uretex and
urethane, naugahyde upholstery, metalic wallpaper, wall
to wall carpetin, built-in-furniture, black mirrors and pin
lighting on background of paneling laid horizontally, or on
synthetic adobe, with ceilings that floated with no
cornices and no baseboards.

These were accessorized with plastics or acrylic lamps in

modern designs and art either abstract, pop, or junk,
supergraphics on the walls.
This was a period of the drug culture too, emanating a high
from self-induced medication, creating images of bright and
exciting colors, abstract shapes, unorganized forms and mind
blowing pictures, recorded in print such as the posters of Peter
Max.
This in turn exploded to supergraphics, a put down of
pompousness of commercial architecture which has made
man so tiny, so futile in his environment, and so to assert his
superiority, he plastered his wall with numbers, spirals and
murals, colors and whatever else his boundless imagination
could dream up to express his frustration and mischief.
It was used to add character to houses which at this time
became just a series of boxes, one after another.
 1980’s
This was an altogether different picture. People grew tired of too
much adobe and dark panelling on the walls and the aluminum
sliding doors which opened to the lanai. So the windows and the
door were changed into French doors with the use of wood frames
that were either lacquered or painted white.
Ceiling were treated with cornices, and mouldings. Vertical
panellings with mouldings and wainscoating came back to walls.
Floors were covered with marble insets of various colors or to wood
planks and special parquet. Chandeliers and wall sconces came
back into fashion, as with silk, embroidery and classical prints.
There was the introduction of the bay window, glass etchings for
dividers and of course the brass bed. White, beige or gray were the
predominant colors, peach, mint green, blue gray, lavender, old rose,
celadon, which went well for either bleached or duco painted
cabinets and furniture.
The exterior of the house was also painted in light colors with a
growing interest in the use of Mactan stone.