Out of the Ashes: Modern and Contemporary Architecture

Post-War Period (Introduction)

In 1946, war torn Manila rose again. In response to housing shortage and destitution, makeshift
structures and shanty towns built from debris itself emerged as the period symbol of survival. Out of
the ashes Filipinos moved on to rebuild their lives and found in modernism, the foundation on which
to build a new nation

Pre-War Neoclassical Buildings

Manila’s prewar neoclassical splendor was resurrected: The Manila City Hall, Post Office Building,
Agriculture and Finance Buildings, Legislative Building, and a group of buildings of the University of
the Philippines in Manila, were rebuilt approximating their original plans.

Third Generation Filipino Architects

A construction boom took place, and the architects joined the reconstruction euphoria. Post War
austerity made straight forward and no-nonsense architectural forms which modernism readily
supplied. “Form follows function” was the new doctrine proclaimed by the third-generation Filipino
architects, namely Cesar Concio, Angel Nakpil, Alfredo Luz, Otillo Arellano, Felipe Mendoza,
Gabriel Formoso, and Carlos Arguelles.

Modern Architecture
Modern architecture’ s simplified geometries were in accordance with the demands of honesty in
materials, structure, and form. Maneuvered and restraint value in simplicity over complexity, the
utilization of reinforced concrete, steel and glass, the predominance of cubic forms, geometric shapes,
Cartesian grids, and the absence of applied decoration were the essential features of modern
architecture.

Architectural Elements in 1950s and 1960s

The brise solei or sun breaker, glass walls, pierced screen and thin concrete shells are staple
architectural elements of the 1950s and the 1960s. Modernism provided the means for a new nation to
craft the kind of architecture that did not only represent progress, but also offered a decolonizing
procedure.

Master Plan of Modern Capital City

In 1947, the Philippine government sent a core of architects on a mission to study the modern capitals
of the United States of Latin America, and on their return to formulate the master plan for the modern
capital city. The mission acquainted the Filipino delegation with South American modernism
particularly in the works of Oscar Niemeyer. The Tropical modernism from Latin America became
the Philippine paradigm.

Cesar Concio (One of the Delegates)

Cesar Concio, a member of the delegation, who later worked as architect of the University of the
Philippines, borrowed Niemeyer’s massing and sun breakers for his Palma and Melchor halls. His
saddle shaped Church of the Risen Lord was imitative of Niemeyer’s St. Francis Church in Pampulha,
Brazil.

Capital City of Philippines

The government declared Quezon City as the Philippine capital and created a Capital City Planning
Commission to prepare its master plan. In 1949, the Commission chaired by Juan Arellano submitted
the Master Plan, which provided a detailed urban framework for the creation of capital city. Using the
scheme of Washington, the plan and doors to government centers situated at a high plateau called
constitution Hill. In 1956, the proposed design and scale model of the Brasilia inspired capital
complex was presented to the public. Despite much criticism, its construction commenced in 1958.
But as the funds dwindled, the project was eventually abandoned. What remained of the project was
an eleven-storey steel framing, which was used for the structure of the Batasang Pambansa decades
later when President Ferdinand Marcos revived the plans for the parliamentary complex.

New Republic
The government did not stop architects from dreaming of a medium to stimulate nationalistic spirit
inspired patriotism, as well as evoke technological progress. The need for new government buildings
was greatly felt in the 1950s and the GSIS building in Arroceros was completed in 1957. It belonged
to the first batch of the new government buildings programmed for the New Republic. The building
demonstrated the shift from classical to modern. The Veterans Memorial Building was decidedly
modern, with its semicircular convex facade flanked by two massive vertical walls. The curved facade
was complemented by a dome structure over the circular vestibule.

The old capitol site in Diliman Quezon City in the 1950s, played host to several government agencies
that boasted of hard-edged modern architecture. These were the People's home site and Housing
Corporation, the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the Agricultural extension
buildings. The centerpiece of this elliptical core was the 66-meter-high Quezon Memorial Monument,
composed of three pylons, topped by female winged figures representing islands of Luzon, Visayas,
and Mindanao.

Roberto Gaite’s Rizal Provincial Capitol was one of the important postwar capital edifices that
deviate from Beaux Arts formalism. The modern capital was remarkable for the diamond shape
concrete supports, and the wraparound louvers and sun baffles. In the Quezon City Assembly Hall,
Gaite created an illusion of weightlessness as a massive elongated octagonal structure appeared to be
lifted by two angled steps.

Juan F. Nakpil and his Social Security System building was a low podium and 60 meters slab tower
clad in a curtain wall. The building could be accessed at the podium level through an open Run
protected by a folded tree canopy.

Space Age
Mid-Century space-age aesthetics found expression in a visual language of long and lean horizontal
lines, soaring upright structures and parabolic arches and sharply contrasted angles, all alluding to
space exploration. Innovations in shorter reinforced concrete, plastics and steel made it possible for
architects to manipulate materials to the point where buildings became sculptures, complex
mathematical computations and advanced engineering techniques are allowed new shapes and
structural configurations to be performed in the thin concrete shells and concrete folded plates such as
the Church of the Risen Lord in the Diliman and the UP Chapel.

Thin Shell
In 1955, the first venture into Thin Shell experimentation was spearheaded by the collaboration of
architect Leandro Locsin and engineers Alfredo Junio and David Consunji and resulted in the Church
of the Holy Sacrifice. This revolutionary structure was molded in its entirety, using mere plywood
forms. The main concrete shell was three and a half inches thick, and was supported by a four-inch-
thick ring beam that in turn was supported by 32 curved reinforced columns. The composition seemed
to defy gravity with its flying saucer imagery.

The facility of the Philippine Atomic Research Center designed by Cresenciano De Castro comprised
an arc shaped Nuclear Laboratory building and an egg-shaped Reactor building. The Reactor building
was an airtight concrete shell’s structure, which connected to a semicircular laboratory roof by
serrated folded plate

The Araneta Colosseum reigned until 1963 as the world's largest dome colosseum. It was a reinforced
concrete cylinder with an aluminum dome structure. Folded plate on the one hand was a roof structure
whose strength and stiffness were derived from pleated or folded geometry. It was a special class of
shell structure formed by joining flat thin slabs along their edges so as to create a three-dimensional
structure.
The UP International Center designed by Victor Tiotuyco built with a large span folded plate which
rested on four radiating beams rising at acute angle from a triangular ornamental pool. The folded
plate became the signature element in the works of national artists Juan Nakpil in the 1960s, such as
the Rufino Building, the Commercial Bank and Trust building, and SSS building. Rizla theater a
building revived from his stillborn National Theater Project in the Luneta was distinguished for its
slightly convex facade with 14 pilasters tapering downwards and its cantilevered canopy.

Space Age aesthetics also made its presence in Zaragoza’ s anahaw light cantilevered folded plate
roof for the Union church, in Locsin's biomorphic billowing roofs of the Church of St. Andrews, in
De Guzman’s saucer shaped residents of Artemio Reyes,
and in Manosa brothers’ futuristic residents of Ignacio Arroyo.

The use of Crystalline surfaces for modern edifices was best captured in Angel Nakpil’s National
Press Club building, where a cylindrical glass tower became the focus of this Bauhaus volumetric
manipulation.

Modern places of Worship

Modern places of worship explored new and dynamic forms, mostly in concrete. The Aglipayan
Cathedral of the Holy Child possessed a suspended block with sloping trapezoidal walls and textured
horizontal grooves all throughout the sides of the suspended block sloped beyond the walls of the
lower block to form wide overhangs. The omnipresent capillas or chapels of Iglesia ni Cristo or INC
were mid-20th century interpretations of Gothic architecture, a template crafted by Carlos Santos
Viola in the 1950s.

Brise Solei
The brise solei baffles and pierced screens were simple devices applied externally to tropic allays and
tamed the climate in sensitive designs of the international style. The engineering and architecture
building of the University of Santo Tomas, designed by Julio Victor Rocha, initiated the successful
use of the brise solei.This launched a wave of imitation and a craze for the sun breaker, which some
architects used without proper solar orientation. But the more judicious application of these sun
shading devices, resulted in magnificent structures, such as Alfrezo Luz’s World Health Organization
Building and his Ermita Center, Cesar Consio’s Insular Life Building, Carlos Arguelles Philam Life
Building, and Jose Zaragoza’s Meralco building

Pierced Screen
As a sort of improvement over the brise solei, the pierced screen was extensively adopted in Manila
during the 1960s. The pierced screen function mainly as a diffuser of light and double does a
decorative layer for the exterior. It was fabricated from perforated concrete or ceramic blocks, precast
concrete, or aluminum bars with various ornamental punctures. The US Embassy Building was one of
the most noteworthy applications of pierced screen in Manila. A Carabao head motif was employed in
the concrete pierced screen of the Department of Agriculture Building.

Failures of Modern Building

Following the oil crisis of 1973, architects began to realize the failures of modern buildings in the
tropical climate.A cubic glass tower that operated on high energy consumption typified the
international style. Filipino architects were compelled to backtrack and reevaluate vernacular building
traditions as sources of energy efficient design.This gave rise to a modernist strand known as
Tropical Regionalism.

Tropical Regionalism
Exponents of tropical regionalist architecture advocated the philosophy of energy efficient buildings
through designs that were both responsive to local climate and culture.The products of such
undertaking was San Miguel Corporation headquarters complex designed by the Manosa brothers and
landscape architect, IP Santos. Another one, the Development Academy of the Philippines designed
by Felipe Mendoza, the Benguet Corporation Building designed by Leandro Locsin, and GSIS
Building designed by Jorge Ramos.

High Rise Fever

In the 1950s, the Height of Buildings was limited by law to 30 meters with the amendment of Manila
Ordinance No. 4131 a high-rise fever swept and redefined Manila Skyline. Angel Nakpil’s Picache
Building considered the first skyscraper in the Philippines reached 12 stories.

The Insular Life Building was the first office building to surpass the old height restriction in the
Makati CBD. The marble surface rectangular tower block of Ramon Magsaysay Center, designed by
Alfredo Luz was supported by 12 travertine clad reinforced concrete columns, like tree trunks flaring
out. In reality, the main support was a cast in place concrete shear wall with a core of deeply
embedded concrete piles.

Cresenciano De Castro introduced the use of exposed aggregate finish. This eliminated the need to
paint the exteriors. An excellent example of this brutalist tendency was the Asian Development Bank
building in Roxas Boulevard. The same roughly textured finish was employed in the buildings within
the Bayfront facility, like the Cultural Center of the Philippine building, and the Central Bank of the
Philippines.

Subdivision Development
Subdivision development became full scale. These brands satellite communities were patterned after
American suburbia through the people's home site and Housing Corporation now, National Housing
Authority. New suburban communities were developed in Quezon City. These projects offered three
types of low-cost concrete bungalow units – the three-storey dwelling, the single detached house, and
the twin or duplex. The bungalow thus became the convenient model for postwar housing. For middle
income households, residential units in Philam Life Homes, one of the best plans subdivisions at the
time, were designed on a modular system with 24 schemes for a bungalow derived from a single
typical floor plan designed by Arguelles. In upscale subdivisions established by the Ayala and the
Ortigas families, homes were designed not by company architects, but by architects’ permission by
the individual home owners. This allowed a great variety of domestic architecture to develop. The
sprawling California bungalow with a Lanai and a two-car garage became the 1950s symbol of
domestic affluence. Tall and multi-story departments played a new role in providing Filipinos with
modern housing. Monterey apartments and Carmen apartments epitomize the modernist high-rise
apartments of the period. These works had wide and continuous cantilevered balconies. The global
proliferation of the international style had obliterated many traditional built environments. By the
middle of the 1960s young architects and designers began to reappraise the country's rich architectural
and cultural heritage as a source of design inspiration.

Neo Vernacular Architecture

Local architects adapted Maranao and Southern Philippine motifs exploiting vinta colors and roof
silhouettes resonating with ambiguous Malayan figuration. These were transcribed in works like
Manosa brothers’ Sulu Hotel and Francisco Fajardo’s for the Max Restaurant and Luau restaurant
which exaggerated the vernacular sloping roofs. Another one, Manosa brothers SO gas stations
transcoded Naga patterns in reinforced concrete. Felipe Mendoza's holiday Hills Golf clubhouse
liberally applied the Nagas head in ornately carved beam ends.

Philippine Pavilions
In similar fashion designs for Philippine pavilions for various international expositions, appropriated
exotic building motifs for the projection of national image. It began when Manila hosted the
Philippine International Fair in 1953. In the 1958, Brussels Universal Exposition, the country was
represented by a pavilion no different from the Bahay Kubo, except that its high-pitched roof was
transparent plastic, and its walls were simulated saori sightings.

For the 1962 Seattle World Exposition, the Philippine pavilion designed by Luis Araneta took on a
less literal interpretation of vernacular architecture via a cuboidal pavilion with exotic ornaments. The
Philippine pavilion for the 1964 in New York World's Fair designed by Otilio Arellano demonstrated
the interaction of native design and space age aesthetics. The roof assumed the form of a wide
brimmed salacot lifted above ground by stilts, or composition proposition that alluded to a levitating
spacecraft.

In the 1970 World Exposition in Osaka, Japan, Locsin created a national pavilion with an
exaggeratedly protruding form, which could be variously interpreted as a bird in flight, a prow of a
Muslim vinta, or as a metaphor for the nation's progressive aspiration.