BRIEF HISTORY OF

ARCHITECTURE
Members:
Daguinod
Malakas
Oarga
Redondo
Philippine Architecture:
Pre-Spanish Era
⬩ Our ancestors were called
Austronesians - meaning
people of the southern
Islands . They were the first
seafarers in the world.

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⬩ Caves and rock shelters like
the Tabon Cave in Palawan served as
shelters for the early Filipinos.  Later
on the invention of various tools
allowed for the fabrication of tent-
like shelters and tree houses.

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⬩ Wood – is the dominant raw materials for the construction
of tools and weapons.
⬩ Farming – is the primary sources of food, the natives learned
to build permanent structures.

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⬩ Early pre-historic houses were characterized by rectangular
structures elevated on stilt foundations and covered by
voluminous thatched roofs ornamented with gable-finials
and its structure could be lifted as a whole and carried to a
new site.  Examples include the Ifugao House, bahay
kubo and the Maranao’s torogan.

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IFUGAO
HOUSE
TOROGAN
BAHAY KUBO

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 The Laguna Copperplate Inscription

⬩ In 1990, Antoon Postma, a Dutch expert in ancient

Philippine scripts and Mangyan writing, and a long-time
resident of the Philippines, translated the document that
came to be known as the Laguna Copperplate Inscription . It
became the beginning of Philippine History: Monday, April
21, 900 AD.

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 The Laguna Copperplate Inscription

⬩ The emergence of Islam in the 14th C. in Sulu and the 15th

C. in Mindanao led to the building of Mosques, the masjid
and the Mnggar in Tausug and Yakan or ranggar in Maranao,
Maranao
⬩ Pagoda shaped mosques such as that in Taraka, Lanao del
Sur show Javanese and Chinese influence.
⬩  

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Philippine Architecture:
Spanish Colonial Era
⬩ In 1544 the Franciscans built
the first hospital in the
Philippines, Hospital Real.

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⬩ The 1573 royal ordinances of King Philip II, known as Laws
of the Indies was prescribed and stated that every town was
to have a gridiron design (cuadricula) with a central square
(plaza)
⬩ In 1583 Intramuros was destroyed by fire, requiring all new
buildings to be costructed of stone and tile.
⬩ Jesuit Antonio Sedeno introduced stone and masonry
construction.

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⬩ Implementation of the hybrid type of construction called
arquitectora meztisa:
◇ Wood on upper floor and stone on lower floor
◇ House posts or haligue supported the 2nd floor
◇ Stone floors at the ground floor acted as a solid curtain
concealing the wooden framework within
◇ Wooden pegs and dovetail joints connected the wooden
structural system together

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⬩ The Bahay na Bato, typically two stories with the ground
level made of massive cut stones or brick walls and the
upper level built of hardwood, emerged from the 17th to the
19th centuries
⬩ The last quarter of the 19th C. witnessed the rise of
accesoria (apartment dwellings), single or two stories high
and having multiple units called viviendas.

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⬩ School buildings surfaced: the colegio or universidad (urban
areas) and the escuel primaria (pueblos), a cluster of multi-
story buildings in rectangular configuration with a central
courtyard.
⬩ The leading edge technology available at that time was
employed to build ports, roads, bridges, lighthouses,
railways, and streetcar systems.

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 Philippine Architecture:
American and Japanese Era
⬩ In 1902, Americans introduced the use of the toilet via pail
conservancy system or cubeta in Manila.
⬩ In 1908 the concept of a well-planned neighborhood called
Sanitary Barrio was introduced and led to tsalet, a
crossbreed of the tropical features of vernacular buildings
with hygienic structural principles and modern materials.

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⬩ In 1912, the Bureau of Health endorsed several variations of
tsalet
⬩ American architects Edgar K. Bourne and William E. Parsons,
steered Philippine architecture to the proto-modernist
route.  Their works were characterized by unembellished
facades with large windows.

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⬩ Daniel H. Burnham, the Father of the City Beautiful
Movement, was commissioned to design master plans for
Manila and Baguio.  Burnham endorsed the appointment
of Beaux Arts-trained William Parsons as Consulting Architect
(1905-1914) whose contribution to local architecture 

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 Including:

⬩ the Kahn system of concrete reinforcements and hollow-

blocks;
⬩ the use of termite-resistive Philippine hardwood, and;
⬩ the concept for the mass fabrication of standard building
types.

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⬩ In 1904 the construction of the Asylum for
the insane in San Lazaro instigated the use
of concrete as the standard construction
material for all government structures

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⬩ Birth of “first generation” Filipino architects who were
sponsored by colonial officials to study architecture and
engineering in the United States.  Together with the
maestros de obras Arcadio Arellano and Tomas Arguelles,
they combined Beaux Arts elements – aesthetic proportions,
optical corrections – with the influences of modernism and
the concepts of utility and honesty of architecture.

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⬩ The “second generation” architects, namely, Andres Luna de
San Pedro, Fernando Ocampo, Pablo Antonio and Juan F.
Nakpil, emerged in the late 1920s and 1930s and introduced
the Art Deco, characterized by exuberant exoticism and
ornamentation, as evident in the following facades of
buldings: ELPO Building, Bautista-Nakpil Pylon, Metropolitan
Theater, Santos House, and the Mapua House.

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⬩ The three-year Japanese occupation
grounded all architectural production
to a standstill.

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Philippine Architecture:
Post-World War II Era
⬩ In 1946, the independent
Philippines expressed its identity
by implementing modernism
through the utilization of
reinforced concrete, steel and
glass, the pre-dominance of cubic
forms, geometric shapes and
Cartesian grids, and the absence
of applied decoration.

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⬩ In 1947, a corps of
architects and
engineers were tasked
to study the modern US
and Latin American
capitals and formulate
the master plan for
Manila.

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⬩ Federico Ilustre, consulting architect from the 1950s to
1970s, worked on the buildings at the Elliptical Road in
Quezon City.  The centerpiece is the 66-meter high Art Deco
Quezon Memorial Monument, composed of three pylons
topped by winged figures representing the three island
groups.

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⬩ The 1950s and 1960s
staple architectural
elements were the brise-
soleil(sunbreaker), glass
walls, pierced screens and
thin concrete shells.

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⬩ The 1950s also witnessed Space Age aesthetics and Soft
Modernism, which experimented with the sculptural
plasticity of poured concrete to come up with soft and
sinuous organic forms with the use of thin-shell technology

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 Examples

⬩  Space Age:  Victor Tiotuyco’s UP International Center and

Jose Zaragoza’s Union Church, and
⬩  Soft Modernism:  Church of the Risen Lord, Church of the
Holy Sacrifice (UP Chapel) and the Philippine Atomic Research
Center.

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⬩ 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 redefined Manila’s skyline:

⬩ – Angel Nakpil’s 12-storey Picache Building, considered as

the first skyscraper in the Philippines.
⬩ – Cesar Concio’s The Insular Life Building, the first office
building the old 30-meter height restriction.

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ANGEL NAKPIL

•He is the nephew of architect and

National Artist of the Philippines Juan
Nakpil.
•He was a charter member of the United
Architects of the Philippines, which was
founded in 1975
•One of his architectures is the National
Press Club.

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National Press Club
The National Press Club
building was inaugurated on December
30, 1955 with President Magsaysay as
sponsor, along with several cabinet
members and other government officials
and other donors. The NPC building
became a historic monument to the ideals
of press freedom and unity among
colleagues in the country's newspaper
industry It was designed by Architect
Angel E. Nakpil and was constructed by
Alberto T. Abaya.

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 Picache Building

⬩ This 12-story Picache Building is

considered as the first
skyscraper in the Philippines.
This was built in the mid-1950s
using the International Style
architectural design.

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Cesar Concio Sr.

•He is the first architect of the

University of the Philippines
•He is also one of the selected by
President Roxas in 1947 to study
the trends in Architecture and
Engineering to design the buildings
of the Capital City
• His famous architectures are the
Melchor

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INSULAR LIFE BUILDING

⬩ the first office building the old

30-meter height restriction.

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Late Twentieth Century
In the 1960s, Filipino architects incorporated some modernist
formal principles by employing local materials and referencing
vernacular traditions:
⬩ The Manosa Brothers’ Sulo Hotel and Esso Gas Stations
⬩ Francisco Fajardo’s Max’s Restaurant
⬩ Felipe Mendoza’s Holiday Hills Golf Club House
⬩ Otillo Arellano’s Philippine pavillion for the 1964 New York
World’s Fair

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⬩ In the 1970s, Former First Lady
Imelda Marcos pursued a
singular “national architectural
style” to concretize the official
maxim of Isang Bansa, Isang
Diwa(One Nation, One Soul).

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⬩ The Manosa Brother’s San
Miguel Corporation’s
Headquarter Building

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⬩ Felipe Mendoza’s
Development Academy of the
Philippines

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 ⬩ Locsin’s Benguet
Corporation Building

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 ⬩ Jorge Ramos’ GSIS
Building

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The New Millennium
⬩ Exemplified by the garish applications of pastel colors and
the mixing and matching of ornaments and styles.

⬩ Architects were labeled as “late modernists” and, later

as “neo-modernists” and “super modernists.”

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⬩ Inspirations were drawn from aircraft technology, robotics
and cyberspace as demonstrated by the One San Miguel
Building, the PBCom Tower, and the GT International Tower

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⬩ Presence of architecture of deconstruction, which is characterized physically
by controlled fragmentation,  non-linear design processes, stimulating
unpredictability, asymmetric geometries and orchestrated chaos like the
works of Alexius Medalla, Eduardo Calma and Joey Yupangco.

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 ⬩ Skyscrapers adopted the
tripartite division of columnar
architecture (Tower-on-the-
Podium): the podium, the shaft
and the crown.
⬩ Reflective blue or aquamarine
curtain walls, aluminum
cladding, metallic sun visors,
and metal mullions are
mainstays of millennium
skyscrapers.

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⬩ Advances in computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-
aided manufacturing (CAM) technologies.

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⬩ Implementation of “green
architecture” to reverse the
negative impact of buildings on
human health and on the
environment by enhancing the
efficiency and moderating the
use of materials, energy and
space.

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THANK YOU 

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