The Heritage Conservation Society

By Augusto Villalon

Published on page C2 of the August 21, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

NIELSON AIRPORT WAS THE Philippines’ first modern commercial international airport. It was inaugurated on July 17, 1937, and celebrates its 70th anniversary next year.

The old airport is now the home of Filipinas Heritage Library, now in its 10th year offering traditional library services and being a one-stop research center on Filipino national-heritage information.

Not only has Filipinas Heritage Library contributed to library development; it has also contributed to raising the community’s awareness of and interest in studying and preserving the country’s heritage.

By increasing creative interaction, the restored Nielson Tower has also become a source of information, inspiration and national pride, proof that heritage buildings can, indeed, be recycled for contemporary uses.

In the late 1930s, before the days of heavy equipment, a thousand-man construction team built the airport’s two principal runways—now Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas—in the heart of central Makati.

Between the two runways was the airport control center and passenger station, then known as Nielson Tower, among the first airports in Asia.

Only the fortunate few air passengers of the day could view the airplane-shaped building from above. The earth-bound public saw an elegant structure designed in the Art Deco style of the period.

The low-slung building with a control tower at its center captured the romance of air travel, a popular motif of the Art Deco age. From the airport tower, now reused as a function room, was a sweeping view of the runway and of rural 1930s Makati fields.

Although Nielson Tower now houses Filipinas Heritage Library, the ground floor and control tower of the building retain their original 1930s layout.

In 2001, Unesco recognized the library’s restoration efforts by including Nielson Tower among the prestigious annual Unesco Asia-Pacific Cultural Heritage Awardees for outstanding conservation and architectural re-use.

Subsequent Philippine Unesco Asia-Pacific Cultural Heritage awardees were the Gota de Leche building in 2003 and the Far Eastern University campus in 2005.

Impressive
The Unesco citation for Nielson Tower reads: “The impressive conversion of one of Asia’s earliest airports into a heritage library represents a major achievement in preserving an important era of Manila’s history.

“Historical events and architecture are exemplified in the legacy of the structure and in the excellent choice to continue its livelihood as an educational facility.

“In a time of rapid urban development and expansion, the Nielson Tower is an excellent model for others to follow on how to appropriately readapt historic structures in the community.”

Just as the historic Nielson Tower connected the Philippines to the world in the 1930s, Filipinas Heritage Library now links the country globally with its information highway.

The Unesco document states that restoration of the structure painstakingly began when project managers using old photos established the original appearance of the building. Apart from some damage received during the Second World War, it was clear the tower’s structure and appearance had remained virtually unchanged since the 1930s.

Minimal work was required in the exterior. The roof, walls and original window frames were refurbished with a fresh coat of paint, window-glass panels replaced, and the Manila International Air Terminal signage on the rear of the building restored.

The only major exterior modification was the removal of the 1970s-era canvas canopy at the front entrance, replaced with a permanent circular canopy in a new design that complements the building’s architectural style.

While the layout of most rooms in the building was left unchanged and original features such as hardwood doors retained, some major alterations were made to the interior.

The central staircase, which provided access to the basement and the tower, had to be replaced to meet safety standards. A new spiral staircase was installed at the back of the building and an elevator was fitted in to allow access by the handicapped.

In order to meet the space requirements of a library the building had to be expanded. Since maintaining the original external appearance of the building was essential, enlargement was implemented underground in the basement area. Effects on the foundations were minimized by limiting the direction of the expansion toward the rear of the building.

Since its restoration, the building has also become a popular venue for community activities such as book launches, lectures, conferences, poetry readings, concerts and social functions, including weddings.

Filipinas Heritage Library brings Philippine history, literature and culture to the rest of the world through information technology. The library was opened to the public on Aug. 23, 1996.

An exhibit showcasing the transformation of the Nielson Tower has been mounted at the Alcove Photo Gallery of the library.

Feedback is welcome at pride.place@gmail.com

By Luis R. Sioson

Editor’s Note: Published on page A17 of the August 20, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer    

CERTAIN
sections of Ermita, Sta. Cruz, Binondo and Quiapo are fascinating
pieces in the city of Manila’s mosaic. But the plazas seem to have
shrunk because there are more people and motor vehicles.

The
churches, on the other hand, remain durable and visible landmarks,
spiritual sanctuaries for hundreds of pedestrians and visitors. People
ply various trade on streets and sidewalks among old buildings and
structures, testaments to time’s quick passage.

The pace is
slower in the Ermita of the Guerreros than in Sta. Cruz and Quiapo
across the Pasig River to the north. There is more space in this
district that still bears traces of its genteel past. Shady trees line
some of its streets and a few old homes still exude the elegance of a
bygone era.

On T. M. Kalaw Street, just off noisy (and polluted)
Taft Avenue that intersects UN Avenue (formerly Isaac Peral), one can
retreat to the quiet of the United Central Methodist Chapel hidden in
the shadows of a large mall that replaced the old Harris Memorial
Building.

The section, bounded on the south by Padre Faura
Street, on the north by T. M. Kalaw (San Luis Street), on the east and
west by Taft Avenue and Roxas Boulevard (Dewey Boulevard),
respectively, is dominated by American Period buildings housing the
Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, University of the Philippines Manila
and Philippine General Hospital.

The old Ateneo and its next-door
neighbor, Assumption College on Adriatico Street (Dakota Street) and
Pedro Gil (Herran), have been replaced by Robinson’s tower and a
sprawling mall.

At the corner of Padre Faura and J. Bocobo Street
(Nebraska) is a cream-colored residence- turned-restaurant, its
charming balcony and stairway remarkably well maintained.

Oldest ‘real’ bookstore

The
nearby Marietta Building also on Bocobo, has been re placed by a
condominium. Ulog was a popular jazz joint on the same street. F.
Sionil Jose’s Solidaridad Bookshop, probably the oldest “real”
bookstore in the city, still sells books on P. Faura. Erehwon Bookshop,
once the hangout of poets, English majors or anyone looking for
hard-to-find books, was once a neighbor.

Za’s Café and Hizon’s
Bakeshop at the corner of Arquiza and Bocobo streets still serve their
famous ensaimadas, raisin bread and pricey coffee. The café has
outlived the other coffee shops in the neighborhood—Taza de Oro,
Country Bakeshop, Rolling Pin and United Supermarket’s.

To the
west of Padre Faura, corner Roxas Boulevard, one faces the unsettling
vista of rundown buildings side by side with a modern glass, steel and
concrete structure. On this corner once stood a beautiful mansion owned
by a prominent family. It became a bank later.

Ermita Church
stands guard over the now quiet tourist belt and a row of naughty bars.
The park in front of it is no longer called Plaza Ferguson but Nuestra
Señora de Guia.

On UN Avenue is the Philamlife building.
Inaugurated in 1961, it has a well-maintained theater that was (and
still is) a venue for memorable musical performances and stage plays.
The glass-paneled cafeteria, with its adjacent chapel and indoor
garden, drew thousands of faithful patrons for lunch and merienda.

Across
the avenue is the Manila Pavilion (formerly Manila Hilton and then
Holiday Inn). Still eye-catching is the tall white and green Don
Alfonso Sycip Building, standing at the corner of UN Avenue and M.H.
del Pilar.

Delightful sight

On a quiet
narrow street called Alhambra that connects UN Avenue to T.M. Kalaw, is
the old Diokno house, a striking two-story white building with a black
iron-railed balcony overlooking the street. It is a delightful sight
amid towering structures and a tangle of telephone and television
cables.

The renovated Bayview Hotel, built in 1935, still stands
at the corner of UN Avenue and Roxas Boulevard. Across is the Bel-Air
Apartment building, designed and constructed in 1937 by National Artist
Pablo Antonio.

Opposite are the former Elks Building and the
fabled Army and Navy Club where members of the elite hosted parties or
watched plays staged by members of the American community.
Beyond the stretch of graceful apartments and glamorous hotels beckons Manila Bay where people watch magnificent sunsets.

Northward
across Jones Bridge, are Plaza Moraga and Plaza Cervantes of Binondo.
The conjoined squares that once comprised the city’s throbbing center
of commerce now lie desolate in the shadows of aging buildings.

The
El Hogar Filipino, almost a century-old, stands forlorn on the seedy
southern end of Juan Luna Street (Anloague Street, where Capitan
Tiago’s house in Jose Rizal’s “Noli me Tangere,” once stood). Standing
beside it are the concrete remains of the old Hong Kong and Shanghai
Bank on storied San Gabriel Street.

Farther north, intersecting
Juan Luna, is Estraude Street where Rizal’s house was located and where
his mother supposedly waited and prayed while he was being escorted to
his execution in Bagumbayan (Luneta).

El Hogar, standing by the
banks of the Pasig River, still has a number of tenants. Its ground
floor gets flooded when the smelly Pasig River—thick and
brownish—swells when filled with wild water lilies. The dank odor of
old buildings follows you as you gingerly step on improvised wooden
planks to avoid the muddy water.

Nearby, the old Insular
Life Building facing the Uy Chaco Building (constructed in 1914) in
Plaza Cervantes looks dreary and worn, shorn of its emblem of a proud
eagle perched on top of its small dome. The top floor used to house
radio station dzRH that featured in its programs popular movie stars at
the time like Rosa Rosal, Jaime de la Rosa, Pugo, Tugo and other
entertainers.

Rizal slept in this hotel

On
the same small block stood the First National City Bank of New York and
the Bank of the Philippine Islands. Paredes (Rosario) Street still does
some business. Plaza San Lorenzo Ruiz (Plaza Calderon de la Barca) in
front of Binondo Church teems with pedestrians and motor vehicles. On
this square once stood Hotel de Oriente, a “five-star hotel” that Rizal
patronized.

Escolta has retained its name but not its unofficial
title, “Queen of the Streets.” The Crystal Arcade, Botica Boie,
Heacock’s, Alonzo, Estrella del Norte, Dencia’s Pansit Malabon, Max’s
Fried Chicken, Henry’s Donuts and other well-known establishments are
gone. But Savory Restaurant is still around.

A dying Escolta

Escolta
has been dying all these years though some businesses still remain.
First-run movie theaters Capitol and Lyric are long gone. Nueva Street,
where Andres Bonifacio once worked as a sales agent of Fressell y Cia,
now carries the name E.T. Yuchengco.

David Street is now Burke
Street while across the City College of Manila (formerly the Philippine
National Bank head office) is Calvo Building. Soda Street, the Love Bus
terminal before, is unrecognizable.

The Perez-Samanillo Building
(now First United) and Regina Building still stand strong, proud
sentinels at the entrance to Escolta from Sta. Cruz Church. The
Samanillo Building, constructed in 1930, was designed by Andres Luna de
San Pedro, son of painter-patriot Juan Luna.

Neglected and
unnoticed by passersby is a historical marker honoring
patriot-newspaperman Patricio Mariano on Banquero (Bangkero) Street,
beside the Escolta Bridge, on the edge of a garbage-congested canal.

From
the bridge to the left on Plaza Sta. Cruz, the historic Carriedo
Fountain shoots out sprays of water that sparkle in the sun. The
fountain stands between the Sta. Cruz Church and Monte de Piedad, the
country’s oldest savings bank where Manuel L. Quezon, Commonwealth
President, once worked as a clerk. The short Bustos Street links the
plaza to Avenida Rizal.

The strip between the drab dirty-white
Capitan Pepe Building and the equally drab dirty-white Priscilla
Building on the Avenida Rizal-Recto Avenue intersection, southward to
Carriedo Street and Plaza Lacson (Plaza Goiti), was the most popular
part of downtown where one could eat, shop and see first-run movies.

The
popular cinemas—Ideal, Universal Theater (now Universal Park Mall),
Luzon Theaters’ Avenue and State, and Ever—are all gone. Some familiar
landmarks like the Arguelles and Guison buildings remain, but the strip
has been transformed into a pedestrian promenade with dusty alfresco
cafés accented with balding worn-out topiaries.

Locksmiths on
Ronquillo Street still practice their trade. Stores painted in loud
Mediterranean colors of yellow, blue and red, and a barber shop crowd
under the LRT Station on the Carriedo Plaza Lacson junction. This
section has, quite accidentally, developed into a kind of open-air
concert hall.

The crowds form a half circle to watch and listen
to a blind duo of singer and guitarist, static distorting the sound of
the music coming from an amplifier powered by a car battery. The blind
musicians and their motley audience of commuters have carved out a
space under the LRT tracks.

Distracting background

Further
distorting the sound of music is a combination of the hard and heavy
rhythmic roll of LRT cars, the ear-splitting sounds of videoke machines
and the hoarse voices of ambulant peddlers.

On nearby Palanca Street (Echague), Henry Sy’s old Shoemart (some say the first, the original SM) still does brisk business.

Plaza
Lacson honors the colorful Manila Mayor Arsenio “Arsenic” Lacson. He
stands tall on a pedestal across the old Roman Santos Building topped
by a big clock and stone sculptures.

The popular Clover Theatre
that brought the public Don Jose Zarah’s Extravaganza and jazz pianist
Ping Joaquin, has become the City College of Manila annex.

On the
crowded streets leading to Quiapo Church and Plaza Miranda, Sta. Cruz
and Quiapo meet, borderless and offering a mix of colors and scents of
street food, fruit and flowers. The aromas of fishball, smoked fish,
pineapple slices, flowers, burning candles, herbs, roasted castañas and
other “chichiria” fill the air.

Platerias, barely visible on congested Carriedo Street, still offer hard-to-find “piezas” (music sheets).

The
stretch from Sta. Cruz Church to Quiapo Church is almost impassable,
choked by crowds, stalls and merchandise of all kinds. On Plaza
Miranda, balloon vendors, fortune tellers and novena sellers vie for
the attention of church goers.

Take a trip to nostalgia and enjoy
the walk and the remembrance of things past and present. It will be
good for your soul and your sole.

(Luis R. Sioson, president
of the Torres High School Class 1955 Foundation, has been writing
articles about Tondo and other districts of Manila.)

Manila Bulletin, Tuesday, 8 August 2006
by Gemma Cruz Araneta

If Spain conquered these islands with the "Cross and sword", the United States of America crushed the First Republica de Filipinas   with "Krag and concrete". During three hundred and fifty years of Spanish colonial rule, fortifications, bridges and aqueducts, lighthouses, public buildings and roads were constructed by military and civilian authorities. Not to be outdone, the religious orders who came brandishing the Cross built their own centers of power at vantage points all over the countryside. Ingeniously, they fashioned imposing Baroque churches, massive bell towers and conventos with endemic materials and indigenous labor.

After the Treaty of Paris and during the Philippine-American War (1899-1911) that ensued, the battle cry of infamous General Jacob Smith resounded through the islands– “Civilize them with the Krag!” Samar was left a “howling wilderness”, after all natives above nine years old were slaughtered with the Krag.  As America’s “pacification “strategy gained ground, concrete, the latest material in modern construction, was generously poured all over this country.  Our war of resistance was still raging, but already, the new masters were flaunting their technological supremacy and imperial architecture. After a Philippine Assembly was elected in 1907, construction became a frenzy and continued unabated until the eve of the Second World War. Soon, the native populace was mesmerized by splendid government edifices that strongly projected the strength of American colonial policies. In provinces were anti-American resistance was particularly fierce, democratic slogans about power and the people were carved, for posterity, on the commanding façades of municipal palaces.  Everything built during the American colonial period— town halls, public schools, hospitals, fire stations, bridges, highways, prisons, courthouses, and the Executive House of Malacanan — magnificently imparted the new political ideology. Democracy, though ushered in by the cruel Krag,  was immortalized in architectural monuments of concrete.

As early as 1904, the American Secretary of War advised Commissioner W. Cameron Forbes, to hire the foremost city planner, Daniel Burnham., of “White City” fame (the 1893 Chicago World Fair) to do Manila.  He had successfully transformed Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C. into cities beautiful. Burnham came to the Philippines, stayed for six weeks during which he drafted blueprints for the east and southern margins of Intramuros,  including the Manila Bay area. In addition, he was to convert Baguio into a superb hill station for American officials who could not bear the hot summer months of the lowlands. Surprisingly, Burnham was more respectful than his Krag-bearing compatriots. He preserved significant Spanish colonial structures that survived America’s “dirty little war”, impressed by their elegance and convinced of their practical sustainability in tropical conditions. Burnham’s decision to restore and improve, instead of demolish and rebuild was indeed rare in Western urban planners of that epoch.

Like many of his peers, Daniel Burnham favored the Neo-Classical style, monumental buildings reminiscent of Greece and Roman; palatial structures with imposing vaults and domes, though non-sectarian in function. Lush gardens and parks, dramatic tree-lined avenues, reflecting pools and landscaped lagoons were trademarks of “City Beautiful”.  Burnham believed that was the way he could create “enduring witnesses to the efficient services of America to the Philippine Islands…”

Famous as Burnham was, it was the almost obscure Arch. William E. Parsons of the Bureau of Public Works (BPW) who gave substance to his colleague’s “imperial space”. There were other Americans like Ralph Harrington Doane who eventually handed the reins over to the first generation of Filipino architects–Antonio Toledo, Andres Luna de San Pedro, Tomas Mapua and the Arellano brothers, Juan and Arcadio. The elegant architectural designs of these pensionados dominated the landscape during the Philippine Commission, the Commonwealth and pre-World War II periods. From the classical revivalist style that came with  Burnham , Parsons and Doane, our Filipino architects  brought in new forms from Europe, like the Arts Nouveau and  Deco, which they transformed with native elements and with such eclectic refinement.(more on Thursday…)
(gemma601@yahoo.com)

“Krus na daan” DZRJ 810 khz, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6pm. Watch “Only Gemma!” RJTV, Mondays, 8pm, Sky 19 Manila & Baguio, Destiny 6 Cebu & 79 Manila, Palompon 23 Leyte, Colorview 40 Zambales, Caceres 6, Comsatel 44 Quezon 29, Mananap 18, Mariveles Space 27, La Union 38, Albay 6, Isabela 18.

By Augusto Villalon   

Published on page D4 of the August 7, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer    

AN
OUTSTANDING SERIES OF exhibitions illustrating the development of
Philippine character over generations marks the tenure of Ino Manalo as
director of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. His exhibition program
presents the total Philippine-culture spectrum, going beyond the
stereotypical visual-arts window to include objects of daily life.

Manalo uses ordinary objects to portray Philippine culture, everyday
things such as baskets, carving, clothing, folk art, religious icons,
old photos and commonplace stuff usually taken for granted by most
Filipinos whose daily lives are surrounded by what they perceive as
ordinary.

Whatever its origin, an object tells a story, whether it be an
heirloom or an export overrun T-shirt manufactured in the past week.

Manalo’s sharp vision transforms ordinary objects into extraordinary
storytelling icons that powerfully express attitudes, habits and
beliefs of Filipinos, which makes viewers return to shared roots.

Manalo has organized exhibits that bring out our shared Philippine
roots. He has presented all facets of Boholano culture from rare
Spanish colonial church treasures through traditional basketry and
craft items of recent design manufactured for the export market.

He has taken Metropolitan viewers on an extensive walk through
Quiapo, highlighting the quarter’s treasures, from its surviving
bahay-na-bato and their illustrious residents to neighborhood minutiae
like the anting-anting sold outside Quiapo church.

Exhibiting everyday stuff removes culture from wrongly perceived
ivory-tower altitudes, returning it to earth, and bringing culture back
to the people where it rightfully belongs.
 
The present
exhibition at the Met sees how Philippine life evolved through the
American colonial era by showing different chairs that people sat on
during those days. This is an unusual journey and a visual treat not to
be missed.

At the “Upuan” exhibit, chairs go beyond their function. They are presented as social commentary.

“For many centuries,” says the exhibit catalogue text, “chairs were
articles of state and dignity rather than items of ordinary use. They
have their origin in the hierarchic society of medieval Europe, where
only the king sat on chairs.”

Ordinary folk of the time were lucky to have a bench or stool to sit
on. The world has turned full circle since. Now we all have chairs to
sit on, but we can’t sit on all of them.

Chairs of authority in dining rooms, boardrooms, reception halls and
on the ceremonial dais are restricted to special persons. In airports,
special people gain access to airline lounges where seats are much more
comfortable than outside, where ordinary folk still sit on ordinary
chairs, not much change from the stools and benches of medieval days.

The rural Filipino, the exhibit points out, spends most of his day
outdoors with little need for chairs. Rocks serve as stools, and
branches become benches. Others just squat on the ground.

Squatting was not for all. Generations of Cordillera elders have
discussed community issues while ceremonially seated on the honored
stone seats of the circular dap-ay. Lowland bishops and priests have
ornate seats on cathedral altars. Power comes with privilege and
special seating.

Rural people traditionally sit or squat under the shade of their
bahay-na-nipa to cool off from the hot sun. Inside their houses, there
is a minimum of furniture since they live in a one-room, multipurpose
space. Since sleeping, cooking and eating happen within the same area,
too much furniture restricts movement and flexibility.

When the Spanish moved people from rural to urban areas, “a more
indoor kind of living and a new social order” developed, which
“increased the chances as well as the need of families to socially
interact with each other within the confines of their residences to
enhance their prestige and power.

“Such interaction required showing off the elegant design and
grandeur of their bahay-na-bato as well as the splendor and
magnificence of their furniture,” the catalogue says. Such can be seen
at Casa Manila in Intramuros, Casa Gorordo in Cebu and the Museo De La
Salle in Dasmariñas (Cavite).

During the American colonial period, people flocking to urban
centers seeking employment ushered in a construction boom. Government
offices, schools, corporate structures, and houses rose quickly all
over the Philippines, all needing furniture.
 
With lifestyle
changes introduced by the new colonial regime, areas within offices and
residences compartmentalized into smaller, separate spaces, requiring a
new range of specialized furniture for living or dining rooms,
bedrooms, offices, schools.

Craftsmen designed and executed a variety of new furniture, adapting
American designs to the tropics. The furniture of the era demonstrate
“stylistic hybridity… making colonialism appear as a civilizing
continuity rather than a disruption of a native civilization.”

Go see “Upuan” to revisit the excellence of Philippine craftsmanship. The exhibit runs until Sept. 9.

It is not only “Upuan” that completes its museum run in September.
Ino Manalo ends his tenure as Metropolitan Museum director as well.

Ino deserves a solid round of appreciation for his pioneering
determination in telling the Philippine story through the culture of
the everyday.

“Upuan” is one of those rare Manila exhibits that expand the
horizons of anyone who takes the time to experience it. The exhibit is
especially enlightening for practicing or student architects and
interior designers needing to take inspiration from Philippine
tradition.

Interesting and educational as they may be, Metropolitan Museum
exhibits are underutilized opportunities. More people should go to see
them, but then the Filipino is notoriously not a museum-
going individual. Maybe exhibits should go to the malls to reach more people.

Heritage watch

“Bid for Heritage” is the annual art and design auction organized by
the Heritage Conservation Society. It takes place Aug. 20, 4 p.m., at
The Loft, Rockwell Drive, Makati.

Proceeds benefit the projects of the Heritage Conservation Society,
particularly the HCS-DepEd Heritage Schoolhouse Restoration Program,
which has completed restoration of American-period schoolhouses in
Bacolod, Baguio and San Fernando, Pampanga.

In 2006-07, buildings in Teachers Camp, Baguio, and public schools in Zamboanga and Davao will be restored by the project.

Tickets for “Bid for Heritage” are available at the HCS Secretariat at Museo Pambata, Roxas Boulevard. Call 5212239 or 5222497.

E-mail the author at pride.place @gmail.com

By Paulo Alcazaren
The Philippine STAR 08/05/2006                   

In the 1970s, I started my professional career working in the Central
Business District of Makati. The commute was five minutes from Baryo
Kapitolyo in Pasig where I lived and traffic was never heavy except
across the then-narrow bridge of pre-billboarded Guadalupe. Although
the office I worked in was on Paseo de Roxas, what struck me as odd
were the names of the two major office districts that flanked Ayala
Avenue.

Legazpi Village and Salcedo Village housed dozens of
pint-sized office buildings that rose up from their curved streets.
They were half the height of the Ayala buildings, which were uniform at
about 12 stories high (the limit in the ‘60s was about 15 stories
because of fear of earthquakes – building technology has since
progressed – and the proximity to the airport). I figured that maybe
the areas were called villages because of their small-scaled structures
and smallish network of roads.

I was wrong, of course.

The answer lay in the very success of Ayala’s Makati. But the
clues were in that network of streets, the fact that both areas had
central open spaces and the fact that surrounding these two were
several already established residential villages – San Lorenzo,
Urdaneta, and Bel-Air.

Salcedo and Legazpi Villages were actually designed and laid
out as residential villages to support the central spine of Ayala
Avenue, which was the only area originally meant to house multi-story
office buildings. The two were to be the last in a sequence of
"subdivided" housing (or "homesite," to use the term then prevalent)
developments that complimented the live-work-play new suburb of Makati.

The background story is one of Ayala’s Makati and the strategy
that the original planners led by Don Alfonso Zobel, Don Enrique Zobel,
Colonel McMicking and Col. Jaime Velasquez took to develop the 1,650
hectares of former Jesuit-held swamp and marginal agricultural land.

They had taken the tack to develop a complete new satellite
city with industry, offices and housing all connected via well-paved,
well-lit, quick-draining roads. Few today remember that Makati in the
‘50s and early ‘60s was the most industrialized town in the province of
Rizal (Makati was still a municipality and Metropolitan Manila as an
entity was still decades away so any place not a city was under the
control of the provincial government). The developers knew that people
would move to Makati if work was nearby in factories, if the
administrative offices of these plants were a few hundred meters away
and if housing was a short hop away in your Dodge, Chevy or Chrysler.

Makati offered an alternative to war-damaged Manila and did so
ahead of the government’s own plans for Quezon City (which I’ve written
about several times in this column). Since the National Capital Plan
was forever short of funds to consolidate land, much less put in
infrastructure, anyone with a viable alternative was able to meet the
demands of the post-war market. Makati offered all this plus it was
only four kilometers from the old center compared to 15 from Quezon
City.

Sales of housing sites, office and factory plots boomed. The
Ayala Avenue strip was soon filled and by the early ‘70s the demand was
so great that the last two residential clusters, Legazpi and Salcedo
Villages, were turned into commercial zones and opened up for small
office buildings. Of course, the drainage and power infrastructure was
designed for residences so it took a while to retrofit the utilities.
Traffic was also a problem eventually as no one had expected such huge
volumes of cars and people. Ayala took another two decades to fix the
problem with overhead pedestrian bridges to encourage walking and
parking garages to increase capacities. In addition to all these
factors was the development of Alabang and alternatives for housing
even farther away.

Today, Makati is filling out and density is increasing. The
office villages are booming in a second wave that is seeing structures
as tall as their Ayala Avenue cousins. The call center phenomenon and
new lifestyles are also turning the two into real villages where people
actually live-work-play. Ayala Land has started to build high-rise
condominiums in, or close to, these villages like the Columns and
Columns 2 to bring back the original intent full circle – village life
has never been more urban and, from the looks of plans, more urbane.

Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com