The Law, a very long digression into Architecture and Planning, and the significance of Hardware and Software and a hop back into Architecture :P

I wanted to be a lawyer... operative suffix... -ed... :D    Like everyone else - I thought lawyers were cool - with specimens such as Ally Mcbeal, or Tom Cruise in the Firm... etc. etc. Of course it wasn't just a shallow, superficial career option... I really did generously think I had the... uh... powers of reasoning to cut it.

Of course this was well before I went all out into architecture... I told my folks about this thing with the Law... my mom was not so sold - she said that I'll have to pony up the grades to make it into a decent pre-law / law program. Dad on the other hand - in his typical response to non-architecture/design careers for his son - poo-pooed the idea as a product of youthful ignorance.

So I decided to take up Architecture instead - and as so often discussed in my previous blogposts - learned to love and cherish a profession - that in my mind gives me the best opportunity to help change / shape our world into something relatively better.

And as I got more into the nitty-gritty of design - as what usually happens to my peers - I evolved an even bigger ego and quite ignorantly got self-absorbed about the ability and omnipotence of the designer. As Winston Churchill pointed out - and I carelessly paraphrase - We shape our buildings, and our buildings shape us. I was proud about the fact that - not only did we think and imagine things - we produced tangible products. Something that couldn't be said about a profession that I used to aspire to - where lawyers spew out arguments - architects were designing and building real things.

But something interesting happened - the deeper I got into design - the more I realized how innately powerless the designer/architect was with respect to the much broader context in which we all operate in. This conflict is so pervasive in the history of Architectural and Planning discourse that it has birthed the Post-Modern movement in architecture - contrary to the massive tabula-rasa prescriptive change that the Modernists advocated for - Architects fell into the bottomless pit of petty form-making - resigned to being powerless to the real (albeit) harsh demands of the clients - developers - governments - and markets.

This scared the bejeezus out of me -  where does that leave me? An architect not so intent on "form-making" or "trending" or "imagemaking." Sure as hell - at least on a superficial level - I'm the furthest from trendy, fashionable, or imageable. Where does an oldschool, stuck-in-rational functionality, modernist like myself belong in an age where architects are turned by the fates into "make-up artists" for the built environment?

Koolhaas writes so well about this - (although I'm nowhere near this Starchitect's stature) he talks about how powerless he is when dealing with the reality and context of his work.

Then I went into Grad School - and during that short stint - I was rattled from my "architect/designer" frame of mind and was introduced to the concept of strategy and policy. While I was busy thinking about how to compensate for my lack of "form-making" ability - my professors dismantled the whole notion of form-making on an urban level and focused on the various factors that shape our urban environment. In their eyes (probably in everyone else's) - buildings were all the same - boxes.

Where the architect grapples about "puffed-up" mundane issues such as materials, the textures, windows, the "sexiness" of a building, etc. The planner sees numbers, populations, market demand, capital flows, traffic, etc.

That is the difference of architecture/design and urban/city/environmental planning. And as an architect trying to learn about urbanism/urban design - its embarrasing to be the mundane joe stuck at 1:300m while your mentors are busy hovering at 1:10,000m

That's when I realized that at the end of the day - design can only take you so far - hardware is as good as useless without the software to govern and help people use it.

Fast forward to today... with me serving  boyfriend BARops for Patring - seeing just a short segment of what is an entire spectrum of hard slogging in their development as lawyers. I get a glimpse of the software that governs and conducts everything else.

As I start seeing things on the other side of the fence - the more I am humbled as a designer - it puts things in perspective. Removing the blinders of specialization truly opens a whole host of doors into wisdom. While its good to build the professional depth needed to practice competently - it would be a tragic mistake not to build up the breadth of experience and understanding of the plural voices and factors that whirl in the real world's vortex.

It was good to see that - while idealistic "hardware" guys like my peers were learning the ropes - a fresh batch of equally idealistic "software" people were also being concurrently produced. God-willing - with a lot more of these kinds of people - hope is not lost.  

And taking a page from Rem Koolhaas - Maybe that's what separates the good architects from the true visionaries - the ability to see beyond form - into everything else. Its one thing to nit-pick a plan of rooms - its another to question the need for rooms and spaces. As architects - we're starting to see this trend - computers, technology and modern materials and techniques have allowed us to break down the previous cartesian limitations of form making - our more progressive colleagues have explored a multitude of tectonic possibilites - sexy indeed - but I find that the most relevant and interesting work comes from the designers who are able to question and disassemble the premises for doing the work and doing it a specific way.

The frontiers of design no longer lie in the notion of form - but in our ability to break and reassemble the program - the uses - the rules that govern how we work and the reasons for the doing the work.

Now... back to work.

GODSPEED TO PATRING AND ALL THE BARRISTERS! 2 weeks nalang! Todo na to! :D \m/ RAK!



 
  
 

On Storylines...

One of the things they teach in design school (probably as with most creative majors anyway) is how to distill an idea (whether its a marketing strategy or a design concept) into a storyline. 

This is usually to compensate/cover what would be a long, meandering thought process wherein you start-off thinking you'll end up a certain direction- wander-off to another... and then stumble into something else... which in the end looks like something you were thinking of in the first place. 

Why is it so important to mask this disorderly exploration... with a nice, tight, elegantly story-boarded, storyline? My guess is that... specially for design practices... we can't afford to come across as completely bohemian, artsy-fartsy and disorganized... not to our clients... because they pay good money to see that... ah! Mr. designer so-and-so, or Architect so-and-so is creative... but professional as well.   

And so.. we designers/architects - try our hand at amateurishly pitching these simplified nutshelled ideas to our audiences... whether they may be our clients, our professors, our colleagues/peers, our students... heck... even to ourselves. We do it several hundred times in a decade... creating bad habits. Heck... oftentimes, poor practitioners of this black-art get started without even cultivating any good habits. 

Instead of using the storyline to summarize both the products and the creative process... we use the storyline to shallowly post-rationalize our so-called "concepts"... Even worse... as is often the case... the process becomes subservient to the storyline... turning our products into a sad pastiche of interesting shapes, colours and patterns...  a collage of familiar buzzwords and repetitive taglines... like... "a new way of looking at architecture" or... "eco-city" or "exclusive enclaves" or... "organic pods"... "batik/fabric patterns" "new-age office" I've even heard one of the larger chinoy architects say that their project is following green architectural principles because it uses green, low-e glass... OMG! etc etc etc ad infinitum.

And then we wonder... what happened to our creativity? How come we're not rolling new ideas out? How come we come to the same things again and again? 

Indeed... people/audiences need their input broken down into digestible parts... and that general catchphrases/broad motherhood statements are great to tie a storyline together... but let's not turn ourselves into Dubya Bush... lets not reduce ourselves to a series of catchphrases... lets not reduce our clients into little kids... thinking they're not capable of taking in the depth/complexities of more important issues. 

Maybe that's why I'm a wee-bit disillusioned with the state of most Pinoy practices I see today... because my dad/mentor taught me about the fundamental layers... the core things which matter the most.  Coming from a small practice... working with clients who are usually self-made-men/entrepreneurs... they can't afford to listen and appreciate your fluff... because your fluff costs money... and is fluff anyway.

So... what is it that matters? how about efficiency? managing your costs? improving traffic by removing your chokepoints? lightening your structure so that your overall engineered cost goes down? THINGS LIKE THAT... because the sad thing about our architectural training is that... we're taught how to design... but not "practice" architecture... and practice is a helladifferent world compared to "design". 

Don't get me wrong... I'm not exempting myself/our firm from the criticism... in fact... its what drives me to help our practice find better ways to design... Let's not fool ourselves that... by talking about folding pieces, articulated forms, cheezy massing/volumes, bright colours and feature walls - we're talking about architecture... its so much more than that.

Let this be a challenge for my colleagues... to look beyond the typical client-architect dynamic

and cut through our own fluff... and engage our clients... educate them (not in form-making) but in the ins-and-outs of our work... but also to educate ourselves... to train ourselves that more than just selling a storyline to our clients... that we're bringing in much much, more added value to their business... than just a catchphrase.

   

Dateline 11 July 2008

Its been quite a while since my last post... I've been too busy... although I did get to enjoy a month-long break at home in Manila - most of it was spent helping out in the office and getting myself back on the arki groove. A few hitches came in the way... with a few odd reminders here and there of my mortality and... again... why I have to be in Singapore... working/learning and making a living for myself... at least in the near future.

Graduation from NUS is on monday... and few enough people graduate from college; much more for grad school, which is why it is a major milestone for me albeit a largely ceremonial one. My folks are flying in for the weekend and I get to play tourist guide again.

I was never one to soak in the "wonder" of a moment such as a commencement or awarding ceremony... those few who know me from way back would know why :D. But seriously... I'm prone to usually taking it with a grain of salt and moving on to the next step. In a lot of ways... life is a lot like riding a bike. Its good to see the sights... but you'll never get anywhere if you slow down and lose momentum... if you do slow down... you fall off. They say... you learn the most from a failure... and to get up when you fall down; on the other hand... if you're on to something... keep going and keep trucking!

I've started working for an architectural firm here... and its been quite a rush... the pace is incredibly fast- the scale and intensity of the projects from masterplanning to finishes can seem daunting - but I look forward to learning as much as I can. I am after all one of the youngest architects in the roster - and although I'm not necessarily a newbie to the show - the context is definitely fresh for me.

All of this was happening - a whole month before graduation... not just because I want to hit the ground running, but also because... economically... I can't afford to just sit around and watch the turtles at the park downstairs... real life costs money... and everyone needs a job to live - I just happen to be one of the few who enjoy my job... but literally... I need my job to live... because doing it/learning it makes me feel alive.

I have a whole vomit of things to say... largely a backlog of thoughts that run the usual spectrum of available words. But to summarize:

1. I wasn't prepared - but I was literally stopped in my tracks and got a bit emotional to realise that (although I will understandably have to still do so in the future)... I'm not a CAD jockey anymore... after half a lifetime of zoom-panning, offsetting and filleting my way... I am an architect now... not just by my professional title but by what I do... not everyone will understand me... and I'm sure a few will think that this guy is a cocky bastard... but I don't care. If there's one thing that bothers me is that, while things have changed for me - it isnt the same for everyone else... and I understand and respect that - if anything... it gives me so much more respect and patience when working with my colleagues in the office... because I know what it takes to be in the frontline slugging away with CAD.

2. Life should be full of firsts... you should always be over your head. you should always be reaching/ going beyond what you thought you knew/you were capable of doing. First projects, first jobs, first dates... are all part of the growing process...

3. People who are too comfortable make for the most boring and uninteresting specimens. Comfort leads to boredom... boredom to atrophy... atrophy to sleepwalking and dying while alive. Those who went through struggle/anguish/pain/suffering in any form or shape oftentimes become the most distinct/special/treasured characters you will run into your life. There is an unspoken understanding amongst those battle-tested veterans... one glance and you will see the silent strength that buttresses the most unique characters.

4. Don't get me wrong... its not about the money, the prestige, or whatever it is that motivates people to work. As my good friend Mac says... Its about being able to be part of bringing something/creating something and enriching the world. A whole lot of people go through life asking what it is they can see, do or take from the world to "enrich" themselves... a lot of people turn the world into their "bohemian" playground... a list of destinations to see... a list of things to take photos of and senses to sate. But at the end of the day... its not what you take from the world... but what you add into it. That is what makes every person alive.  Life is so much more than the "literary" or "cinematic" scenes that a lot of people fantasize about...

5. Confidence is fickle. Attraction and love are in fact, both decisions. Friendship can be cultivated. But rock solid building blocks and common ground is the hardest to find. If you have common solid ground... waste no time building on it.

6. Assumptions, presumptions inferences, educated guesses... are the lifeblood of modern living. Survival is predicated on intuition and awareness. To deny or question your hunches may seem prudent. But to do so... wastes much more than time... because you will never ever have all your variables neatly laid out for you.

Anyways... til next time lah!

Thoughts on Thesis Projects and why Urbanism

I haven't had the chance to properly articulate my thoughts lately. I've been immersed with schoolwork and the basic business of living - you know... the stuff that a lot of comfortable people tend to take forgranted: laundry, cooking, ironing, etc ad infinitum . But seriously... these things take quite a lot of time... and unless you'd want to end up smelling bad, looking bad and eating nothing but MSG-laden chinese food... you really have to get things done.

The past semester has gone quite fast... I'm thoroughly enmeshed in work - 5 modules of work actually... including dissertation and an extra elective. I have to say that the academic experience has been extremely eye-opening. It has forced me to reassess how I see the practice of architecture and planning in the Philippine context and has made me realise just how badly behind we are from the perspective of thought, discourse and analysis. Notice... I mentioned defficiencies in thought process... not in talent, flair or style. (all of which I think we might have too much off... )

Past experiences has made me a lot more stoic about things I'm very idealistic about. I've learned to just take a lot of things as a fact of life and just as a course of normal business... especially in a small, subsistence economy like the Philippines... I'm better off biting my tongue and just focusing on the task at hand. But I digress... but let me talk about how I got into Urbanism and why I decided to take Urbanism.

When I was in 5th year Architecture, I underwent the same rite-of-passage like everyone else... the Thesis project. Among architecture students ... It is the perennial act of indulging your "designer" ego and finally getting to do forms and buildings you'll probably never be able to do. The usual theme for thesis projects included iconic high-rises, museums, performing arts centres, etc. So anyway... I really did not start from a fixed form or project programme - heck... in fact I didn't know exactly what I'll end up doing... What I was sure of however, was my intent to try solving a something innately close to my heart => parking in UST. Yes... wow pocs... kaganda naman ng thesis mo... parking building.

But then I realised... the lack of parking within UST was just a canary in the mine... it was an indicator of much bigger problems/issues that concerned both the campus and the city of Manila as well. So... to keep it short... I ended up doing a very aesthetically constricted building... because I had to stick to the aesthetic of UST... (which suppressed my pagkadesigner a great deal) and began to focus on the design of public spaces, open spaces and learning spaces... it became an exercise in identifying the problems of a site... and then recommending an urbanistic solution (a building) which also just so happened to have an architectural program or use (a college building). It was - dare I say... different because I did not come in with a megalomaniacal agenda to indulge my ego. I just wanted a parking space.

So anyway... during presentation... I was quite frustrated because I was surrounded by amazingly well rendered, iconic architecture... but then I took it with a grain of salt and just accepted it... in Architecture school... the professors never questioned the intent of the student to design the project... whatever it may be... an airport, a museum for dogs, a pile of dung for that matter... because it was just a fact... they never questioned intent... because professors probably look at students like little kids... "Give them something to play with..."

Thus thesis projects evolve to be exercises in aesthetics... as far as projects were concerned... everything is iconic... everything is grand... everything was an object building. This is the case now... from all the thesis projects I've see on multiply... no one tried to engage the city... no one tried to do something meaningful in terms of solving urban problems... it was status quo... look good=feel good.no one wanted to do a fabric building...  (which incidentally... I did).

Ok... so hindi na ako magbubuhat ng sariling bangko... But now I realise... to not question intent is wrong itself. Unless students and architects learn that buildings are just part of the bigger picture - that of the city... we as architects will end up designing buildings that sit in the middle... iconic yes... but are anti-human... and anti-urban as well.

In a way... the thesis was my introduction into urbanism... except I didn't know what to call it back then. Now... I realise that we architects are both the culprits and the solution to the issues that plague Manila... we just need to reorient our education system to see things differently. We, at some point, have to overcome our preoccupation with form-making... and become problem solvers in the scale of the city. More than the wrapping of the building... we have to learn how to appreciate thoughts, strategies, and concepts to real pressing issues...

<ehem ehem> <end rant>

Enlightenment starts... with the search for a parking slot.

2007 Yearender & 2008 Bootstrap

My blog is turning 3 soon, and I've seen my posts evolve slowly from very personal reflections, into more guarded public expressions of sentiments and ideas... I think it goes along with the territory when you start to lose your free "blogging" time and when you get deeper and deeper into work... also... it doesn't help to realise that your sphere no longer just involves your closest of friends, but begins to broaden to acquaintances, peers, colleagues and potential critics... I feel that blogs naturally evolve from private confessionals into becoming another facet of the face we show to the public.

Anyway... its been a while since my last post... I'm back in Manila, at the tail-end of my grad school term break and I haven't had much time to contemplate about the past year. I've been busy running up and down EDSA (my dissertation topic) doing fieldwork and gathering data; I've also been bouncing around the requisite social obligations and meetings throughout the metro; and most importantly- I've been quietly savoring the company of my family and friends.

I was reading my 2006 yearender, and as I pointed out then, 2007 really was a pivotal year for me... it was marked by challenges which I wouldn't have overcome if I didn't go through the hellish year before:

Passing the boards - finally! after 7 years!
Bagging my first important project for our office-> under construction
Earning the scholarship 
Living and studying abroad
Being away from my family and friends
Being independent... away from all the safety nets
Being around other nationalities and building new friendships
Stumbling into and meeting interesting <ehem> <ehem> people
The prospect of romance - long distances notwithstanding - and the even more looming prospect of heartbreak...
Learning more about myself - who I am, what I want and most importantly - what I don't want

Indeed, 2007 was a fruitful year, and I really have to thank God for all the blessings...

It has been an amazing ride... and I did grow up tremendously in almost all aspects; I only hope and pray that 2008 would be as challenging and fruitful, not just for myself, but for all of us.

2008 will be another important year... I hope 2006 and 2007 will be strong foundations for the kind of goals I'm setting for the future: (2008 and beyond)

Do well in Grad school- finish the dissertation...
Graduate!
Work with a developer or major multinational firm in Sing (wag sanang pangproduction lang)
Travel :)
Start earning and investing more
Socialize :)
Win new projects for our office - prepare for eventual return to practice in the Philippines
Become more business savvy - with or without the MBA
Teach?
Learn another language
Learn to cook better
Build a relationship <ehem ehem> 



Cheers to all! God Bless! Kick Ass!

The Story of Urbanism in Metro Manila: From Intramuros to City Beautiful and back

I.  Manila – the seat of colonial power

The bustling Philippine capital of Manila has come a long way from its roots as a Spanish trading fort. It has broken out of its own medieval walls to become the sprawling metropolis it is today. Like any colonial capital city, the story of Manila is the story of its masters, who have steered development and growth into the current pattern that “Manilenyos” and visitors now live and cope with on a daily basis.

                What makes Manila even more similar with its neighbouring Asian cities is that, like the rest of the country, it has been a recipient of almost all forms and patterns of urbanism as imposed by its various masters – with each iteration creating unintended consequences and effects on the local context.  As mandated by King Phillip II’s Leyes de Indias or Laws of the Indies, all of the Philippines’ Spanish Colonial settlements were planned around the basic pattern of a plaza with cardinal and secondary diagonal streets radiating from the central common space.F[1]F This method of settlement planning drew lots of influence from Alberti and Vitruvius’ treatises on Urban Form. Not merely standing as a set of rules/guidelines describing an ideal settlement, the Laws of the Indies also talks about the need to create defensible enclosures and walls to keep out the “uncivilized” new world that the colonists aimed to “modernise.”F[2]

Figure 1 - The Walled City of Manila: Early American Period

                When conquistador Martin de Goiti and his crew entered the mouth of Manila Bay on May 8, 1570, he realized that this is the most ideal site to build the colony’s new capital. The sheer size of Manila’s harbour, along with the Pasig River as a conduit of trade and source of fresh water, and the availability of room/land to settle were all important factors differentiating Manila as a capital city, versus Cebu (site of the first established Spanish settlement), a small, elongated island. Upon making landfall on the shores of Manila Bay, de Goiti was welcomed by Rajah Soliman, the Malay-Muslim ruler of Manila who saw the Spanish conquistadores as potential trading partners and allies in Soliman’s ambition to consolidate control of the surrounding Muslim areas.  After misleading Soliman into an “alliance”, the Spanish conquistadores attacked and destroyed Manila and the surrounding Muslim villages of Tondo. This paved the way for the construction of their Colonial Capital: Intramuros.F[3]

 

                The exclusionary urbanism of the Laws of the Indies manifested itself well in the colonial crown of Manila, wherein the Spanish and political powerbase was kept within Intramuros – which literally means within the walls; and the Chinese, Muslim and “Tagalog” (or Taga-Ilog, vernacular for “people of the river”) natives and traders kept Extramuros – outside the walls, and across the banks of the Pasig River to form the “Parian” district which was in essence, the local word for a priest’s congregational area; a subtle reminder defining the civilised urbanity of Intramuros, and the “unwashed” and uncivilised impression of the long-established trading settlements along the river. These districts eventually came to form Manila’s Chinatown of Binondo and Muslim quarter of Quiapo.

                By 1898, after a protracted local revolutionary war and within the context of larger global conflict brought about by the Spanish-American war, the Spanish eventually conceded the Philippines to the United States of America through a mock battle in Manila Bay – a moot encounter considering the fact that the Americans wanted to maintain the semblance of an honourable victory after the underlying negotiation/trade of all of Spain’s colonial holdings for the sum of 20 million dollars as agreed by the two powers in the Treaty of Paris.  When the Americans did make landfall from their token flotilla, they stumbled upon a capital burning with the fires of nationalism brought about by the long struggle for independence from Spain. Seeing the demise of the Spanish, and unaware of the larger plot underlying current events, local Filipino revolutionaries saw the opportunity of proclaiming the Philippines’ independence from Spain. An event lost in history, except in the local context, because the rest of the world saw the unfolding events for what they really were: a colonial handover, from Spain to America.

The Americans, although late-bloomers in the global game of colonization, saw themselves not as new masters, but as benevolent liberators out to spread American democracy and freedom to the oppressed world. Seeing the Spanish downtown built within the fortress of Intramuros and the sprawling and underdeveloped proto-urban settlements around its walls across the Pasig River, The American colonial government wanted to differentiate themselves from the “backward” colonial masters from the old-world by again “civilizing” the city of Manila by building a better, inclusive and grand capital befitting an American colony (equating a beautiful city of neoclassical monuments and grand vistas with social order, urbanity and civilisation is an immensely shallow way of reading a city) – in the tradition of their own capital city, Washington D.C., and its European counterparts – Paris, Rome, etc. The man tasked to undertake this plan was Daniel Burnham, who was the progenitor of the City Beautiful plan in its first iteration – the White City of the World Columbian Exposition of 1893, which became the model for succeeding cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C.F[4]F

 

 

 

 

 

II. Burnham’s Plan – Vision, Implementation and Aftermath

A.      Luneta / Rizal Park - Micro

Figure 2 - A copy of the original drawn plan of the Burnham Plan of Manila showing the proposed National Mall, the expanded port area, the bay-side boulevard and the various axis radiating from the national mall, with one of the main axes terminating at what is to become the site of Quezon City and the University of the Philippines.  Foretelling the plan’s own suburban obsolescence.

Upon Burnham’s arrival by steamship into Manila, he immediately realised the city’s potential, having a bay to rival Naples, the a river that snakes through the city like Paris and the vast inland lakes like the American Northeast all in one location. He immediately set out to work on the new plan of Manila with his assistant Pierce Anderson by focusing on 2 key directions, the acknowledgement and preservation of Intramuros’ quaint European town quality, and the use of City Beautiful principles to accentuate and integrate Manila’s innate assets.

Figure 3 - Satellite Photo of Rizal Park and Intramuros

The Burnham plan of Manila called for the construction of a new government centre beside the old Spanish Fort and Port Area. The site of the government centre was to be Luneta Park (Luneta translates to crescent shape, which was the park’s original shape during the Spanish period, following the exterior curvature of Intramuros’ walls)F[5]F in the extramuros district of Bagumbayan (New Town) and was to take the form of a linear mall. One end of the mall was to look out into the Bay of Manila, with the other end terminating in a proposed capitol building, flanked by the two “key” bureaucracies of the colony at that time: The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Finance. The mall is then to be lined by government buildings reinforcing the axis towards the capitol building. It was a grand vision, with the aim of replicating the Washington Mall in DC, complete with the axis, the neo-classical government buildings, and the monuments commemorating the national hero, which in this case, is Dr. Jose P. Rizal, after whom the mall was named.  

Today, Rizal Park stands as testament to Burnham’s vision, and the trials and tribulations of a nation. It has since been expanded to Manila Bay through reclamation and now, the mall’s bayside axis terminates into Quirino Grandstand while the axis is now edged weakly by just a handful of the proposed government buildings, which in an interesting twist of Disneyfication of history, have all become tourism or historically related: The Manila Planetarium, National Library, National Archives, National Historical Institute, The Department of Tourism (former Agriculture Building) and the National Museum (former Finance Building.) Alongside this token government presence on the mall stands reminders of the Philippines’ American colonial period: The United States Embassy Complex, along with its vast crowds of visa applicants, and the Manila Hotel, once considered the city’s place to see and be seen, is but a shell of its former glorious self, mismanaged to the point of being a three-star option for those who couldn’t get a room in the city’s newer hotels in the CBD. Other buildings flanking the complex include the Army-Navy and Elks Club, which stand as unutilised reminders of the Old-Boys Club that the American officers and citizens established in their colony. The proposed Capitol Building never materialised because of lack of funding and the outbreak of the Second World War, with its site converted into a touristy map-cum-fountain representing the Philippines.

Rizal Park remains to be a popular tourist attraction, serving as a quick photo-op stop for the city tours that shuttle visitors through the raucous city into its malls before leaving for the Philippines’ more picturesque and relatively stress-free countryside. It remains to be one of the last remaining free and non-commoditised public spaces in the metropolis, serving as a back-drop for many prayer rallies which sometimes end up as political rallies (the church and state never got fully separated from each other in the Philippines). The park also serves as a popular cost-effective, non-consumerist weekend destination for families and couples.

Figure 4 - Map of Manila: Showing Radial-Concentric Pattern in the old core

During the American period, the area surrounding Luneta was ultra-prime real estate, largely for its address, with its edges being lined by office buildings, hotels, inns and theatres. It remains to be a prime location, and with recent developments seeing the rise of bay-view condominiums and office spaces serving as a cheaper alternative to those in the Makati CBD or for those businesses which are port or logistics related.

B.      Radial/ Concentric Plan - Macro

The Burnham plan then calls for a series of roads to radiate from the national mall, with each road creating a grand vista to and from the government centre. The first of the important series of roads is the bay-side boulevard running south of the mall towards Manila’s southern suburbs. Formerly known as Dewey Boulevard, the picturesque Roxas Boulevard serves as the Metropolis’ edge. This road is known by planners as C-1 or Circumferential-1 which doesn’t behave as a ring road, but actually bisects the metropolis and its phantom twin city on the bay. Other circumferential ring roads followed in succession, running north to south around the core and creating an interlocking grid from which the city and its surrounding suburbs grew. (C-2 is Taft Avenue, C-3 became Quirino Avenue and Governor Forbes, C-4 became EDSA – more on EDSA in succeeding sections, and C-5/C-6 becoming toll roads linking the city’s fringes.)

Radial roads followed 2 important radials anchored by a progression of vistas. One main vista ran diagonally south of the mall, branching off toward the Paco Central Railway station which served as the gateway to the rail services to the north and south regions of the capital.  The other main axis to the north of the mall, ran towards the grand Post Office Building, which was situated near the mouth of the Pasig River for ease of mail-ship access. (just like Singapore’s Fullerton Building) and branches off to Binondo (Chinatown) the former Muslim quarter of Quiapo and on to Quezon City (to be expounded in succeeding sections). Although many historians and nostalgic planners argue that the Burnham Plan of Manila was never fully implemented, the fact that the metropolis’ underlying order follows the same directions set forth by Burnham, shows that at least in the some aspects such as roads and circulation, the Burnham plan is alive and relevant to the city today. The fact that the Americans weren’t around long enough to carry it out completely, did not stop local planners and traffic engineers from expounding on the radial-concentric grid by building new roads and expressways linking the metropolis. In fact, you could follow a highway’s kilometre markers backward from the provinces, say Batangas, south of Manila, and it will lead you back to the Zero-kilometre marker in front of Rizal’s statue at Rizal Park.

Figure 5 - Map of Greater Metro Manila showing existing Concentric Road Pattern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C.      Forced Obsolescence: Commonwealth and War

Figure 7 - Destruction of the Walls of Intramuros : WW2

Figure 6 - The flattened interior of the walled city of Intramuros

The push by Filipino nationalists for independence lead to the creation of a Commonwealth Government as a means of preparing the Philippines for self-governance. In line with the desire to break away from the bonds of colonial memory and create a fresh start for the country, government leaders headed by Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon sought to create a new capital away from the old government centre in Luneta, and away from the colonial landmarks that would “taint” or “deface” the legitimacy of the new independent government.  He initiated the move by negotiating for the purchase of the first 16 square kilometres of land from the Tuason haciendaF[6]F, on which the new government centre would rise, around which a new “worker’s city” would be built in the tradition of the Europe garden city new towns. All these plans were put on hold with the outbreak of the Pacific War. The colonial obsolescence of Manila as a centre for the metropolis was aggravated further with its almost complete destruction by Japanese and American bombs during the war. Immediately after the liberation from the Japanese, the Americans granted the Philippines its independence. Without a Marshall Plan or a colonial master to finance the reconstruction, the Philippines and Manila was left on its own to rebuild. All of this brought about a new context from which the metropolis would evolve from.  New cities and suburbs would arise in place of the devastated core bringing new and unexpected circumstances to the radial-concentric Burnham Plan, which has become the stage-set for the unfolding of a city into the metropolis it is today.

 

III. The Continuum of Suburbanisation and the Search for a New Centrality: Quezon City and Makati

A.      Quezon City: City Beautiful ver. 2.0

Learning from Burnham’s City Beautiful Plan, local Filipino planners set out to do a larger, grander version in Quezon City. The plan centres around the creation of a grand elliptical rotunda from which radiating avenues would branch out and connect to the original radial and concentric roads (such as EDSA/C-4, C-5 and Espana-Quezon Boulevard/R-7) planned for Manila. Quezon City was at that time, evidently the best area to put up the new capital because of its vast tracts of virgin grassland, its high elevation, the presence of the La Mesa watershed. Its position to the north of Manila also anchored it as an urban gateway to the agricultural heartlands to the north.

Figure 9 - Satellite Map of Quezon City Elliptical Road

Figure 8 - Quezon Monument

The vast elliptical rotunda would become the site of an art-deco memorial designed by local architect Frederico Illustre consisting of three pylons built on a base modelled after Napoleon’s Invalides and Grant’s Tomb.F[7]F The grandeur of the memorial does manifest itself well from the radiating boulevards, but the sheer scale and width of the roads leading up to and bordering the elliptical rotunda have dehumanized the experience for the pedestrian, and have walled-off people from crossing the wide eight-lane rotary into the park. The park notoriously became a hang-out for juvenile delinquents, beggars, the occasional couple, and prostitutes plying their business. Connectivity has improved with the construction of a few workable, yet unsightly overpasses crossing the Elliptical Road. All of this translates to a vastly different experience from Rizal Park, whose size, scale, and accessibility was just right for the pedestrian. Quezon City was in essence, a city planned for the car.

The new city was then to be the new capital, with it serving as the home base for various government institutions : Agriculture, Agrarian Reform, Batasang Pambansa (House of Representatives), Bureau of Internal Revenue, Social Security System, Court of Appeals and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Quezon City is also home to major educational institutions such as the University of the Philippines main campus and Ateneo de Manila University (a Jesuit university, modelling itself as the Philippines’ Ivy League) Also located around the elliptical rotunda were a series of key hospitals which locals fondly call “Dinuguan Avenue” after a dish made of innards and blood – the hospitals include the Lung Centre, Heart Centre and Kidney Centre. Quezon City also became the start of the country’s thrust into public housing, with vast tracts of land surrounding the central area of Diliman converted into landed housing projects. These areas were called “the Projects” district, giving rise to the colloquial moniker given to angsty, working-class teenagers of the from the baby-boom generation: the “jeproks.” Parallel to this, several middle and upper class gated (to keep the jeproks out) communities started appearing further in the outskirts of Quezon City, with names such as White Plains, Ayala Heights, Valle Verde, La Vista, Greenmeadows, White Plains and Corinthian Gardens, which all throw-back to famous Californian suburbs that boomed after the war. All of this helped to create a relatively viable and thriving capital city for the Philippines. Quezon City became testament to the Philippine government’s physical planning, becoming a sign of its glory days and post-war economic boom.

B.      Quezon City’s shortcomings

Figure 10 - Cubao, Quezon City's commercial hub, along EDSA/C-4

But for all of Quezon City’s government planned infrastructure, it lacked a viable planned financial centre. The closest to a business district that Quezon City ever had during that time was Cubao, an important hub along EDSA/C-4 which was developed by the enterprising Araneta family who owned the land. Cubao at that time was a thriving retail-entertainment district, anchored by the Araneta Coliseum which was ringed by markets/malls and a series of carnival attractions and rides– a smaller and more subdued-Coney Island for the Manilenyo. Cubao never became a financial centre or true central business district, largely because of its limited size and because it was never planned or marketed to become one. Quezon City’s government-centric planning in the 50s has myopically overlooked to plan for a CBD, fundamentally weakening it as a new city. This caused its eventual decline and devolution during the succeeding decades into a government-educational bedroom suburb, with business relocating south to a parallel development also along EDSA/C-4 in the former swamp of Makati, where the Ayala family company has seen the opportunity in Quezon City’s inherent planned weaknesses and Manila’s ravaged remains.

C.      Makati: The Privatization of the City

Ayala Compania, the Philippines’ oldest business house, was devastated after the war. Confronted with  near zero economy and virtually no infrastructure to rebuild on, it was forced to look for new ways to rebuild its company from its former headquarters along Escolta near the Pasig River and Port Area; which, before the war, was Manila’s booming financial district, home to banks, trading houses and upscale shops.

Figure 11 - Dona Mercedes with Col. McMicking

It won’t be the first time for the family company to be at a crossroads in history - the Ayalas, which owned the Bank of the Philippine Islands was one of the key businesses that held office along Escolta (originally serving as bankroller and financier to the Spanish Galleon trade with Mexico and to other entreports in Asia), was forced into crisis upon the departure of the Spanish. Losing their key business benefactor definitely hurt their trade, but the family quickly tried to establish connections with the new American colonizers, who were also more than happy to make their acquaintance, because they were looking for all the means to consolidate their foothold on the local economy. The partnership between the new American colonist and the old-guard Spanish trading house was eventually consolidated with the marriage of Dona Mercedes Zobel (daughter of then Ayala’s german-spanish boss) to Col. Joseph E. McMicking, who became the point man in rebuilding the company after the war.F[8]F

Figure 12 Satellite Overview of the Makati CBD - Ayala Developed sections/villages and roads (EDSA/C-4:red, Buendia/C-3:blue, Ayala Ave: lime green , Paseo de Roxas: Yellow, Makati Ave: Maroon and R-3/South Superhighway: Orange)

After the Americans left, McMicking stayed with his wife in the Philippines (they never bore children) and was instrumental in setting the direction for the founding of the Makati CBD. McMicking was familiar with the post-war suburban developments booming in the US, particularly in his former home city of San Francisco, California; and decided to use this as the development model in building the new suburb of Makati, which at that time was unused swampy land held by the Zobel de Ayala and Roxas families. The new township was to be accessed from the diverted/truncated C-3 road (Buendia) and C-4 road (future EDSA). The plan called for the development of several residential gated communities centred around a village commercial centre and office buildings lining key avenues (which used to be the two runways of Manila’s International Airport) to link Buendia and EDSA.

First to rise was the community of Forbes Park, which became the choice relocation address for Manila’s elite who wanted to distance themselves from the decay of Manila and the middle-class projects of Quezon City. Riding the waves of suburban migration and demand, Ayala successively opened additional gated villages with similar development themes – large single family plots, club/community facilities and secure gates as selling points.F[9]F All this set a very stark contrast to the fine-grain, almost organic, grid settlements occurring in Makati’s old districts, a stark contrast that remains today and resembles Intramuros’ walled exclusionary urbanism.

Figure 13 Makati CBD and Surrounding Gated Communities - with the intersection in the foreground (EDSA and Ayala) behaving like the CBD enclave's main gate

Ayala used a combination of incentives (discounts for immediate construction) and financing plans (through their bank) to encourage settlement and purchase. As the development’s success became more and more apparent, businesses started to take hold and move in from Manila and Quezon City, eventually leading Ayala to convert their last two planned villages into office block developments, effectively creating the Philippines’ first modern, contemporary central-business district... with the area’s swampy areas belying what served as the foundations of the city’s skyscrapers – non-absorbent bedrock.

It took the Makati CBD 50 years of conscious planned effort to become what it is today: the country’s nerve centre for business, society and culture; attracting not only money but also foreign expats, artists and the country’s elite as well – and with it, further enhancing the Ayala family’s already high status in society and business to that of almost becoming the Philippines’ secular royal family – and some sources do directly link them to the Duchess of Alba in Spain.F[10]F

What’s interesting to note is, despite the further rise of the Ayalas in Philippine society, they have never engaged in politics, and have remained to be cautious and passive observers in the political scene. This phenomenon further mirrors the eventual move of true economic and urban power from the hands of government, to that of business and the private sector. But then, one argue against it by saying, power never shifted in the first place, with it still being deeply entrenched in the old Spanish and American colonial bulwarks – merely transformed and streamlined into one of the Philippines’ largest publicly listed conglomerates: Ayala Corporation – who as further indication of the privatised nature of the Philippines’ CBD, still hold and control the deeds/restrictions to all of the roads, parks and open spaces in Makati.

D.      Makati: The Hobbled Centre

Makati, despite the patina of age and success, is also not without its share of critics. Modelled like any other CBD, Makati was virtually dead at night, with majority of its working population (coming from the bedroom towns and suburbs in the region) commuting to it every morning and leaving it in a rush in the afternoon. The Philippines’ intermittent boom-bust business cycle has also considerably hobbled Makati’s growth, often leaving it in a virtual complete vacancy for previous stretches of political upheaval and economic recession. Even the CBD’s surrounding gated communities have not been spared of this kind of blight, as skyrocketing land values and living costs eventually cycle the communities from being composed largely by families, to becoming a speculator’s/landlord’s paradise of high-rent/high-price accommodations for Manila’s discerning expat community.

Although Makati has – through the injection of the 24 hour, Business-Process Outsourcing Industry and Ayala Land’s redevelopment of key projects and sites- reinvigorated itself as a booming, round-the-clock city; prospects for further growth and development, are much more limited because of how the city’s surrounding single-family gated communities were developed. On the CBD’s outskirts, strong, rigid and influential Village Associations hold control over any development within their gates... similar to New Urbanist notions of community associations, these powerful groups nostalgically limit construction and growth to that of the same typologies propagated 50 years ago – a throwback to times (that even Ayala acknowledges) wherein foresight did not go deeper than one generation, never anticipating the growth of the CBD to what it is today. This echoes the reasons for President Quezon’s move away from Manila’s fine grain toward Quezon City – new development and new money cannot take hold in areas held in stasis due to the micro-ownership of parcels (Manila), but in Makati’s case, relatively large yet underperforming tracts of land are held in stasis due to this continuing romantic notion of preserving the post-war suburban gated community. Even in the more public and un-gated “business villages” of Legazpi and Salcedo, last developed by the Ayalas as office  and residential apartment lots, the original residential road networks have hobbled the density and capacity of the area. Because these office areas were planned originally as single family residences, they have reached their saturation point with all the 8-12 storey mid-rise blocks (for some parts even higher) completely built out and jammed with pedestrians, cars and passersby. This is even made worse with the established road circulation pattern, which echoes that of suburban residential blocks, wherein the spiral of exclusion marches towards the public realm from culdesac, to local road, to main road, feeding into the major access. This creates a phenomenon of chokepoints holding back a looping procession of cars leading out during rush hour – and because the emphasis for these areas has always been security, they were often confined to one entrance and exit access point, something, inherently at odds with the multiple parallel routes offered by conventional grid patterns in other CBDs.

Figure 14 Makati's central location - one of the key factors leading to its success in establishing a centrality to the city

This, along with the lack of infrastructure connecting Makati with the rest of the Metropolis has hobbled the city and has led the market to flow like water and seek its own level. In light of all of these phenomena, the question remains, does Makati’s relative success as a planned city largely spring from the financial and business centre component that did not materialise in the original Quezon City masterplan? Surely, a host of other socio-economic factors weigh in on its success, but could it be possible to trace its evolution as Metro Manila’s centre back to the fact that, if you look at the plan of the city, it does straddle north, south, east and west and lie in the approximate middle stretch of Burnham’s critical circumferential road: C-4/EDSA?

E.      

Figure 15 - Overview Map of Metro Manila, with downtown manila to the west, ringed by EDSA which connects Quezon City to the North and Makati just south of the river, and stringed by Cubao and Ortigas areas; with EDSA (red line) terminating in the bay reclamation area south of Manila, and C-5 (Yellow Line)

The Rise of Sub-Centres and the D/evolution of EDSA

The Ayalas’ Makati development model became a shining example to other developers in the region. Family-developers such as the Ortigases, Aranetas, Sys, Tans, Lopezes, Gokongweis, Tys and even the Ayalas themselves have kickstarted similar developments - with the family names not necessarily exclusive to the landholding Spanish old- rich, but now also including the enterprising Chinese Filipino businessmen; gated suburbs and mini-business districts have sprung up along the entire length of what was originally planned to be a ring road (C-4/EDSA), effectively, a new backbone springing out from the atrophying corpse of the City Beautiful, the city’s circumferential fringe ring road as the new main street, multiplied by a factor of 10.

Succeeding high-end exclusive residential and commercial developments such as Bonifacio, Ortigas, Rockwell, nearby Eastwood, the redeveloped Cubao, booming Pioneer, and EDSA’s terminus points in the north (Trinoma) and south (Reclamation area/Mall of Asia) have reinforced this linear spine of urbanisation – effectively turning the Metro Manila region into a circumferential/linear city of exclusive, yet critical node points - far from the original Burnham plan of an aesthetic and urbane city beautiful; an ironic, if not apt, twist on history – the return to the walled enclave of Intramuros as a model, with today’s urban elite making use of exclusionary urbanism in the form of high prices, land values, parking fees and the prohibition of public transport access into their “cities” which have become nothing more than a loop of residential condominiums surrounding a high-end shopping mall –Public Space as a Commodity. Even the efforts of a few of the metropolis’ idealistic practicing urban planners to take down gates, remove restrictions and create more open/public developments are all for nought in the face of deeper and sometimes more effective exclusionary methods than physical barriers.  

C-4/EDSA as the metropolitan spine, itself has evolved to be a means of exclusion. As Ong points out: the privatisation of pedestrian public realms such as plazas and streets into malls “has also reflected itself in the privatisation and commercialisation of the City’s spine; with a strictly enforced/fined thin yellow line – the bus lane separating private cars and SUVs from the rest of the bus-riding, smoke-inhaling, commuting populace – a form of urban apartheid”F[11]F taking place in the midst of the unique giant towering urban typology of signage towers selling anything from fancy underpants promoted by impossibly good-looking Filipino mestizas and chinitas; to liposuction (also promoted by the same mixed colonial progeny) ... to fit in the fancy, expensive underpants.  

IV. Analysis / Conclusion: Post-Mortem of Unintended consequences

The fact that Daniel Burnham’s City Beautiful Plan has evolved into something totally unlike the original intention is testament to the fluid nature of cities, able to regenerate even despite a deathblow to its historic heart/core. The City Beautiful is alive in Metro Manila yet its dysfunctional result is proof of the model’s failure to anticipate and consider a myriad of other factors: socio-economic, cultural, land-ownership and sustainable growth were all seconded to the primary governing notion of neo-classical civic beauty set by Burnham. Beauty alone is not the only thing that will drive a city plan. Of course much of the blame could be attributed to the planners, architects, engineers and politicians tasked with implementing the Burnham Plan, where ideally, they could have been enablers empowering the plan to evolve and take a better life of its own; in reality, they have been hampered for a host of other reasons: lack of training, privatisation of finance, lack of private-public collaboration, war, political bickering, etc.

                Of course, one may argue that it is precisely this same city-beautiful radial plan that has allowed these new centres to grow: providing the concentric fringe roads which enable the former privately-held farmland and haciendas ringing the downtown city to become cities themselves... but this only reinforces the earlier point made about how the Plan failed to consider these socio-economic and ownership realities, failing to engage them into partnership for implementation. And like any plan, if it never bothers to talk about how get things done amongst its stakeholders, the plan is in danger of remaining exactly that: a beautiful set of drawings about a utopian city never to be.

Indeed, Metropolitan Manila has run the gamut of Urbanism moves and strategies, and has ridden the waves of market forces and changes – what else is Metro Manila to be? What are its prospects for the future? Do we nostalgically try to bring back the core through inner-city redevelopment and slum clearance? Do we do what urbanists/preservationists Paolo Alcazaren and Augusto Villalon proposeF[12]F - to relocate Makati’s financial district into the former port area just as other bay/harbour side cities have? Succeeding downtown Manila mayors have tried to rejuvenate the core, with the last iteration- Mayor Lito Atienza (a former Architecture undergrad from the University of Santo Tomas) churning out several successfully limited redevelopment projects but because of the vast contextual factors underlying these bold moves, each venture was eventually received as either just another political gimmick, or at best window-dressing and clean up for the blighted city. They simply cannot cohesively integrate nor compete with the predominant private sector corridor of EDSA.

Or do we adapt a more Koolhaasian stance, and accept these realities are part and parcel of Metro Manila’s distinct evolving urbanism? I for one feel, that instead of writing about what could have been, and complaining about how things are now, maybe it’s better to take these realities and integrate them in the planning framework and mindset, because like it or not, we cannot turn back time, and too much nostalgia is just as bad a dose of hyperreality as a trip to Disneyland or Citywalk. Instead of griping about how the city has come to be, why not come to terms with it and make use of these factors as enablers?

Makati as a privatised city is testament to how profit-centred yet responsible and magnanimous private sector entities could be used to further the cause of cities. The resiliency of Metro Manila in withstanding the ravages of war and crisis is testament to the continuing and evolving hardiness of urban conditions despite their appalling lack of services and infrastructure. Other cities such as Lagos have relatively fared well with considerably less support and even greater challenges facing them.

The current paradigm of exclusionary privatised sub-centres along a development corridor, if by any indication of history, will probably not be its terminal state, because the city as we know will continue to evolve and unfold. Current and broadening city discourse in Manila is starting to consider the possibilities of the evolution of the city into a Ulocally-enabled,  private-sector inclusive and centrally-coordinated multi-nodal urban structure, wherein each local government attempts to carve out a coopetitive niche amongst its neighboursU, by harnessing its context and empowering its business community to further build onto a metropolis that is not merely mono-centrically modelled around the old core, but distributed amongst its key nodes.

For me, the challenge of Metro Manila is exciting, and I, like my contemporaries, look forward to hopefully taking part in our own little way in writing our city’s unfolding story. Let’s see where Manila’s next chapters take us.

 

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[1]    UAlarcon, Norma; U“Philippine Architecture During Pre-Spanish and Spanish Periods”; UST Press, Manila, Philippines, 2001

[2]  En.wikipedia.org/laws_of_the_indies

[3] En.wikipedia.org/manila

[4] UGoodno, James B.; U“Burnham's Manila: a century later, the master planner's City Beautiful ideas still have meaning.” From Planning, Dec 1, 2004

[5] En.wikipedia.org/manila

[6] UEuropa, Prudencio;U “MLQ’s Quezon City: The Filipino Metropolis”; from The Filipino Reporter, Aug 24, 2005

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quezon_Memorial

[8] “McMicking, Mercedes Zobel” from page Z-99 of San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, 8 January, 2006

[9] UGuevarra, NatividadU; “Makati: An overview and a path towards a planned community”, MIT Press 1968

[10] URoxas, Mikee;U “Philippine Billionaire Family: Zobel de Ayala” from HUwww.geneology.comUH, Sept. 7, 2003

[11] UOng, Mark Denis Tan;U “EDSA: De/volution through Revolution”, from report submitted to MAUD, Oct 31,2004

[12] UAlcazaren, PaoloU; “Citysense” from Philippine Star Modern Living Section, Nov 17,2007

Attachment: UD 5221- The Story of Urbanism in Metro Manila- From Intramuros to City Beautiful and Back - FINAL.p