|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HONG
KONG
|
|
|
|
|
|
CANADA
|
|
|
|
EUROPE
|
|
|
|
USA
|
|
|
|
INDONESIA
|
|
|
|
|
SINGAPORE
|
|
|
|
|
|
THAILAND
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Philippines |
|
Before Taft Avenue
got choked |
|
Source: Inquirer |
Author: Augusto F. Villalon |
Date: 1999-05-10 |
|
|
SOON after the installation of the United States colonial
government, it commissioned Daniel Burnham, a noted Chicago
architect who became one of the most prominent American
architects of the century, to produce a master plan for the areas
of Manila outside of Intramuros. His American imprint on the
city pushed Manila into the 20th century.
Taking Paris as his inspiration and in keeping with the verdant
''City Beautiful'' planning concepts popular in the early 20th
century, Burnham proposed wide tree-lined boulevards mixed
with an abundance of open green space. Roxas (then called
Dewey) Boulevard was designed to be the city's window to
Manila Bay.
Starting at Luneta, itself a major city park that cut inland from
the seashore to end at Taft Avenue, Dewey Boulevard was
conceived as a broad tree-shaded parkway with a seaside
promenade and a wide tropical park that flanked both sides of
the road.
The major buildings of the new regime were to be the milestones
on Taft Avenue. Unlike the ones built by the previous Spanish
government, the new buildings were all civic structures that
architecturally symbolized the new order envisioned for the
country.
Taft Avenue begins at the southern bank of the Pasig,
stretching in a straight line from the foot of the graceful,
neoclassic Manila Post Office designed by the architect Juan
Arellano. The broad avenue, punctuated by government
buildings, opened the city to the south.
Distinctly Filipino flavor
The grouping of buildings on the Taft Avenue edge of the
Luneta, neoclassical in design like the Post Office, was to house
the National Museum. Across the street, the Philippine Normal
School was constructed in a style adapted from traditional
Filipino-Spanish colonial architecture.
Building in concrete (a new material introduced by the
Americans) allowed a drastic simplification of the heavy
proportions of the old bahay na bato. However, the roof still
remained steeply pitched, covered in terra-cotta tile with the
familiar generous overhangs protecting large capiz shell
windows from the tropical sun and rain.
The arrangement of the volumes and spaces, the generous use
of wood, and the detailing evoked but did not mimic the old
bahay na bato structures. It was definitely a new, 20th-century
architecture. However, the flavor was distinctly Filipino.
A few blocks away, the Philippine General Hospital had the
same look but on a larger scale. Its series of low wings shaded
by deep arcades opened into interior gardens that ventilated
and lighted the wards.
The wings connected to a central entrance pavilion, a grand
arch deeply incised into a tall, rectangular tile-roofed block,
neoclassical in inspiration and detailing but capturing the new
Filipino-American look.
Passing the vanished rotunda of San Andres southward, the
three-story De La Salle College is another tropical adaptation of
the neoclassical style.
The composition of the De La Salle facade follows the classical
composition of the traditional Italian alazzpi: a heavily detailed
ground floor, a pronounced piano nobile (main floor) above it,
followed by upper floors of shorter proportions. A gracious
central entrance portico, now covered from view by insensitive
remodeling along Taft Avenue, is the focus of the H-shaped
wings of the structure.
For maximum light and ventilation, classrooms are strung
between front and rear breezeways that have the largest
openings possible to catch the fickle tropical breeze.
American symbol
The Taft Avenue buildings of the early 20th century stood as
symbols of the American vision for the Philippines: aside from
an efficient civil service, the other hallmarks were improved
public services (the Post Office), respect for the Filipino culture
(the National Museum complex), emphasis on education
(Philippine Normal School), and improved social and welfare
services (Philippine General Hospital).
The Taft Avenue homes, on the other hand, reflected the more
open, relaxed Filipino lifestyle of the day. Unlike the solid
Intramuros houses that lined both sides of narrow streets, the
Taft Avenue house of the early 20th century was set back from
a tree-shaded street, surrounded by gardens, a large structure
with tropical high ceilings and wide openings that led to
balconies on the upper floors or to covered porches on the
ground floor. Instead of looking into itself as the old bahay na
bato did, the new houses incorporated the garden as a living
space.
Like the bahay na bato before them, the new houses adapted
western styles to suit the Filipino environment. An excellent
example is the elegant group of 1940s Art Deco homes that are
slowly disappearing from the long block between San Andres
and Vito Cruz.
At the Pasay end of Taft Avenue, the prominent architect
Tomas Mapa shifted from his neoclassical vocabulary of the
then De La Salle College. In the 1930s, he constructed his home
in the an exuberant, individualistic Filipino Art Deco style.
Barely visible from the street, the wings of the house are
gathered by a three-story domed tower embellished with
delightful, stylized Deco detailing.
Taft Avenue was conceived as the grand spine leading from the
Pasig at the heart of the city that skirts one border of
Intramuros, opens up to the Luneta and Manila Bay, circling the
Rotunda of San Andres before continuing to the far-off suburb
of Pasay. It was an acacia-lined procession through a mix of
civic architecture and the best residential architecture in the
country. What a rich urban tapestry it was.
Taft Avenue could never have been Manila's Fifth Avenue. In
its day, its urban feel was as if it was Manila's more intimately
and modestly scaled version of the Champs Elysees in Paris.
Taft was a Grand Boulevard in every sense of the word.
It had the ingredients of a great urban space: monumentality
heightened by pockets of intimacy, sweeping axial views, and
most of all, a collection of architecture which could only be
found in Manila and in no other city of the world. It was a
landmark.
Thankfully, the Burnham vision for Taft Avenue was allowed to
exist for a while, at least, until our generation finally choked Taft
with visual and environmental pollution. The avenue could
have been among the most marvelous of urban spaces that we
in Manila could have proudly shared with each other and the
world. Taft Avenue is no more.
Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Please e-mail
them to afv@skyinet.net
|
|
|
|