The American imprint on Manila

American colonial design introduced a new layer of cultural

influences over the existing Asian and Spanish colonial layers

WHEN the

Commonwealth was

proclaimed in 1935, the

American Governor

General turned over

Malacaqang to the newly

installed President of the

Philippine Commonwealth

and moved to the United

States High

Commissioner's Residence. Juan Arellano, one of the pillars of

early Philippine architecture, designed the building on Dewey

(now Roxas) Boulevard that stands on a 17.14-acre site

reclaimed from Manila Bay.

Due to its legacy as a High Commission Building, the United

States Embassy in Manila is one of the largest US Missions in

the world. The principal building is designed around a central

courtyard. Its top floor originally was a six-bedroom residence

with a private living room. The public areas on the ground floor

(library, formal dining room, and reception rooms) open out to

the spacious lawn that stretches to the seawall.

The large Embassy ballroom, enclosed by a round glass wall

overlooking Manila Bay, was the perfect setting for the

members of the Heritage Conservation Society and the Asia

Society to receive an overview and to develop a feel of the

strong American imprint on Manila.

Daniel Burnham, an American architect and urban planner who

became one of the most influential American architects of the

20th century, designed Manila's American imprint. In 1904,

Governor General Taft commissioned him to Masterplan Manila

and to design the new hill station to be built as a summer capital

in the Baguio mountains north of Manila.

Walls of Intramuros

Burnham decided not to destroy the walls of the ''Noble and

Ever Loyal City'' because the Intramuros fortifications were ''[of]

singular historic and archaeological interest, while their

imposing appearance gives them great monumental value.''

However, he recommended filling in the Intramuros moat for

sanitary reasons, transforming it into open space that

eventually was transformed into one of the few inner-city golf

courses in the world.

Taking Paris as his inspiration, Burnham's planned long radial

avenues, converging in a network of circles that expanded

Manila away from Intramuros, Binondo, and other population

centers of the Spanish era. Radial avenues developed new

urban vistas and circles required new focal points. At those

points, the new administration built monumental buildings.

The plan specified Dewey (now Roxas) Boulevard as a seaside

parkway, with wide landscaped parks on either side for the

recreation of city-bound Manileqos. Commonwealth Avenue in

Quezon City was another major parkway flanked with broad

landscaping, originally to have led to the proposed national

government center, where the Batasang Pambansa is today. The

Commonwealth Avenue plan prohibited establishments from

installing vehicular access from buildings cutting through the

long strip of parkland.

Ceremonial boulevard

Taft Avenue (named after William Howard Taft, the first

Governor General of the Philippines) served two purposes. It

not only was planned as the major north-south artery, it was

also the ceremonial boulevard of Manila where stood the major

monumental structures symbolizing the American development

plan for the Philippines focusing on infrastructure, government,

education and health.

A row of acacia trees once linked the metaphorical buildings in a

band of tropical shadow that broke into bright focus at different

points. Beginning with the Manila Post Office on the south

bank of the Pasig River, the avenue continues through Mehan

Garden, and passes beside the filled-in Intramuros moat. It

highlights the government complex (originally the Legislative,

Finance and Agriculture Buildings, now the National Museum

Complex and Department of Tourism) clustered at the Agrifina

Circle at the foot of the Luneta. From that point, an

unobstructed vista swept through the Luneta ending at Manila

Bay.

Continuing southwards on Taft Avenue, the Philippine Normal

School stands across the Legislative complex, just a few blocks

from the University of the Philippines and Philippine General

Hospital. De La Salle College and the Rizal Memorial Sports

Complex at the southern tip of Taft Avenue end the

architectural record of American colonial development, but the

avenue continues as a residential street.

Burnham upgraded the estero system into a second network

that provided water transportation and storm drainage. With

boulevards like Paris and canals like Venice, Manila was a

masterpiece of the early 20th century Beaux-Arts urban

planning style called ''City Beautiful.''

Lifestyle change

As new residential areas opened, Manila lifestyle changed. In

the old sections of the city, houses built next to each other

stood right at the edge of the street. The new subdivisions

offered sidewalks, wider streets, and generous lots where

houses could stand singly surrounded by a garden on four

sides in the American style. People moved out of the shadows

of Intramuros and other areas to the leafy sunshine of Ermita,

Malate, and Paco areas where recently laid-out infrastructure

provided well-paved roads, efficient power delivery, sewage,

clean neighborhood markets, and public schools.

A new type of house architecture evolved in the residential

areas, the chalet (pronounced tsalet). It was built in concrete,

the latest American construction technology previously

unavailable in the Philippines. Its architectural plan was uniform.

The house was usually rectangular in shape, divided

longitudinally in the interior with living and dining rooms on

one side and bedrooms on the other. It was entered through a

front porch. A two-story variation on the chalet was also

introduced, a larger house with living areas on the floor below

the bedrooms.

The chalet was introduced as a new house type that Filipinos

adapted to suit local conditions. The floor of the house was

raised a few feet off the ground, a variation on the traditional

bahay kubo. Windows were still of kapis. Traditional

ventanillas extended the window opening down to the floor.

Calado (wooden fretwork) panels topped interior partitions.

Interiors were of heavily polished dark hardwood. The house

fused Filipino and American sensibilities.

The American imprint on Manila went beyond the Burnham

plan. It introduced a new layer of cultural influences over the

existing Asian and Spanish colonial layers. The American

imprint went beyond the city, made a strong impact on the Filipino psyche, changed the lifestyle, and added another

dimension to the national identity.

Joseph Hayden, Vice-Governor of the Philippines from 1933-35,

writes at the end of his term: ''Manila has become one of the

most beautiful, healthiest, and safest cities in the Far East.''

Where are we today?