Essay
India and the Philippines: A Tale of Two Architectures
Left: The Secretariat Building (background) and the Palace of Assembly (foreground), Chandigarh. Right: Tanghalang Pambansa, Manila.Last January I attended the 10th edition of B+Abble, an architectural and design festival hosted by B+archan Architects (formerly Buensalido Architects). Amongst the many fruitful conversations about Filipino architecture that emerged, a recurring theme that was brought up during keynote talks, panels, and the interviews featured in the Open and Conscious book that I picked up at the event, was the discussion of foreign architects practicing in the Philippines and what that means for the pursuit of architectural identity. It was inescapable as the venue of the festival itself, the Corner House in San Juan, was of foreign origin– designed by the Bangkok based Department of Architecture and modeled after The Commons. Most people at the event are in agreement that it is now a cornerstone of an approach towards good design in the Philippines.
The thought exercise intrigued me, and I couldn’t help but draw from my experience working in and exploring the architecture of one particular country over the past year: India. There are many similarities in the narratives that shape both of our cultures, and I feel that the course of history of architecture there gives insight into the ‘what if?’ or the ‘when it ends up happening’ of the context of international architecture in the country. I was compelled to write this essay shortly after, and will be dividing it into two sections: the first explores the past 80 years of architecture in both countries, the moment in which I believe the paths diverge, and the second will explore the present implications of these divergences and what it means for a now blooming Filipino design scene.
The Past.
I see the Philippines and India as two countries which diverged from similar paths after the end of World War II. I recognize this is a vast oversimplification, but it sets the stage for how architecture developed in each respective country. While India in itself has had an arguably richer history of architecture preceding the 20th century, the architecture of the 1900s was dominated by the respective colonial powers. For the Philippines, it was the construction of neo-classical buildings that reflect the order and stability of power being projected by the United States. Think the Manila Post Office, Philippine Senate Building (now the National Museum of Fine Arts), numerous provincial capitols, and the various urban plans dreamed up by Daniel Burnham. For India, it’s an adapted indo-gothic style that dominated colonial offices across the country. See the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (formerly Victoria) train station terminus and the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai as an example.
After WWII, the two countries were left liberated after years of colonization by these western powers. Both dealing with grappling societal issues in the aftermath (for the Philippines, the utter destruction left by Japan in its wake, and for India the fallout of the partition). For the former, rebuilding as quickly as possible was the most important thing. For the latter, the birth of a new nation under crisis prompted the need for a new identity. For Indian Prime Minister Nehru at the time, that answer came in the form of an ambitious new city in the foothills of the Himalayas– Chandigarh.
I was encouraged by architect and fellow ISM Filipino Scholar Dominic Galicia to visit Chandigarh and I made it a point to do so during my second trip to India last year. At the time, I knew it as that city ‘designed’ by Le Corbusier. It was only after experiencing it for myself that I began to understand its impact on the narrative of design in India. To summarize from my previous essay about Chandigarh, it was Le Corbusier at his truest self. It was the application of all of his beliefs of what architecture should be at a time when he was the leading mind in the field, and the contribution of his expertise with reinforced concrete as a new and innovative building material.
While searching for early reviews of the Capitol Complex, I uncovered an Architectural Digest critique by Charles Correa, an Indian architect who by his own right is renowned in his practice. It was a discussion about what is now an Indian piece of architecture in India. And this is the critical point of what foreign architecture brought to India. It teaches us something because it brings something new to the table. The benefits and the mistakes. For all its faults, Chandigarh was an experiment that ultimately gave conclusions about architecture, most importantly, to the people where it is located. If the result is failure, that’s on the foreign architect. So as a result, a design environment is created where there’s an underlying incentive to deliver the best. The result is better infrastructure for all, or in the worst case, a radical lesson that serves as a springboard to design better and puts us on the map of global architectural discourse.
The grander ambitions of architecture in the Philippines came much later, during the rule of Ferdinand Marcos. It was here when the post-war architectural identity began to show itself since architecture was used as a tool to cement the Marcos’ power (see: edifice complex). The difference is that the ambition wasn’t as grand as India’s. We never really had the ambition to create a new capital (or at least, wasted the opportunity to do so) at the same scale. There weren’t any architectural experiments like India’s Auroville. At the time, the country was faced with different priorities.
We had a few key architects, most notably Leandro Locsin. His approach to brutalism in a tropical environment is of course worth celebrating, but I wonder what would have happened to the state of Filipino architecture if we didn’t have Locsin. I am continually surprised that his work isn’t as well known outside of the Philippines. The world of brutalism was fairly saturated at that point, and it was hard to compete with the likes of Le Corbusier and Niemeyer in terms of recognition and scale. But even in other circles of tropical vernacular, architects like Geoffrey Bawa are more celebrated. Why is this the case? Most likely due to the insular nature of not just our country, but how we treat architecture. When we close ourselves off, we remove our voice in international architectural discourse.
The gatekeeping of our best architecture at the time didn’t just have a global consequence, it was a local one too. When looking back at our own 20th century architecture, many of the most notable buildings were not easily accessible or designed for the general public at the time. They were luxury hotels, private government institutions, office buildings, and specialty hospitals. There’s a lack of museums, libraries, and other buildings that provided for the people rather than merely projecting power. And the very few institutions we have left standing are being and have continually been under the threat of demolition to be replaced with something newer. When we aren’t able to communicate and experience good architecture in our own country, we aren’t able to appreciate its importance and continue to build upon it.
The Present.
In the Philippines, architectural insularity has continued into the present. I am an example of that byproduct of architectural protectionism. I wanted to study architecture even before I was in highschool. Despite all this, one of the reasons why I opted to study civil engineering was because of the warning that the moment I stepped foot abroad, any architecture degree would not be recognized at home. In contrast, my civil engineering degree was recognized by the Commission on Higher Education 6 months after I graduated.
A good friend of mine, an Indian architect who graduated from the UAE with a 5 year US B.Arch degree, is able to practice in India. With a global perspective but a deep, local connection, he is able to contribute to the built environment of his home country. Still today, foreign educated architects, Filipino or otherwise, cannot practice here without repeating architecture school. Their ideas can be heard and implemented, but the hurdles that have to be jumped in order for that to happen hinders their effectiveness. That’s not to say no foreign firms have designed here– it’s just that many are in agreement that the work they deliver here is not their best. It’s still something for locals to learn from, in particular architects of record. But as Judith Torres best put in her interview in Open and Conscious, the limitations have resulted in projects in the Philippines that don't reflect their highest values or standards.
Another issue that came up in Babble and in Br. Lanyi’s book was about the notion that the public does not know what good design is, because we have yet to experience it. We have not been able to experience it to its fullest extent. And while the discourse around good design is spreading amongst fellow designers in the field, it isn’t reaching the general public at the same rate.
In India, my time in Mumbai was spent collaborating with a collective called Urbz. It was founded not by architects, but by social anthropologists. Yet, their mission is clear: to promote user generated cities, that is, cities designed by the people who live in them. Their work in Mumbai is concentrated around Dharavi Koliwada, an indigenous fishing community. Dharavi has an infamous reputation as Asia’s largest “slum”, but the fishing community had its roots in the banks of the Mithi River long when Mumbai was a series of 7 islands. The Filipino equivalent is Tondo: imagine that the families that fished the Manila Bay stayed in the same settlement for hundreds of years, and the sprawl of the city encroached and surrounded it.
Urbz’s methodology always involves the community of the Koliwada directly. They host workshops called “urban typhoons” where members of the community come together to voice their concerns and aspirations for their built environment. They are intertwined with the Koli Jamat Trust (the equivalent of a Barangay) for their projects. Occasionally, they let a group of NYU Abu Dhabi engineers have a go at solving the community’s pressing design challenges. The collective was sparked by a collaboration between an Indian and a Swiss, and their collective has now grown to offices in Paris, Geneva, and Bogota. While I was there, I had the honor of learning about the Dharavi Koliwada community and contributing to their infrastructure. I met several members of the Koliwada that were surprised and grateful that non-Indians were having engaging discussions and working to improve their community. Importantly, I was able to make connections to the many similarities and subtle differences between Koliwada and Barangay life that I will continue to take with me while I evolve as a designer.
The Future.
The analogies I make here are in no means perfect. India is ten times larger (in area and in population) than the Philippines. The result is more opportunities and places to practice in, but also a larger pool of designers. But my experience is a perspective that I hope provides some insight into architectural communication in another corner of the world. I do think we’re lacking an organization like Urbz in the Philippines, or at least the same level of excitement to champion good design. Don’t get me wrong, I love the developments of architectural discourse in the field of architecture, but beyond our field it seldom exists. How can the public engage in what it wants if that discourse does not exist? The difference that I see between both countries is that India has been more open to receiving design in general. The past decades of receiving revolutionary architects of the time has developed a culture that is more open to critiquing and advocating for what design means and what it can do. But after the discussions I engaged with at B+Abble, I think the Philippines is on that trajectory now. And that trajectory seems exponential. I’m excited about that future, and the potential of being able to contribute more towards those meaningful conversations and projects that will define what Filipino design will be– something for all.
The thought exercise intrigued me, and I couldn’t help but draw from my experience working in and exploring the architecture of one particular country over the past year: India. There are many similarities in the narratives that shape both of our cultures, and I feel that the course of history of architecture there gives insight into the ‘what if?’ or the ‘when it ends up happening’ of the context of international architecture in the country. I was compelled to write this essay shortly after, and will be dividing it into two sections: the first explores the past 80 years of architecture in both countries, the moment in which I believe the paths diverge, and the second will explore the present implications of these divergences and what it means for a now blooming Filipino design scene.
The Past.
I see the Philippines and India as two countries which diverged from similar paths after the end of World War II. I recognize this is a vast oversimplification, but it sets the stage for how architecture developed in each respective country. While India in itself has had an arguably richer history of architecture preceding the 20th century, the architecture of the 1900s was dominated by the respective colonial powers. For the Philippines, it was the construction of neo-classical buildings that reflect the order and stability of power being projected by the United States. Think the Manila Post Office, Philippine Senate Building (now the National Museum of Fine Arts), numerous provincial capitols, and the various urban plans dreamed up by Daniel Burnham. For India, it’s an adapted indo-gothic style that dominated colonial offices across the country. See the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (formerly Victoria) train station terminus and the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai as an example.
After WWII, the two countries were left liberated after years of colonization by these western powers. Both dealing with grappling societal issues in the aftermath (for the Philippines, the utter destruction left by Japan in its wake, and for India the fallout of the partition). For the former, rebuilding as quickly as possible was the most important thing. For the latter, the birth of a new nation under crisis prompted the need for a new identity. For Indian Prime Minister Nehru at the time, that answer came in the form of an ambitious new city in the foothills of the Himalayas– Chandigarh.
I was encouraged by architect and fellow ISM Filipino Scholar Dominic Galicia to visit Chandigarh and I made it a point to do so during my second trip to India last year. At the time, I knew it as that city ‘designed’ by Le Corbusier. It was only after experiencing it for myself that I began to understand its impact on the narrative of design in India. To summarize from my previous essay about Chandigarh, it was Le Corbusier at his truest self. It was the application of all of his beliefs of what architecture should be at a time when he was the leading mind in the field, and the contribution of his expertise with reinforced concrete as a new and innovative building material.
While searching for early reviews of the Capitol Complex, I uncovered an Architectural Digest critique by Charles Correa, an Indian architect who by his own right is renowned in his practice. It was a discussion about what is now an Indian piece of architecture in India. And this is the critical point of what foreign architecture brought to India. It teaches us something because it brings something new to the table. The benefits and the mistakes. For all its faults, Chandigarh was an experiment that ultimately gave conclusions about architecture, most importantly, to the people where it is located. If the result is failure, that’s on the foreign architect. So as a result, a design environment is created where there’s an underlying incentive to deliver the best. The result is better infrastructure for all, or in the worst case, a radical lesson that serves as a springboard to design better and puts us on the map of global architectural discourse.
The grander ambitions of architecture in the Philippines came much later, during the rule of Ferdinand Marcos. It was here when the post-war architectural identity began to show itself since architecture was used as a tool to cement the Marcos’ power (see: edifice complex). The difference is that the ambition wasn’t as grand as India’s. We never really had the ambition to create a new capital (or at least, wasted the opportunity to do so) at the same scale. There weren’t any architectural experiments like India’s Auroville. At the time, the country was faced with different priorities.
We had a few key architects, most notably Leandro Locsin. His approach to brutalism in a tropical environment is of course worth celebrating, but I wonder what would have happened to the state of Filipino architecture if we didn’t have Locsin. I am continually surprised that his work isn’t as well known outside of the Philippines. The world of brutalism was fairly saturated at that point, and it was hard to compete with the likes of Le Corbusier and Niemeyer in terms of recognition and scale. But even in other circles of tropical vernacular, architects like Geoffrey Bawa are more celebrated. Why is this the case? Most likely due to the insular nature of not just our country, but how we treat architecture. When we close ourselves off, we remove our voice in international architectural discourse.
The gatekeeping of our best architecture at the time didn’t just have a global consequence, it was a local one too. When looking back at our own 20th century architecture, many of the most notable buildings were not easily accessible or designed for the general public at the time. They were luxury hotels, private government institutions, office buildings, and specialty hospitals. There’s a lack of museums, libraries, and other buildings that provided for the people rather than merely projecting power. And the very few institutions we have left standing are being and have continually been under the threat of demolition to be replaced with something newer. When we aren’t able to communicate and experience good architecture in our own country, we aren’t able to appreciate its importance and continue to build upon it.
The Present.
In the Philippines, architectural insularity has continued into the present. I am an example of that byproduct of architectural protectionism. I wanted to study architecture even before I was in highschool. Despite all this, one of the reasons why I opted to study civil engineering was because of the warning that the moment I stepped foot abroad, any architecture degree would not be recognized at home. In contrast, my civil engineering degree was recognized by the Commission on Higher Education 6 months after I graduated.
A good friend of mine, an Indian architect who graduated from the UAE with a 5 year US B.Arch degree, is able to practice in India. With a global perspective but a deep, local connection, he is able to contribute to the built environment of his home country. Still today, foreign educated architects, Filipino or otherwise, cannot practice here without repeating architecture school. Their ideas can be heard and implemented, but the hurdles that have to be jumped in order for that to happen hinders their effectiveness. That’s not to say no foreign firms have designed here– it’s just that many are in agreement that the work they deliver here is not their best. It’s still something for locals to learn from, in particular architects of record. But as Judith Torres best put in her interview in Open and Conscious, the limitations have resulted in projects in the Philippines that don't reflect their highest values or standards.
Another issue that came up in Babble and in Br. Lanyi’s book was about the notion that the public does not know what good design is, because we have yet to experience it. We have not been able to experience it to its fullest extent. And while the discourse around good design is spreading amongst fellow designers in the field, it isn’t reaching the general public at the same rate.
In India, my time in Mumbai was spent collaborating with a collective called Urbz. It was founded not by architects, but by social anthropologists. Yet, their mission is clear: to promote user generated cities, that is, cities designed by the people who live in them. Their work in Mumbai is concentrated around Dharavi Koliwada, an indigenous fishing community. Dharavi has an infamous reputation as Asia’s largest “slum”, but the fishing community had its roots in the banks of the Mithi River long when Mumbai was a series of 7 islands. The Filipino equivalent is Tondo: imagine that the families that fished the Manila Bay stayed in the same settlement for hundreds of years, and the sprawl of the city encroached and surrounded it.
Urbz’s methodology always involves the community of the Koliwada directly. They host workshops called “urban typhoons” where members of the community come together to voice their concerns and aspirations for their built environment. They are intertwined with the Koli Jamat Trust (the equivalent of a Barangay) for their projects. Occasionally, they let a group of NYU Abu Dhabi engineers have a go at solving the community’s pressing design challenges. The collective was sparked by a collaboration between an Indian and a Swiss, and their collective has now grown to offices in Paris, Geneva, and Bogota. While I was there, I had the honor of learning about the Dharavi Koliwada community and contributing to their infrastructure. I met several members of the Koliwada that were surprised and grateful that non-Indians were having engaging discussions and working to improve their community. Importantly, I was able to make connections to the many similarities and subtle differences between Koliwada and Barangay life that I will continue to take with me while I evolve as a designer.
The Future.
The analogies I make here are in no means perfect. India is ten times larger (in area and in population) than the Philippines. The result is more opportunities and places to practice in, but also a larger pool of designers. But my experience is a perspective that I hope provides some insight into architectural communication in another corner of the world. I do think we’re lacking an organization like Urbz in the Philippines, or at least the same level of excitement to champion good design. Don’t get me wrong, I love the developments of architectural discourse in the field of architecture, but beyond our field it seldom exists. How can the public engage in what it wants if that discourse does not exist? The difference that I see between both countries is that India has been more open to receiving design in general. The past decades of receiving revolutionary architects of the time has developed a culture that is more open to critiquing and advocating for what design means and what it can do. But after the discussions I engaged with at B+Abble, I think the Philippines is on that trajectory now. And that trajectory seems exponential. I’m excited about that future, and the potential of being able to contribute more towards those meaningful conversations and projects that will define what Filipino design will be– something for all.
More Writings: