Leandro Valencia Locsin

Leandro Valencia

Jean-Claude Girard Birkhäuser

filipino architect

Leandro Valencia

filipino architect

Leandro Valencia

Jean-Claude Girard Birkhäuser

filipino architect

Table of Contents

Preface

by Bruno Marchand, EPFL Professor

11

Preamble

13

General Framework

7

15

35

Renaissance Man The Life and Disappearance of Locsin: A Final Project

Monumentality Redesigned Abstract and Far-reaching: Sculptural Buildings at the Service of a Message 38

The Question of Monumentality in the Post–World War II Period

39

Waiting for the CCP: Structural Thinking

39

Structure as Architectural Expression

43

Floating Masses, Abstraction, and Structural Continuity

43

The Forerunner of the National Theater

46

Idealization of the Roof: Two Projects

48

Abstraction and Structure

51

The National Imagination: The Origin and Rise of Nationalism

54

The Arrival of the Marcoses in Power

54

Locsin Appointed CCP Architect

55

The Site of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP): Of Reclaimed Land

57

The National Theater: A Sculpture under the Sun

61

Organic Continuity: “A Hollowed-Out Sculpture”

68

An Acropolis for Art and an Agora: Two Projects

68

Volumes under the Sun: A Museum

69

Folk Arts Theater: A Covered Agora

73

The PICC: Suspended Concrete at the Service of the Image

76

The Entrance Hall

77

Suspended Concrete

81

The Largest Hotel in the Philippines

81

A Misleading Structural Statement

83

Philippine Center for International Trade and Exhibition: A Temple for Commerce

17

The Disappearance

19

The Final Project

21

Geographic and Political Context of the Philippines

22

Major Historical Periods and Architectural Models

23

The Precolonial Period and the Vernacular Housing Model

88

Masses under the Sun: Another Museum

23

The Spanish Period (1565–1898): A Unifying Religious Power and the Importation of a Style

90

“Hollowed-Out Sculpture”

The American Period (1898–1942): The Importation of a Culture

and the Arrival of Daniel H. Burnham (1846–1912) in the Philippines

24

25

William E. Parsons: The Search for Continuity

26

The Destruction of Manila

26

Modern Architecture in the Philippines: Architects Facing Independence

28

The Influence of the Modern Movement

28

Neovernacular

28

The Post–World War II Art Scene in the Philippines: The Artists of the Philippine Art Gallery (PAG)

93

International Influences: The Learning Period From Tange to Johnson via Wright: Tradition, Classicism, and Organicism in the Philippines 95

The Trip to Japan in 1956: Tradition and Modernity

97

Japanese Thoughts: The Monterrey Apartments

100

The 1959 Trip to the United States: Philip Johnson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen, and Paul Rudolph

101

Classical Thoughts: Philip Johnson

103

Religious Buildings: Four Projects

108

Purposeful Columns

Locsin’s Entrance

113

The Colonnade in an Institutional Building

29

Life of Leandro Locsin (1928–1994) : From Negros to Manila

117

Poetic Rationality: Oscillations

30

Teachers and Training

120

Organic Thinking: Frank Lloyd Wright

Fernando Zóbel: The Mentor and the Beginning of the Collections

120

The First Hotel and the Appearance of the Exploded Plan

123

Organic Aspirations in Urban Centers

29

31

133

Development of a Language The Villas of the First Period (1958–66): Character, Design, and Materials at the Service of the Domestic Living Space

Ground Changes Design Continuity and Transition: The Relationship to the Land Redrawn

137

Place in Locsin’s Work, and the Historical Models

225

Walls Emerging from the Ground

137

The Vernacular Model and the Bahay Kubo

231

The Philippine Pavilion: An Enveloping Ode to Progress

138

The Spanish Period and the Appearance of the Bahay na Bato

241

Pure Geometric Shapes

139

The American Period and the Importation of the Tsalet Style

139

The Postwar Period and the Appearance of the Bungalow

140

Makati and the Development of Villages

140

The Methodological Classification of Residences

141

The Residential Bungalow Format: Starting Point of a Domestic Evolution

141

148

249

Vernacular Building Local Material and Style: Buildings Subject to Local Conditions

Secondary Residences: Between Traditional Style and Modern Construction

255

Buildings in Symbiosis with Their Location

263

Eaves Revisited

265

Between Vernacular Tradition and Modernity: Three Hotels

266

Large Houses: Formal Eclecticism

277

Roofs as Symbols

279

Pyramid-Shaped Projects

284

Punctuate the Landscape

251

The First Projects: Development of the Bungalow Model and the Appearance of the Patio The Influence of Japanese Architecture: Appearance of the Pitched Roof

1959–62: The Transition Period and the Disappearance of the Bungalow Format

152

Large One-Story Residences: Tripartite and Articulated Plans

152

The First Large Residence with a Tripartite Plan

153

Spatial Complexity and the Beginnings of Philippine Architecture

157

The Articulated Plan and Philippine Flexibility

291

First Chapel Project

158

The Architect’s Residence: A Pivotal Project

293

The Actors of Construction

164

The Culmination of the One-Story Plan

294

Location and Typology

164

The Exploration of a Design

299

The Construction Site and the Contribution of David Consunji

166

A Last Bungalow?

302

The Inauguration

167

Two-Story Houses

168

The Tuason Development and Japan

171

The Emergence of the Family Home and the Influence of Wright’s Prairie House

174

Articulated Floor Plans

176

Return to Classical Expression

305

An Overture to the World

309

Epilogue

by Leandro Y. Locsin Jr.

150

179

223

289

Back to the Beginning The Holy Sacrifice Chapel: A First Project

Facades in Motion Sunshades, Slopes, and Curves: Climate-Response Devices The Displacement of the Center, Makati and the Villages (1957–75)

182

Appearance of the Sunshade: The First Administrative Buildings in Makati

186

A Concrete Frame

187

Undulations

312

Bibliography

189

Catching the Light

314

Architectural Works

190

Full-Depth Facades

317

Timeline of Works

202

Eaves as the Main Motif: The Oblique in Facade

215

Inclined Facades

318

About the Author

218

Tumuli: Buildings as Tumuli

319

Acknowledgments

184

Preface

I often like to compare architectural research of a historical nature to detective work. The parallel is both amusing and enlightening: with the skill of Sherlock Holmes, the researcher must, hypotheses formulated, chase after clues and interpret them, find exhibits, spend entire nights searching through dusty archives; the objective being to obtain evidence to better grasp the facts and, ultimately, to clarify the enigma (or solve the mystery).

Even if the object of their investigations differs, researchers and detectives adopt a similar approach to obtain convincing results; in both cases such an approach implies a scientific method of investigation made up of exact observation, an assiduous search for information, the organization of data, and rigorous reasoning based on a certain knowledge.

This parallel is particularly relevant in the case of JeanClaude Girard’s research on Leandro Locsin. He has been familiar with the work of the Filipino architect for some time, but during a sabbatical stay with his family in Manila in 2013, the discovery in situ of some of Locsin’s breathtakingly radical creations had the effect of an electric shock, triggering an immediate need to know more about the originator, and about the inspiration behind such architecture.

Locsin is certainly a well-known architect, with a long career, numerous achievements, and a perfectly justified reputation, recognized by his peers and rewarded by prizes. Even though his career has been the subject of a few publications and academic studies, it is clear that no research has been based on a systematic and exhaustive examination of his office’s archive—an approach that is essential for a historical and theoretical understanding of the architect’s work and thought.

The availability of drawings, photos, models, and administrative documents, among other materials, from the Locsin family—as well as access to the library and even to some of the architect’s personal objects—allowed Jean-Claude Girard to begin work on the basis of material that was largely unpublished, consisting of a set of primary sources that had never been assembled before.

But, as is often the case, the archive is neither complete nor completely reliable, and doubts remain about the interpretation of certain documents. It is at this point that we can return to the aforementioned parallel with Sherlock Holmes. Donning his detective mantle, Jean-Claude Girard conducted an investigation to fill in these gaps: he had to find other sources, cross-check them to verify their validity, hypothetically reconstitute a more exhaustive list of works, go in search of undocumented objects, consult maps and satellite views, visit and visually appreciate the sites, photograph them, etc.—all this in order to respond to the imperatives of historical investigation: to document, to attribute, and to date.

FILIPINO ARCHITECT

7

Although fastidious, this methodical and meticulous work has notable virtues: in this case, it has brought to light new avenues of understanding and new critical perspectives, resulting in part from the confrontation of the designed and built work with remarks made by the architect at the time of conception. For Jean-Claude Girard, it was a question of tracing unknown paths and correcting or enriching existing knowledge; for Locsin’s work is complex and refers in particular to the intersection of different languages and cultures: Filipino, of course, but also Japanese and Western—above all, American.

While architects profile their production through the prism of the art and architecture of their time, it should be noted that Locsin’s generation is particularly receptive to American culture, assimilated through the assiduous reading of recognized magazines (which document the latest achievements of the masters, sometimes still at the project or construction stage), or through travel. Among the preferred destinations was the United States, the new focal point of modernity in the post–World War II period. Locsin went there in 1959.

His encounters with Philip Johnson and Eero Saarinen in New York and Detroit, Paul Rudolph’s work at Yale, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s at Taliesin West were fundamental in their impact on his work.

As Jean-Claude Girard demonstrates, this trip firmed up Locsin’s choice of reinforced concrete as a material that stands out for its potential suitability to Philippine culture. During this trip he was successively confronted with Johnson’s classicism and formalism, which he adapted to various religious or administrative buildings; with Wright’s organicism, transposed in particular in the domestic spaces program; and with Saarinen and Rudolph’s plasticity, which he interpreted with virtuosity. However, another initiatory journey must also be mentioned: the trip to Japan in 1956 and the visit to some of Kenzo Tange’s works, a moment of great introspection on the importance of tradition and the vernacular and the difficult synthesis to be made with the modernity of contemporary projects.

These influences lead us to detect an affirmed mannerist tinge in Locsin’s architecture, rooted in the work of the great masters of the first generation and some of their followers. But to proceed “in the manner of” is not limited to simply copying; on the contrary, it gives us the possibility to measure the originality of a work in relation to its model. This way of proceeding is neither systematic nor unequivocal, often assuming contradictory aspects by correlating, for example, traits of certain models with others belonging to other formal systems.

When he confronted the American form-givers, as historian Reyner Banham calls them, Locsin revealed his own sensitivity and ability to adapt the essential features of such architecture to the local, social, economic but also climatic contexts. There remain 8

LEANDRO V. LOCSIN

nagging questions that he could not—and did not want to— avoid: What is the identity of Philippine architecture, framed in an emerging hyperglobalization? What is his own cultural and artistic vision of this same identity, oscillating between extremes, the vernacular on the one hand and modernity on the other? For any architect, these questions are fundamental; for Locsin they were all the more compelling because he obtained, at a precise moment in his career, public commissions of great magnitude, which were meant to represent the predominance of political power and the affirmation of a new national and institutional collective feeling.

It is certainly important to anchor these projects and achievements in a historical and thematic understanding of the facts: throughout his work, Jean-Claude Girard has done so, revealing to us in this book new connections through chosen words that have structured his thinking as a researcher. His viewpoint has nevertheless remained that of an architect. This double profile historian/architect must be underlined here. For it is not enough to get hold of unpublished archives: one must also confront the indepth study of the material, technical, and functional characteristics of the architectural objects, with particular attention to the details, the implementation, the materials used, and their own quality. The reading of historical documents was thus accompanied by another reading, sensitive to the materialities, an approach that is always edifying and which proves fundamental in the case of the strongly plastic and tactile work of the Filipino architect.

Beyond this plasticity, diverse and complex, remains the feeling of the continuity of the work. It is forged from the same radicalism and abstraction, from the same expressive and rational minimalism, from the same care in the treatment of materials and details, and, finally, from the same exploitation of the sculptural springs of the architectural forms. As Jean-Claude Girard shows us through this book, Leandro Locsin remains today one of the most singular and fascinating architects of his generation.

Bruno Marchand, EPFL Professor Lausanne, October 2021

FILIPINO ARCHITECT

9

Preamble

This book is the follow-up to a doctoral thesis defended at the EPFL in 2018, [1] itself the result of research that began in February 2013 while my family and I were living in Manila, capital of the Philippines. It focuses on the career of Leandro Valencia Locsin (1928– 1994), an architect whose work, with few exceptions, is located mainly in the Philippines.

For analytical reasons the text of the thesis is structured according to building function and chronology of design or construction. However for the book, I’ve opted for a structure based on thematic chapters, which allows the grouping of buildings from different periods, hosting sometimes totally contrasting functions.

Thus, as the work of an architect involves permanent thematic iterations, Locsin’s work is transcribed here according to chapters whose content allows one to compare works that may appear at first sight to be unconnected. If the thesis remains the reference work in terms of cataloguing and rigorous analysis, it seems right to me to return to a structure that allows one to wander more freely through a rich and complex output, starting with the early projects in order to show the overall continuity. This makes it easier to approach a complex and multifaceted body of work and to capture the formidable creative capacity of an architect who, throughout his life, sought a new Philippine architecture.

1

Girard 2018.

FILIPINO ARCHITECT

11

← CCP Theater of Performing Arts

The National Theater: A Sculpture under the Sun CCP Theater of Performing Arts Pasay 1966

After the decision to build the CCP and the choice of Locsin as the

→

architect, not a year passed before the start of the work, showing the shortness of the deadlines in order that the theater could be inaugurated before the end of Marcos’s term of office in 1969. The precise location was dictated by the degree of humidity, which led the architect and builder to choose the only dry place to begin the work. “As a matter of fact, well in the cornerstone sometime in early 1967, we had to choose the place where it is now because that was the only dry area. I mean, the location of the building itself is there because all the rest of the reclaimed area was still under water; that was the dry area.” [36] The construction of the theater was entrusted to the company DMCI, headed by David Consunji. The building site posed no real difficulties, apart from the installation of piles which serve as the theater’s foundations. To do this, the company acquired a huge crane for pile driving purchased in the United States, which enabled the work to be completed in two months, from December 1966 to January 1967, when construction of the theater began. [37] For Locsin, the theater was an opportunity to pursue the search for monumentality capable of achieving a symbolism already explored in the 1961 Philippine American Center project.

The Theater of Performings Arts under construction

The general idea is to create a sculpture with the lights of Manila Bay as a backdrop. “You know it is really like a piece of sculpture, if it is by itself, it is a sculpture. So if you see its silhouette went against the sky especially in the sunset.” [38] To reinforce this dialogue with the landscape of the bay, the building is raised by 6.5 m, which makes it possible to limit the earthworks and to place the large hall with 2,000 seats on top and the small hall with 450 seats underneath. Two curved ramps lead visitors under a huge cantilevered portico which projects 12 m. According to several critics, including Peter Blake, the buildings of some architects of this generation enshrine an impressive sculptural capacity [39] that opens new doors to artistic creativity. In this regard, Locsin says: “At the time I was designing the theater I was obsessed with massive forms. I wanted something that was massive and yet light. The two things may sound contradictory, but I felt we could do something that would not be overbearing. I had to have a certain floating feeling.” [40] To carry the mass, curved supports are arranged every 7 m, and the profile of the columns is based on a double curve which, by their offset, gives a double-spiral profile. The supports emerge from the floor and disappear into the ceiling of the portico. The three elements—floor,

36

Locsin 1985, 12.

wall, and ceiling—merge into one, giving the visitor the impression of

37

Consunji 2004, 178.

entering the world of the theater as soon as they arrive. According to

38

Locsin 1985, 11.

the project’s chief architect, Ed Ledesma, this design is directly from the

39

Blake 1960, 118.

hand of Locsin. While presenting the cross section of the portico based

40

Polites 1977, 13. One of the theses taken up by several authors, in particular by Lico and Paredes-Santillan, is that of Klassen, for whom the main inspiration is the bahay kubo, the traditional simple wooden construction supported by stilts which lifts the house off the ground and gives it visual lightness. This thesis is debatable insofar as vernacular constructions are not concerned with aesthetics but respond to the needs and building conditions of a region or a population. On this subject, see Girard 2018.

41

on orthogonal geometries, Locsin lay down a sheet of drafting paper and began to draw the general curvature of the supports. [41]

Girard 2015a.

MONUMENTALITY REDESIGNED

CCP Theater of Performing Arts →

57

← Detail of the main stair

Organic Continuity: “A Hollowed-Out Sculpture” [42] After passing through the mass of supporting columns, the visitor enters the main hall, which is three stories tall and whose different levels are connected by escalators on one side and a staircase on the other.

These reinforced concrete load-bearing elements are treated as real sculpted pieces that give the hall area a ceremonial character in which spectators wander. The layout of the staircase is remarkable because although continuous, its design is different on each level. Echoing the exterior supports, the concrete handrails emerge from the floor and rise over four floors with varying curvatures. The reinforced concrete is finished to remove all the joints in the construction stages, giving the appearance of natural stone that contrasts with the polished stone used for the floor.

The staircase structure is also similar to the external railings in that both are made of exposed aggregate concrete. These elements, although at different locations in the project, are actually part of the same formal family. At the level of the plinth, curves also appear that soften the passage from the ground to the building, this time with a highly textured reinforced concrete surface treatment. “We used concrete, but we hand-chiseled the surface of the building to give it a texture.” [43] As in the interior, these textural effects contrast with the box suspended above the entrance, made of prefabricated concrete slabs in which shells from Manila Bay are mixed, a kind of artificial stone.

Spatiality, form, and materialization are at the service of the idea of sculpture that Locsin was looking for at that time, an inhabited sculpture whose interior organic form contrasts with the Cartesian rigor of the

42

Polites 1977, 14.

exterior, creating spaces whose movement is characterized by great

43

Joaquin 1969, 69.

spatial fluidity.

Plans and sections of the main stair

CCP Theater of Performing Arts →

MONUMENTALITY REDESIGNED

61

Large Houses: Formal Eclecticism The Davao Casino Hotel, planned to the south of the Davao Insular Hotel, is a large structure capable of accommodating about 600 rooms on a

← Davao Casino Hotel Davao City 1980

site extending from the Davao–Cotabato road to the Davao Gulf. The layout is asymmetrical H-shape in plan, with accommodation buildings on either side of the communal buildings. Rooms are distributed on either side of a central open-air atrium. The cross section shows three floors offset by one corridor width. The staggered facades create recesses accommodating growing plants, giving the rooms the impression of being immersed in vegetation and thereby breaking up the building’s substantial scale. The ground floor, one and a half times taller than the upper floors, is in direct contact with vegetation on one side and with

Section

water on the other, which Locsin brings to the foot of the buildings.

The communal buildings consist of a main floor with an enormous roof.

As in the Matabungkay project, Locsin used a vernacular reference to characterize the architecture of the central buildings. This time the direct connection is to Indonesian architecture, with the main building’s roof rising on either side of the gables, and the reception building’s roofs in several superimposed layers. [5] The general profile of the project recalls the image of a fishing village on stilts found in many coastal regions of Southeast Asia, and also the competition project for the Japanese Cultural Center (1943). The latter was submitted by the architect Maekawa Kunio in 1943 and as in his villas, it attempts to integrate traditional architecture into contemporary buildings.

However, when it came to designing the buildings for the guest rooms,

Site plan

Locsin proposed an architecture that contrasts totally with the common areas by applying a completely different style. This is characterized by continuous superimposed bands that are set back on each floor. The rooms are positioned around a central open space planted with lush vegetation that brings freshness to the interior. From a formal point of view, the peripheral buildings housing the guest rooms seem to be implanted around a preexisting hamlet, from which the neovernacular architect creates decor at the service of tourism while at the same time generating a highly eclectic project.

5

See in this regard Dawson and Gillow 1994.

Elevations

266

LEANDRO V. LOCSIN

Zamboanga Airport Zamboanga City Date unknown

→

This formalism was also evident when Locsin worked on an airport project, this time in the very south of the archipelago, on the island of Mindanao. His proximity to the Islamic culture of the south certainly influenced the design of the roof, which is based on the traditional Torajan house motif and takes the form of a boat. In this project, the question of the base is treated in the same way as in his major public buildings, namely a roof floating on an organic base. The date of the project is not known, but the representation and the principles of composition seem to place it in the period of the 1970s, because in spite of the traditional form of the roof, the abstraction sought notably by the repetition of concrete elements gives rhythm to the main space. This brings the project closer to the preoccupations present for example, in the PHILCITE. Above all, it heralded the largest of Locsin’s projects, the palace of the Sultan of Brunei, begun in 1981.

Site plan Perspective

VERNACULAR BUILDING

267

Finally, it is in his largest project, the Istana Nurul Iman in Brunei, that Locsin exploited the formal reference to local tradition. According to

← Istana Nurul Iman Brunei 1980

the architect, in 1980 he received a call from his friend Enrique Zóbel asking him if he would agree to design the new palace of the Sultan of Brunei. [6] Intended to house the Sultan’s private quarters, it should also house the new governmental functions following the proclamation of independence on January 1, 1984.

View of the main roof

A polo player, the Sultan had stayed at the Philippine Plaza Hotel— which Locsin built in the CCP compound to host the IMF conference— during a tournament in Manila. Locsin accepted the commission, and in December 1980 he presented the project plans together with a model measuring approximately 2 by 3 m. The Sultan approved the proposal and immediately set up a construction committee to meet the handover date, three years later, on December 19, 1983. The palace is envisaged as the new image of the recently independent sultanate, and its size is to reflect the country’s ability to handle large projects. Locsin, who in reality wanted to rest, had to build what would be the largest palace in the world, in three years. The dimensions alone give the magnitude of the project: the total area is about 200,000 m2, consisting of about 1,800 rooms, including a throne room with a capacity of 2,000 people and a reception hall capable of hosting dinners for more than 4,000 guests. In addition to private apartments, a mosque completes the program, together with several underground garages, the largest of which is designed for about 200 cars.

In contrast to the Kuwait City project, the palace is composed as a set of functions linked by a network of corridors, which Locsin addressed as the real challenge of the project by trying to reduce their length. He opted 268

6

Locsin 1985, 25.

LEANDRO V. LOCSIN

for a symmetrical composition whose axis connects the main entrance to the throne room, with a courtyard between the two decorated with pools. On either side are the work rooms and the mosque, while the private quarters are located at the northern end of the complex. The mix of functions is resolved by a clear differentiation, both in terms of the visual and of the material distribution. The base is made up of large platforms whose periphery comprises opaque walls that allow Locsin, as in other previous projects, to recess the window location. These elements create large horizontal cantilevers at the entrance level, which are of monumental size. This system of superimposition is also used for the private apartments, which thus adopt an identical style and are integrated into the composition of the whole.

The southwestern view is undoubtedly the most demonstrative in highlighting this superimposition of styles and shows how the palace is laid out across the site. Compared with other institutional projects, in Brunei, Locsin did not draw a base emerging from the ground in organic continuity, preferring to establish a dialogue between gigantic platforms that are separately placed on hillocks. The same principle is applied to the private apartments, but here the platforms are partially embedded in the ground, appearing to emerge from the earth before cantilevering out. [7] In some corners the ground is artificially raised to the level of the roof, demonstrating Locsin’s desire to establish a strong dialogue with nature in order to better highlight the roofs of the institutional program.

The final project is reminiscent of gigantic sculptures placed on hilltops.

The way the building interacts with the land would be reviewed again in the last infrastructure project Locsin planned.

In the background of the composition, and standing out from the mainly horizontal layout, large roofs with traditional shapes emerged to house the official ceremonial rooms. The palace is thus essentially composed of a superposition of individual volumes whose form is organic, Detail of the fountain

arranged on habitable bases consisting of less significant structures. In this respect, the design is reminiscent of some of Jørn Utzon’s buildings, such as the Sydney Opera House, which gives importance to the roofs of the halls, while other functions are installed in the base. In Locsin’s case, however, several nuances are notable, first and foremost the way in which the link is made between the two parts. Gigantic concrete piers rise from the ground to the top of the roof in the same way as the Osaka pavilion. The curved shape is repeated in the longitudinal profile, lower in the center and rising at the ends. The final image is reminiscent of traditional Indonesian roofs of the Sumatra region and in particular the rumah gadang (literally “the big house”), which serves both as the official residence of the village chief and as a place for ceremonies.

Locsin spoke of a direct application of Malaysian roofing. [8] Between vernacular tradition and modernity, the Istana Nurul Iman Palace is symptomatic of an approach that fluctuates between formalism and constructive truth. Intended as an emblematic building representing the power of the sultan, the architecture is nevertheless characterized by the landscape. Abstraction and symbolism are placed in service of a relationship to the landscape, which Locsin would draw

7

There are no photographs of this part of the building, but the model on display in the Locsin office provides an understanding of the building as a whole.

8

Locsin 1992.

VERNACULAR BUILDING

on for a good number of projects, notably religious.

View of the entrance elevation →

269

Back to the Beginning The Holy Sacrifice Chapel: A First Project

“At the age of twenty, he thought he was free

The journey through Locsin’s work shows a diversity of themes that run

from the routines and prejudices that paralyze our

through his projects without being confined to programs, places, or

actions and put blinkers on our understanding, but

periods. Far-reaching abstraction, classicism and organicism, climatic

thereafter his life was spent acquiring, bit by bit, the

adaptation and aesthetic continuity, landscape punctuation and

freedom he thought he possessed.”

vernacular tradition are not discovered in the course of commissions,

Margueritte Yourcenar [1]

but are already present and united in his first work, which he completed while still a graduate: the Holy Sacrifice chapel in Diliman.

To set the stage for Locsin’s work we began this book with the last known project in the archives. It is time to conclude this journey with the first work that brought Locsin to early international recognition at the age of 25.

First Chapel Project Don Bosco Chapel Victorias, Negros 1953

Holy Sacrifice was preceded by the Don Bosco Chapel, which was

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not built. In 1953 Locsin, still a student, was asked by Frederic Ossorio, president of Victorias Milling Corporation, to design a chapel for the Don Bosco Technical School in Victorias, Negros Occidental. This is the first project in the office archives and would have a decisive impact on the future architect’s career.

In 1947 Frederic Ossorio had already commissioned Antonin and Noémi Raymond, then living in the United States, to design a chapel for his workers in order to keep them away from Communist ideas. Antonin Raymond was a former student of Frank Lloyd Wright who had followed his teaching at Taliesin and had worked in Japan in 1919 on the Imperial Hotel project.

The Chapel of Saint Joseph the Worker is often considered the first modern religious building in the Philippines. [2] Built in reinforced concrete, it was “an opportunity for Raymond to return to his prewar conceptions of religious architecture, abandoning the mysticism that had brought him closer to Paul Claudel for the more pragmatic approach of the Dominican Father Marie-Alain Couturier […]. It is in this movement—with its desire to introduce the most recent trends into the house of God— that the Raymonds’ research in this church must be placed.” [3] Ossorio was pleasantly surprised by the success of Saint Joseph’s Chapel and decided to build a second church building, this time for the technical school campus. Locsin was commissioned by a very open-minded client who gave him complete freedom in the project’s design.

In this church, he established the principles of a new religious architecture that he was developing for his final thesis, and that he partially theorized in the unfinished text “Directions for the Building of a Church.” In this work, he emphasizes the primary purpose of the church, namely to embody the manifestation of God’s presence on Earth and in which communion with the Divine is celebrated through a series of rites, such as baptism, the Eucharist, and the preaching of the divine word, but also as a place for individual devotion. According to Locsin, these different rites must be possible within the same space and it is the task

1

Yourcenar 1968.

2

See Lico 2008, 423; and Vendredi-Auzenneau 2012 citing the article published in Life magazine in 1951.

3

Vendredi-Auzenneau 2012, 106.

4

Leandro Locsin in Villalon and Perez 1996, 15.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

of the architect “to satisfy these several purposes of the church edifice.” [4]

291

Elevation and section

Framing plan

292

LEANDRO V. LOCSIN

Locsin proposed a church characterized by a circular plan with a central altar. The pews are positioned on concentric radii that place the faithful in close proximity to the priest. This configuration calls into question the primacy of a model based on the basilica plan, which clearly defines a very strong hierarchy between the faithful and the preacher. Locsin was part of an era that saw the questioning of certain secular principles of religious architecture. Here the sense of community becomes the major issue and is accentuated by the roof. This is materialized by a dome that independently covers the altar and the assembly.

On the periphery, a covered annular space allows for easy access to the pews in a non-hierarchical manner. There is no single entrance but several ways of accessing the interior. The church is reached by four access paths that are largely defined by three nearby buildings and a campus path.

Structurally, the dome is designed with curved metal beams to which are attached secondary beams covered by what appear to be metal plates.

The planned construction is thus a standard primary-secondary-tertiary system that is assembled in stages and can be prefabricated. Peripheral walls surrounding the columns have the function of creating an interior– exterior transition that contains and delimits the celebration space.

Following the hasty departure of Frederic Ossorio to the United States for professional reasons, the project was abandoned until Locsin met Pastor John P. Delaney, who was looking for an architect to construct a new church to be located on the University of the Philippines (UP) campus in Diliman. Locsin explained the vision of the Catholic religious space that he had developed in his dissertation, and the clergyman appeared convinced, since he entrusted him with the project.

The Actors of Construction The Holy Sacrifice Chapel was Locsin’s first completed building and

Holy Sacrifice Chapel → Diliman 1955

not only marked the beginning of his architectural production but also propelled him to the forefront of Philippine and international architecture with its unexpected silhouette, structural prowess, and typological invention.

There were four key players in this success: the architect, Leandro Locsin; Jesuit Brother John P. Delaney; civil engineer Alfredo L. Juinio; and the company of David Consunji. Apart from the clergyman, who died shortly after the completion of the church, the other three would collaborate on numerous projects thereafter.

Locsin was given the mandate after explaining to Delaney his vision of a church in which the separation between the congregation of the faithful and the altar would disappear. Since these principles had been

View from the park

developed in the unrealized project of the Don Bosco Chapel in Negros, he asked Frederic Ossorio for permission to use it again. Ossorio granted the request, allowing the 1953 project to be developed and built, this

5

The company of D. M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI), was founded on December 24, 1954, and replaced David M. Consunji Civil Engineers and Contractors. It also built a large number of buildings for Locsin including the Monterrey Apartments, Tower One, and Exchange Plaza, and the Sultan’s Palace in Brunei; they would later become a major player in the development of Makati. For a complete understanding of the birth and evolution of DMCI, see Consunji 2004.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

time on the campus of the University of the Philippines in Diliman.

On May 11, 1955, Delaney presented the construction team to the Catholic community on campus. Juinio suggested that David Consunji’s company be awarded the masonry work, assuring Delaney that he was honest and capable of doing this pioneering work. [5] “The pouring 293

of the cement had to be a continuous job, an operation that lasted 24 hours! This was to avoid cold joints and leaks.” [6] The shell was poured on August 25, 1955, in one day and the church was consecrated the following year on December 20. Delaney died soon after of a heart attack, on January 12, 1956.

Holy Sacrifice Chapel was both the first reinforced concrete shell in the Philippines and the first chapel with a centered plan. It marked a turning point in Philippine architecture and is quoted extensively in books on Philippine architecture. [7] For Fernando Zóbel de Ayala, the result is the fruit of a meeting of brilliant minds working toward a common goal.

It is also a work in which different artists were called upon to intervene; Arturo Luz, for the terrazzo design of the walkway floors; Billy Abueva, for the statue of Christ; and Vicente Manansala, for the mural paintings representing the Stations of the Cross. [8] It also completely oriented the career of the young Locsin who, following this work, was entrusted with other projects, particularly those in the center of Makati.

Location and Typology Section and floor plan

For the Ossorio project in Victorias, the chapel is located at the intersection of the entrance axes of three existing buildings, and at the center of the composition. In Diliman, it is located in the middle of an empty plot, and the circular form allows for visitors to be welcomed along several pedestrian paths that wind through the grass and connect to the surrounding circular walkway. The chapel is completed by service buildings housing the sacristy and the annex rooms necessary for the functioning of the community. We can consider that the Diliman site further reinforced the concept of a circular space with multiple entrances, and that the decision not to impose a singular axis to enter the sacred place is consistent with a church that is open to dialogue with its faithful.

The circular layout shows an interesting gradation in the entrance sequence, the faithful having to pass through several layers before being able to sit in the pews. Caryn Paredes-Santillan analyzes this intermediate zone concept and describes it as a threshold that connects two spaces together, while marking a time of pause to become aware of a change of place. [9] At Diliman, this place is characterized by a ringshaped canopy, with periodic curved reinforced concrete screens. These screens support the canopy as it cantilevers out over the park, and extend inward to the level of the pillars supporting the dome. The lower headspace generates compression and clearly indicates to visitors the intermediate nature of this area. The concrete screens are obviously structural, but they also act as filters in that they provide a visual

6

David Consunji, in Guiguio 2010, 50.

boundary to the sacred space. In addition they become the support for

7

See on this subject the chapters devoted to Locsin in Klassen 1986 and Lico 2008.

8

It was Locsin who proposed that artists intervene in the major elements of the interior, a practice he would continue in many of his projects, mainly public buildings. In Diliman, these artists were at the beginning of their careers, but like Locsin, they all became National Artists, demonstrating the architect’s early ability to detect great talent.

connect the assembly of the faithful to the Divine. Locsin placed Billy

9

See Paredes-Santillan 2009.

Abueva’s statue of Christ in the dome, which, suspended in the void,

10

Originally, the Stations of the Cross were to be painted by Fernando Zóbel, who began the work only to abandon it after leaving for Spain.

murals by Vicente Manansala representing the Crucifixion. [10] Passing beneath the annular canopy, one enters a unique space covered by the dome, whose uninterrupted span of nearly 30 m shelters worshippers and priest in communion. Located 10 m above the altar, an oculus of 5 m in diameter pierces the top of the dome to bring light and symbolically

contrasts with the abstraction of the space, giving it a sacred character.

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LEANDRO V. LOCSIN

Floor plan

Site plan

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Exterior view →

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The largely unknown oeuvre of architect Leandro V. Locsin (1928—1994) embodies a search for national identity through the built environment, in the context of Philippine independence after more than 400 years of colonization. His work combines modernist inspirations with local, vernacular traditions, and comprises a total of 245 projects of which more than half were built.

Having completed his studies, in 1953 Locsin opened his architecture practice in Metro Manila, a city devastated by the aerial attacks of Allied forces maneuvering for the liberation of the Philippines from Japanese occupation. The will to reconstruct the city in a favorable political and economic climate, combined with postwar technical innovations, made it possible for him to design a wide range of projects, from private villas and hotels, to public edifices and churches.

As the first monograph of his work, this book provides a thorough investigation into an architect who found inspiration in the complex and rich heritage of the Philippines, as well as in more contemporary architectural productions.

His work transcends boundaries and offers a reinterpretation of different movements, from tropical modernism to organic architecture.

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