Fading Glory: Why brutalist architecture must survive?

Doctoral degree holder in architectural theory and design Caryn Paredes-Santillan tried to explain brutalist architecture in the 2021 educational primer distributed by Brutalist Pilipinas, founded by Patrick Kasingsing. According to her research, brutalism in the Western world has had many names since its emergence in Fifties Great Britain. It was a predominant style that many European countries used to reconstruct their cities after the Second World War, mainly due to its cost-efficiency. Aside from the structure’s bold silhouette of blocks, there were many other ways to determine if a structure was brutalist.

It was an act of decolonisation to eradicate the artistic and cultural influences of dominant nations. Locsin, for example, combined natural materials such as wood and stone with reinforced concrete for the National Theater. He juxtaposed the warmth of wood with cool concrete finishes, which had crushed shells to have an added lustre. In brutalism, an architect must find meaning in forms and space and convey that to the people experiencing the location. Also, those helming such brutalist building projects must know something about engineering and have adequate financial resources to construct the structure properly.

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Before Locsin, other Filipino architects had already begun imbibing tenets of modernism and post-war art deco architecture into their works. National Artist Juan Nakpil’s Quezon Hall at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus in 1950, the Capitan Luis Gonzaga building at the corner of Carriedo Street and Rizal Avenue in Manila built in 1953 by National Artist Pablo Antonio, and the National Press Club Building in Intramuros, Manila by Angel Nakpil built in 1954 were some early examples of post-war modernism.

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The Filipino architects’ expression of brutalist architecture was also characterised by their penchant for abstracting certain Filipino cultural elements like the bahay kubo. We see this in the pyramidal structure of Locsin’s National Arts Center in Mt Makiling and Felipe Mendoza’s Batasang Pambansa, built in 1978. Similarly, in Mindanao, Jorge Ramos was inspired by Maranao aesthetics and folk architecture when he designed the Zamboanga Convention Center and the Zamboanga International Airport. This “softer side” of the Philippine brutalist architecture gave it another moniker, “tropical organic architecture”. Aside from the strong, masculine materiality of each structure, we see in these architectural marvels the intention of their designers to proudly showcase Filipino cultural heritage. Another prominent figure in Filipino brutalist architecture was Gabriel Formoso, who built the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas complex and the Asian Institute of Management in 1970, as well as the old Metropolitan Museum of Manila in 1976.

Architect Paulo Alcazaren, in his 2023 article for Tatler Philippines that celebrates the enduring influence of Locsin and his surviving works, wrote, “A resurgence of interest in Filipino brutalist modernism in the last few years has highlighted the plight of mid-century modernist buildings by Locsin.” This is due to the fact that some of Locsin’s works have recently been demolished for lack of maintenance or fear of utter deterioration in the years to come. This includes the Hotel Intercontinental Manila, the first structure built along Ayala Avenue, and the aforementioned Mandarin Oriental Hotel, all of which would now remain impressed in the memory of those few who have seen them in their glory. Commercial skyscrapers from the Seventies, such as the BDO Towers (formerly the PCI Towers) on Paseo de Roxas and the Ramon Cojuangco Building on Makati Avenue, also faced similar fates. A much earlier example was the iconic Ayala Museum along Makati Avenue, which was first renovated in 2004 by Locsin’s son Andy and refurbished again at the height of the pandemic.

In his article, Alcazaren asked if the reason for its waning popularity stemmed from Filipino clients’ increased preference for foreign designers. “Have the era and image of the master architect as an artist and cultural hero become passe? Will Philippine architecture cease to exist and fail to create national identity and pride of place?” he wonders.

On the contrary, Paredes-Santillan identified some issues and challenges that brutalist architecture faces. “Firstly, because it is the architecture of the recent past, it is doubly hard for some people to recognise its importance and contributions… Second, a lot of examples of brutalist architecture were the products of totalitarian regimes or welfare states… Third, most of these buildings were built with a specific purpose in mind… Thus, careful adaptive reuse studies need to be done in order to find compatible new uses for the structure… Lastly, since the buildings were built with specific technologies in mind, they might be ill-suited to adapt to the new technologies that have since been introduced.”

Seeing the CCP Complex undergo a structural overhaul makes one hopeful for the survival of Filipino brutalist modernism. Whether it remains with its pioneering structures or in the memories of its rubbles due to the dynamism of the city’s aesthetics, brutalism will remain etched in our history as one of the significant markers in our search for national identity. Deemed soulless by many, but that is because its walls and spaces were strong and big enough to welcome and accept many people who fan the flames of the country’s appreciation of art. Its grittiness indicates the hard work of labourers who, at the height of poverty, built structures once deemed impossible to build to last a lifetime. And though some structures were witnesses to the ill-fated demise of their builders, they are monumental reminders of brute and beauty for the next generation to revere and be proud of.

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