Photographs and memories of old Manila

It’s frightening to realize that Christmas is just four weeks away. It’s PANIC time — if you haven’t made a list or checked it twice, if you’ve been naughty and too busy to be nice to the 500 people you have to get Christmas gifts for.

I panicked last Sunday and headed for the Makati Sports Club Christmas Bazaar but for different reasons. A good architect friend of mine, Amy de la Paz, called me up that morning to let me know that she was at the club where she noticed people milling around a table full of old photographs of Manila. 

I motored over there with the missus faster than you could say “archival images of old Philippine architecture.” As Twink quickly disappeared into the main ballroom where the frenzy was, I parked myself at the table with the sign “Photographs of Teodolo Protomartir.” I was stuck there for the next hour and a half looking at hundreds of prints.

The name of the photographer was familiar because I knew about an architect with that name. Architect Protomartir was associated for the longest time with the University of Santo Tomas and with architect Carlos Arguelles. The photographer turned out to be his brother, who passed away in 1987 after decades of work as a photographer for major dailies and magazines. His work is fascinating as it documents Manila’s urban history in the pre- and postwar years.

I chose 24 images, of which only five are reproduced here. This sampling of Protomartir’s work reflects different stages of the city’s physical development and its socio-political history as well.

The first image is that of the Insular Ice Plant. The ice factory was one of the first modern facilities the Americans built. They, of course, had to keep their beer and steaks chilled and fresh. The plant, which stood between the Quezon and Sta. Ana (McArthur) bridges, was so important that it lasted past the war and was only demolished to make way for the first LRT in the early 1980s.

The second image is also named Insular and is that of the Insular Life building on Plaza Cervantes. The six-story structure was marked with a spire topped by an American eagle. It was considered a skyscraper then and was an imposing Neoclassic structure, a style prevalent at the time. The insurance company moved to Makati in the 1960s taking with it the eagle (relocated to the new lobby). The company has since moved again to Alabang.

The third image is that of unidentified church ruins (I have yet to reference it against my archives) in Intramuros. Contrary to what most people know, the destruction of Intramuros was not complete. Apparently a lot of the church facades and some sidewalls were left standing. The ruins stood until the mid-1950s and seemed to have disappeared later in the decade as plans were afoot to modernize the old Walled City. It is a shame that we were not able to reconstruct or conserve these precious remains — just as Macau did with its St. Paul Cathedral.

The fourth image is not familiar to modern Manilans. It is of the Quirino Grandstand with a formation of the Philippine Air Force’s Blue Diamonds flying by. The image is not recognizable because the grandstand still had the grand ceremonial portal standing behind it, which was demolished in the early Sixties leaving the more familiar curved roof silhouette. I would have been able to date the picture more accurately if I could make out the type of airplanes the Blue Diamonds used — though they look like F-86 Sabre jets with wingtip tanks.

The last image is that of the Rizal monument with unfamiliar structures and landscape in the background. The unfamiliar pointed archway was the entrance to the 1953 Manila World’s Fair designed by architect Otillio Arellano. The dome behind it was the pavilion of the Catholic Church. The fair was a huge success and showed how much headway the country was making in its recovery from the war. The strange landscape background that looks like mountains are, in fact, the Antipolo hills. The air in Manila was so clean then that there was little atmospheric haze that reduces our visibility today.

Also there were much fewer billboards too to block views.)

It is important to gather all this evidence of our urban past. Photographs like Protomartir’s from the last century document our physical evolution as an urban nation. The images show our proud architecture from previous eras — much of which is gone forever along with the stories they held. Pictures are really worth a thousand words and these help write our immediate cultural history so we can peg our progress or more likely  our descent into metropolitan blight and the corruption that pervades our polluted air.

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From saving pictures to saving the precious and  picturesque, the ICOMOS National Committee Philippines invites architects, landscape architects, urban planners, archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, tourism professionals, lawyers, and other professionals involved in the heritage conservation profession to an international meet from Dec. 2 to 8 in Banaue, Ifugao Province. “Protecting the Endangered Traditional Landscapes” will feature respected heritage specialists from Italy, Finland, France, Germany, Macedonia, United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Japan and Korea. For more information contact Augusto Villalón, chairman of ICOMOS National Committee Philippines at 816-6560, fax 8193-203, or e-mail icomos.ph@gmail.com.

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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.