Dream house -1960

Last week’s feature on the 1950s dream house of the Laurel family drew a lot of feedback. This week, we feature another house in a similar modern suburban style. This home was the then spanking-new residence of Mr. and Mrs. Jose Marquez-Lim. The family was moving to Wack-Wack Subdivision, close to the house featured last week. The suburban village was one of the new developments that were cropping up along the circumferential road known then as Highway 54 (today’s EDSA).

The architect of the house was Cresenciano C. de Castro. CC de Castro, as he was better known, was a popular, gifted architect who was a product of the UST and Cornell University. In the architectural world his defining projects were the original Asian Development Bank building on Roxas Boulevard (now the Department of Foreign Affairs) and the egg-shaped nuclear experimentation complex at the University of the Philippines. De Castro planned several residential subdivisions, including the Morelos Housing Project in Quezon City and the Doña Mecedes subdivisions near Commonwealth Avenue. He was also famous as a collector of vintage cars.

The house was featured in Philippine Arts and Architecture, the leading glossy design magazine in the 1960s. The magazine noted the straightforward modern lines of the seven-room split-level home, stating that “in architecture, engineering and art, simplicity in design has always been the primary objective, if not obsession of architects, builders, and artists. Only through simplicity can real beauty and utilitarian function be effectively appreciated.”

One of the main challenges of the design was the sloping site. The architect used this change in levels as an opportunity to create a dramatic design with the entrance, living and dining rooms, bedrooms, and kitchen on the upper level, with the guest and amenity rooms on the lower level opening onto the pool (a popular feature in emerging high-end “villages” of the era).

De Castro laid out the spaces in an L-shaped plan with the major upper spaces opening out onto a linear balcony. The balcony and the main leg of the “L” formed the main mass of the house, which took on the fashionable silhouette of “case study” houses — modernist boxy creations — with the de rigueur flat roofs seen in the works of American architects Neutra, Koenig, and Shindler.

De Castro provided an eight-inch concrete roof, a flat slab that had to be poured in one go, for the entire roof. Although concrete roofs were introduced earlier in the Philippines (Locsin’s dome-shaped UP chapel was an early example), this roof was innovative because it could hold a two-inch reservoir of water intended to cool the whole house in hot weather! The wide eaves also helped to mitigate any solar gain despite the generous use of glass. The builder NC Him is credited with pulling the whole complicated structure off.

Edgar Ramirez did the interior and landscape design of the house. He was tasked with merging “oriental and occidental culture in the design.” Japanese modernist motifs were popular back then, so the designers used a lot of screens and patterns in simple square geometries thoughout.

Like many up-market homes of the day, the project used material purchased through the Amon Trading Corporation (whose famous tagline was “Before you even think of buying the first nail, come to Amon.”). The terrace furniture was by Arte Español and Aguinaldo’s, who had opened a store in Cubao in the late ’50s. The fine furniture was by S. Baluyot & Company, with the bedroom furniture by Berenguer-Topacio.

The Marquez-Lim house by CC de Castro is a wonderful example of modernist western residential design adapted to the Philippine setting of the 1960s. Its use of the concrete flat roof and extensive glazing, along with the “L” plan, gave the house a streamlined look with large amounts of natural light inside.

It would be interesting to see how the structure has done over the last 50 years. Did the water-cooled roof work? Was the amount of glass and openness too much? (Pictures show a lot of drapes and curtains were used.) Did the landscape mature well? What renovations were done, if any, to conform to changing needs as the family expanded?

These are questions of interest to those who study design and suburban culture. Sociological or urban-anthropological inquiries into Filipino residential architecture and lifestyles, as they evolved over the years, should be pursued by those of us who design for current and future needs of shelter.

Not much of these post-construction insights reach today’s architects and allied designers. If Filipino design is to progress, should we not look at what we have built in the last 50 years to find out what has worked and what has not? Or will our architecture be like our politics — doomed to repeat its mistakes and perpetuate its deficiencies because we have not learned from the lessons of the past?

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