Dream Home-1957: Hans & Chona Kasten's 'pagoda' house

Last week’s “dream home” article was well received, so it looks like we’re on a dream roll. There is nothing bad with having too much of a good thing, or too much nostalgia, so this week we take another trip to the past with a 1950s residential masterpiece by architect Pablo Antonio Sr., another National Artist for Architecture.

The house featured this week is also in Forbes Park, which by the late ‘50s had almost completely been sold out — indicating the success of the pioneering Ayala venture. Hans and Chona Kasten were the young couple looking to build their fantasy palace in this fancy new suburb.

A Sunday Times magazine article, dated March 3, 1957, featured the Kastens’ story on building the house. The site selection was interesting. The south portion of Forbes, and Pili Street in particular, was the last section to be sold because of its proximity to the American Cemetery. Most buyers did not like the fact that the memorial grounds were nearby.

But the Kastens did not mind. They said, “Actually, we don’t see anything of the cemetery except when we look out from the second-floor terrace. This one is not like other cemeteries. It has lots of trees and neat white crosses and the view, far from being scary, seems to us very peaceful and soothing.”

Eventually the Kastens planted large trees in front, as seen in photos of the house that I took two years ago (in 2007) on its golden anniversary. The trees were meant to buffer the house from the street as Pili Avenue filled up with large homes.

The Kastens wanted an Oriental house. This was for the very specific reason that it had to “harmonize with the collection of Oriental antiques that we have. We did not want to live in any kind of museum — far from it, but at the same time we wanted a place where we could enjoy our Chinoiserie from day to day.”

The couple retained the services of Pablo Antonio Sr., who had his work cut out for him. Noted the Kastens: “…from the very beginning we tied him up — with the rope of our own very definitive ideas.” The house’s distinctive pagoda roof is a testimony to the couple’s design parameters and its silhouette is unlike any of Antonio’s other houses.

A curving driveway leads to a full canopy with a curved reinforced concrete flat roof mimicking the main tiled roof (imported from Japan). The Chinese red front door is angled perpendicular to the driveway, probably for feng shui. The door itself had the creative innovation of a centrally located knob — attached with a large brass plate and Thai temple trimmings.

Another surprise greeted visitors as they entered the vestibule. The Kastens had their architect design a plate-glass bridge, one-by-one-and-a-half-meter wide, over a pond. Said Chona, “It was a little intimidating to some. But mostly it adds both drama and comedy to our parties and serves as a good ice breaker, besides.”

The design of the house was environmentally sound, years before it was fashionable. The Kastens had several lily ponds built because they were “great believers in the cooling effects of moving water.” They also had Antonio put patios and terraces all around the house because they wanted to “condition” the house to nature. Originally, no air-conditioning was required in the house.

The front façade sports a large geometric window. This is the Chinese symbol for good fortune. Inside, a large moon gate arch leads from the living to the dining room. These two architectural elements plus the pagoda roof and ornamentation led people to think the house was Chinese. The Kastens, however, emphasized that theirs was an Asian house — with “bells from India, oil lamps from Damascus, a rug from Persia, carved panels from Bangkok, lamps from Japan, dueling shields from Syria …and brass bowls from ‘Morolandia.’”

I had passed by this house on visits to Forbes Park over the years. I did not know about the owners or its history until I came across this old article. I managed to take pictures of the house two years ago, as I mentioned. This was to document it as a work of National Artist for Architecture Pablo Antonio Sr. Earlier this year, I was saddened to find out that the property had been sold and that the house was demolished.

Houses are not the most permanent of our architectural heritage. Few survive the ravages of time. Residential enclaves like Forbes Park are no exception. Older districts like San Miguel, Sta. Ana and Sampaloc are examples of what happens when the city grows and changes.

We are lucky to have a number of houses survive from each generation and era. Even more recent constructions from the ‘70s and ‘80s must be documented and studied — at least by academe. These houses from each decade of the 20th century reflect changes in society and our lifestyles.

The changing styles and facades, internal spaces, sizes and types of rooms indicate our transition to modern lives in a Philippine setting. Cultural resistance, acceptance or adaptation is seen in the appearance in the ‘60s and ‘70s of clean and “dirty” kitchens, romper rooms, and family rooms with small chapels or prayer nooks and dens for the men.

More recent add-ons are spaces like computer rooms, laundry rooms (when in the recent past all laundry was done by hand) and now yoga corners. Gone with changing technology and mores are telephone tables, love seats and peepholes for parents to spy on those who came to court their daughters.

The Oriental influence on our architecture has become more politically correct. The Orient is a western invention from more colonial times. Modern Filipino architecture is oriented now more frequently to local (or at least Asian) materials and local talent. There are, however, the remnants of our colonial mentality with themed villages and residential enclaves spanning from low-end Disneyland housing (cartoons of what houses should be) to McMansions for the rich. We still see a lot of what someone termed ‘Medyoterranean’ (mukhang Mediterranean pero nasa Batangas), or those that look Japanese, Malaysian, Singaporean, French or Italian. A new housing tract outside Manila is reportedly being named C’est la Vie-lage.

Life is how we chose to live it …and where we chose to live it in. The Filipino dream for shelter is one that will remain unreachable for close to a third of all Filipinos. Our production of social housing lags unquestionably behind our booming population. Instead of building houses for our citizens our government officials choose to have fancy meals, travel abroad, broadcast infomercials and shop for jets.

The choice for many is to jet away to shores that provide basic needs or decent wages to send back home, to build the houses government fails to deliver. Maybe the important choice we have to make will come next year as we choose those who will lead us in the institutional “lower and upper” houses of Congress and the Senate.

We will also have to choose, as well, the person who will live in that mansion by the Pasig, a house of many dreams, unfortunately inclined to become one of profligate corruption. Well, we can still dream that that will not happen. Otherwise, to quote part of a movie title by a newly proclaimed (dagdag) National Artist, “God have mercy on us.”