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The flowering
of colonial church architecture was a significant event in the history
of the Philippines. Geographic location, climate, materials, and the spontaneous
and improvisational attitude of the Filipinos created a kind of architecture
that was unique from Western architectural idioms. The result may not be
correct from a Western's point of view, but the indigenized styles are
correct in their own setting. The churches hardly impersonate European
or Mexican models; instead, they seem to charm each other.
 Sacred Homes
of the Ekklesia:
The Colonial Churches of the Philippines As
a recipient of a travel research scholarship from the School of Architecture
at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1995, I had a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to travel across the Philippine archipelago and visited some
of its renown colonial churches. The research scholarship was a culmination
of my fundamental curiosity towards Philippine culture and architecture--an
interest that matured into a mission of inquiry while in the School of
Architecture. To finally see such wonderful Spanish colonial churches in
their own unassuming settings; to experience their aura; and to touch with
my bare hands living monuments of a charged bygone era was an experience
that can 't be described in tangible terms.
My travel research topic traces back in 1989 when I visited an old colonial church in Paoay in the northern province of the Philippines. Although I was not yet in the School of Architecture at the time and was not quite familiar with the idioms of church architecture, I remember being dazzled by the church's enormous solid buttresses and wondered about their architectural significance. I also sensed something special about the church, maybe the way it stood proudly as a witness to the Filipino culture, or maybe because it evoked an architectural language that I had yet to learn. |
