The architecture of the Philippines reflects the historical and cultural traditions in the country. Most prominent historic structures in the archipelago are influenced by Austronesian and American architectures.
During three hundred thirty years of Spanish colonization, the Philippine architecture was dominated by the Spanish influences. The Augustinian friars, along with other religious orders, built many grand churches and cathedrals all over the Philippine Islands. During this period the traditional Filipino Bahay na bató (Filipino for "house of stone") style for the large houses emerged. These were large houses built of stone and wood combining Filipino, Spanish and Chinese style elements.
After the Philippines was ceded to the United States as a consequence of the Spanish–American War in 1898, the architecture of the Philippines was influenced by American aesthetics. In this period, the plan for the modern City of Manila was designed, with many neoclassical architecture and art deco buildings by famous American and Filipino architects. During World War II, large portions of Intramuros and Manila were destroyed; many heritage districts in the provinces were burned down by the Japanese before the end of the war. In the reconstruction period after the Second World War, many of the destroyed buildings were rebuilt, however, a majority of heritage structures, especially in the provinces, were lost and never rebuilt. Most of the structures that were lost are considered focal properties of former heritage towns.
In the late 20th century, modern architecture with straight lines and functional aspects was introduced, particularly in the Brutalist architecture that characterized government-built structures done in the Marcos period. During this period many of the older structures fell into decay due to the imposition of martial law. After the return of democracy in 1986, a new age of Philippine architecture came into focus through modernism. Early in the 21st century, a revival of the respect for the traditional Filipino elements in the architecture returned.
There have been proposals to establish a policy where each municipality and city will have an ordinance mandating all constructions and reconstructions within such territory to be inclined with the municipality or city's architecture and landscaping styles to preserve and conserve the country's dying heritage sites, which have been demolished one at a time in a fast pace due to urbanization, culturally-irresponsible development, and lack of towns-cape architectural vision.
The proposal advocates for the usage and reinterpretations of indigenous, colonial, and modern architectural and landscaping styles that are prevalent or used to be prevalent in a given city or municipality. The proposal aims to foster a renaissance in Philippine landscaping and townscaping, especially in rural areas which can easily be transformed into new architectural heritage towns within a 50-year time frame. Unfortunately, many Philippine-based architecture and engineering experts lack the sense of preserving heritage townscapes, such as the case in Manila, where business proposals to construct structures that are not inclined with Manila's architectural styles have been continuously accepted and constructed by such experts, effectively destroying Manila's architectural townscape one building at a time. Only the city of Vigan has an ordinance on architectural policy, which led to its declaration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 and awarding of various recognition for the conservation and preservation of its unique architectural and landscaping styles.
To help establish a national architectural policy, bills to establish a Department of Culture were filed in the Senate and House of Representatives in 2016.[1] [2]
Varying Austronesian architecture existed althroughout Southeast asia including what would later become the Philippines. These varying styles exist within different Austronesian ethnic groups but what they have in common is the used of organic materials, Thatch roofings and are often raised above by posts or stilts to avoid floods.
See also: Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras.
For years the mountainous province of Ifugao have been carefully cultivated with terraced fields.[3] [4] [5] These rice terraces illustrate the ability of human culture to adapt to new social and climate pressures as well as to implement and develop new ideas and technologies. They also epitomize a harmonic, sustainable relationship between humans and their environment. The structures' original builders used stone and mud walls to carefully carve and construct terraces that could hold flooded pond fields for the cultivation of rice. They also established a system to water these plots by harvesting water from mountaintop forests. These engineering feats were done by hand as was the farming itself.[6]
Maintenance of the rice terraces reflects a primarily cooperative approach of the whole community which is based on detailed knowledge of the rich diversity of biological resources existing in the Ifugao agro-ecosystem, a finely tuned annual system respecting lunar cycles, zoning and planning, extensive soil conservation, and mastery of a complex pest control regime based on the processing of a variety of herbs, accompanied by religious rituals and tribal culture.[7]
Although popularly known as and listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site believed to be older than 2,000 years,[8] recent research suggests that the terraces may in fact be approximately 400 years old.[9] [10]
The torogan is the traditional palace of the Maranao royalty in Lanao, Mindanao.[11] A torogan was a symbol of high social status. Such a residence was once a home to a sultan or datu in the Maranao community. Nowadays, concrete houses are found all over Maranao communities, but there remain torogans a hundred years old. The best-known are in Dayawan and Marawi. A torogan is elevated above the ground by columns cut from trees of huge girth. Its walls are covered with plywood sticks and the roof thatched with dried coconut leaves. There is no interior partition, so it appears as a huge hall. Apart from the basic elements of this structure, it is intricately engraved with flowing okir geometrical and foliage motifs. A torogan is not complete without the legendary bird sarimanok being displayed inside. Furniture is also common among Maranaws.
The architecture of the early Filipinos are also reflected in the historical military structures in the country. There was often competition in trade between the thalassocratic states in the archipelago. Neighboring kingdoms would often wage wars against one another to gain control of trade and territory. Fortifications were then necessary to keep their subjects and interests protected. Due to foreign attacks and colonization, only a few of these fortresses physically remain. However, many cities in the country, such as Manila, were built on the basis of fortifications that predated the colony.
During the colonization of the Philippines, fortifications were also built by the foreign powers to assert political control in the islands. The Spanish, for example, made use of their forts against attacks from Chinese and Moro pirates, as well as the Dutch and the British. These forts were made almost entirely of stone; hence some of them have survived numerous wars and are still standing to this day.
The surviving attested forms of fortifications in the country before colonization were the kuta (stronghold) and moog (tower). The word kuta is cognate with the Malay kota which has the modern meaning "city". In addition to its military uses, it also served as a palace for the local lord. These structures were usually made of stone and wood and were surrounded by trench networks.
Kuta were notably used by Muslims for defense against foreign invaders. It is said that the Maguindanao Sultanate, at the height of their power, blanketed the area around Western Mindanao with such fortifications to prevent the Spanish from advancing into the region. However, the sultanate was eventually subdued after further Spanish campaigns in the region and majority of the kuta were dismantled. During the American occupation, insurgents still built strongholds and the sultans often had these reinforced. Many of these forts were destroyed during American attacks, which is why very few have survived to this day.
Notable kuta:
The Igorot built forts made of stone walls that averaged several meters in width and about two to three times the width in height around 2000 BC.[14]
See main article: Ivatan people and Idjang. Fortifications for wartime purposes were also built by the Ivatan in the islands of Batanes. They built idjang which were a type of citadel on hills and elevated areas. These structures were designed so that the entrance was only accessible by the use of rope ladder which was only lowered for villagers to the disadvantage of the enemies.
Prior to the usage of the common Islamic mosque architecture, which can also be seen in Arabia and modern architecture, the vernacular mosques of the Philippines used to be the hut-style and the pagoda-style, which were very common until the late 19th century. Most of the mosques in the Philippines today have common Islamic architectures imported from Arabia merged with modern style, though some vernacular pagoda-style mosques can still be seen in Mindanao such as the Masjid Datu Untong Balabaran of Taviran in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte. There have been proposals to put the Heritage Mosques of the Philippines into the Philippine tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage Site declaration in the future. The proposals made were to input the historic mosques of the Philippines (mosque in Simunul), to input the vernacular mosques of the Philippines (langga/rangga-style and pagoda-style mosques), or to combine both and input them in the tentative list of UNESCO.[15]
The arrival of the Spaniards during the late renaissance in 1571 brought in European colonial architecture to the Philippines specifically what was popular at that time which was the Renaissance architecture and what was then emerging Baroque architecture. Together with the local tradition of constructions it created Christian lowland architectural traditions.
See main article: Nipa hut.
Developed by the exchange of ideas within different ethnic groups of the christian lowland Filipino population from ancestral knowledge originated from the prehispanic Austronesian architecture, it integrated with the new Christianized lifestyle of Spanish governance. Houses were built in a more or less similar manner, in the same way that the settlements were built beside rivers and streams. The houses were built near rice fields and coconut groves and orchards. The houses sit on posts raised above the ground. The rooms were small, and generally, with a single multipurpose room, having only the cooking space differentiated among the areas in the houses. There is a particular architectural piece called batalan that is often situated in the rear part of the house, and is utilized for domestic work like washing, bathing, water storage, etc. The houses were made of raw material like wood and bamboo. Tree houses or houses built on trunk of trees rooted to the grounds were seen as an advantageous position.
The doors of the houses were usually oriented to the direction where the sun rises and never faced towards the west, an architectural tradition which can be explained by the values and belief systems that early inhabitants of the land have.
Tools allowed for the fabrication of tent-like shelters and tree houses. These houses were characterized by rectangular structures elevated on stilt foundations and covered by voluminous thatched roofs ornamented with gable-finials and its structure could be lifted as a whole and carried to a new site.