The SPOT.ph Guide to The Most Beautiful Art Deco Buildings in Manila

(SPOT.ph) You’ve likely spotted the style and just didn’t know what to call it. Seen its distinguishing marks in old buildings and homes: the geometric shapes, the streamlined curves, the sunbursts and zigzags. Its most popular features may have caught your fancy in architectural icons abroad, as in the starbursts and luxurious metallic touches of the Empire State Building in New York, dubbed as the world’s most magnificent Art Deco skyscraper. In movies, the aesthetic is a major presence in the classic sci-fi picture Metropolis released in 1927, and in the more recent Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, both set in the 1920s, the period when the movement was in full swing.

Well it’s high time you call it by its name: Art Deco, a style known for its theatricality, verticality, and exuberant ornamentation. After all, it’s celebrating its centennial year this year, its moniker having been coined during the influential Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (say that again?) held in Paris in 1925. Around the world, lectures and tours and parties in its honor are being held, and here in Manila, the National Museum of Fine Arts just opened a landmark exhibition—a first!—on the design movement and its place in Philippine cultural history.

Curated by heritage advocate Ivan Man Dy and co-curated by Miguel Rosales who also designed the exhibition, Art Deco: Modernity and Design in the Philippines, 1925-1950 tells the story of the style, how we’ve made it our own, and how, despite its brief life, it was able to churn out some of the most beautiful structures in the country, a good number of them designed by our National Artists. The show goes beyond architecture, too, incorporating everything from tableware to furniture to fashion and graphic design in over 300 items gathered from institutional and private collections.

“At the onset, our curatorial direction was to go beyond the architectural narrative,” says Dy in his speech during the exhibition’s official opening. “I wanted to tell the story of our country's Art Deco heritage not just through public buildings but also through the everyday aspects of Philippine life during that era. Which is why we knocked at other museum collections and  people's homes from Manila to Antipolo, Quezon to Negros Occidental. Boy, where we surprised with  what people had in their bodegas and bauls!

“Not skeletons but hidden Art Deco treasures from furniture to industrial objects, graphic publications to fashion wear. Items that are reflective of the style and taste for modernity during that particular juncture of our history. This is what we present to you with this commemorative exhibit: the story of Art Deco in Filipino life.”

Dy has always been in awe of the old, beautiful structures in Manila he grew up with, but joining a protest rally against the demolition of the old Jai-Alai building in Taft Avenue when he was a student was his “heritage awakening.” The Jai alai building, completed in 1940, was a premier example of Art Deco architecture in Asia. It  survived the Battle of Manila but tragically met its demise on July 15, 2000 during the administration of Manila Mayor Lito Atienza.

Many of the Art Deco structures that were built in the Philippines before the war and in the few years after have sadly gone the way of the Jai alai building, lost to demolitions despite efforts of conservationists to save them. Some of the once fashionable apartments in Malate come to mind, and the grand theaters of Avenida. One of the most important pieces on show at the Art deco exhibition at the National Museum are actual bas relief panels from the facade of the Capitol Theater. Considered by Dy as the pinnacle of Pinoy art deco in that they bear the image of two women in traditional Filipino costume,  it is also a tragic symbol, with the actual building now still in a state of disrepair.

Fortunately, there are still remaining examples of Art Deco architecture in the country, vestiges of a bygone era characterized by prosperity and hope for a progressive future. Some are just hiding in plain sight, masked by the city’s grime and grind, noticeable only to those who know. Some are hidden in schools and gated hospitals. Some are in provinces like Negros Occidental and Iloilo, remembrances of a past when sugar barons threw fabulous parties with big bands and overflowing champagne.

“Art Deco heritage exists in our midst,” says Dy. “You experience it when you catch a show at the Metropolitan Theater. Perhaps its that mundane daily crossing when you drive through Quezon Bridge in Quiapo. Sometimes it’s that overlooked piece of furniture that you just sat or ate on in your family ancestral home in Malolos, Bacolod, or Iloilo.” If you’re looking to have a tour of Art Deco Manila, we asked Dy to name some of his most favorite Art Deco landmarks in the city to give you an idea which spots to visit.

Also read: Bacolod's Balay Daku: The Art Deco Jewel of Millionaire's Row

The poster boy of Art Deco in Manila, it was designed by Juan Arellano and inaugurated in 1931. Flamboyant and unrestrained—which is only fitting for a theater—the Met is the supreme example of high art deco in the country, French-inspired and colorful and noted for its use of bas relief. It’s also famous for incorporating Filipino elements in its design, like the mangoes and bananas on its ceiling, and the use of capiz for certain architectural details.

One of the earliest multi-story buildings in Manila (it was completed in 1928), it was designed by the Paris-educated Andres Luna, son of the famous painter Juan Luna. It boasts a dramatic staircase that reaches up to five floors, generous windows, and a roofdeck that now hosts symphonic concerts that draw a very young crowd. Once the address of the legendary Berg’s Department Store and the offices of movie companies owned by the likes of Dolphy and Nora Aunor, it is now a creative hub that houses design offices, a co-working space, a very good coffee shop (The Den), and a vintage clothing store called Glorious Dias.

Also read: Glorious Dias Reimagines Filipino Vintage

Before there was a CCP, the FEU complex located in Manila’s University Belt was the cultural center of the country. Designed by Pablo S. Antonio in 1939, it has the most art deco features spread over its five buildings, with its Administration Building the most deco of all, as evidenced by its geometric outdoor stairs, the grillwork on its glass doors, and the columns in its lobby. It also houses one of the most beautiful—and fastidiously maintained—theaters in the country, a true marvel that once inspired a book out of National Artist Nick Joaquin.

Originally the Santol Sanatorium dedicated to the treatment of advanced tuberculosis, it was transformed from its wooden shell into a structure of reinforced concrete, guided by the more modern vision of Juan Nakpil and renamed Quezon Institute—after Manuel Quezon who was famously supportive of the disease’s banishment. One of the biggest art deco facilities in the country, with its jazzy interiors and ornate details, it was reported in 2013 that Ayala Land Inc. was “working on a deal to redevelop” the 15-hectare estate with “operator and landowner, the non-stock, non-profit organization Philippine Tuberculosis Society Inc. (PTSI).” We were not allowed to take pictures during our visit but you can see more of the hospital’s art deco splendor in currently streaming Netflix series Kontrabida Academy and The Delivery Rider. The photographs here are from the archives of Architect Gerard Lico.

It only makes the most sense that it looks church-like and sacred from outside, because this Fernando Ocampo-designed complex is the spiritual haven and nerve center of the University of Santo Tomas. Declared a National Cultural Treasure by the NCCA, it houses not only the campus’ Santisimo Rosario Chapel but also the St Thomas Aquinas Priory or UST Fathers Residence, the UST Central Seminary and UST Ecclesiastical Faculties (Faculties of Philosophy, Sacred Theology, and Canon Law), among others. The Santissimo Rosario Parish Church was formerly a chapel just for the university friars, until the campus became an interment camp during the Japanese occupation and the chapel was made into a parish church of the Archdiocese of Manila to serve the faithful of Sampaloc. Just across the building, the grillwork remnants of an old art deco gymnasium serve as facade details for a relatively new building that houses the Thomasian Alumni Center and the school’s journalism and communications department.

Built in the early 1930s for the Far Eastern Championship Games of 1934—the precursor of the Asian Games— the complex  and its facilities were designed by Juan Arellano. It was first reconstructed in 1953 after the destruction wrought by the Battle of Manila, and famously played host to the Beatles concert in 1966 where the Fab Four played to an audience of 80,000 (there was a day and evening performance). There was a threat in 2016 to have it converted to a commercial complex, an initiative of then Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada in partnership with Enrique Razon but plans, happily, didn’t prosper, thanks in large part to opposition from heritage activists and athletes and the National Historical Commission declaring it a National Historical Landmark. In 2019, it underwent another renovation, this time in the hands of Architect Gerard Lico, in time for the same year’s Southeast Asian Games.

It may be hard to imagine but Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas were once runways and Blackbird restaurant the terminal building and control tower of Nielson airport, built by a British aviation enthusiast by the name of Laurie Reuben Nielson. Today, Blackbird is one of the busiest restaurants in Manila (it just landed in the Michelin Guide) and one of the most beautiful restaurants in the country, the go-to for ladies who lunch and the affluent set’s choice for their small celebrations. The draw, of course, is in large part thanks to its lovely art deco bones. "I think Blackbird’s success can be largely attributed to how beautifully the interiors was designed," interior designer Cyndi Fernandez-Beltran of PIID once told SPOT. "The integrity of the structure and its place in history was well kept which also makes Blackbird such a unique restaurant in the city. Its also one of those spaces where it greatly highlighted the beauty of the structure—its capsule shaped ends, its high ceiling, instead of masking it.”

Also read: The Most Beautiful Restaurants in Manila, According to Design Pros