Inside the Brutalist EDSA Pacific Office Machines Building

(SPOT.ph) "Everyone thinks it's the KFC building, and at one time it was the AAP (Automotive Association of the Philippines) building," Kathryn Reidenbach tells SPOT.ph from inside her office along EDSA-Greenhills. It is one of oldest buildings along the thoroughfare, famed for its eye-catching facade of strangely sloping blocks. It has been standing there long before any of the other structures beside it were erected, before the MRT was completed, before the two EDSA revolutions, before there were even enough cars on EDSA to cause congestion, and before today's generation was even born. "But the building has always been owned by Pacific Office Machines," Reidenbach adds.

Anyone who's ever passed through this part of EDSA has likely spared it a glance without really knowing what it is, this Pacific Office Machine building now brightly clad in KFC red. If you're coming from the North, it's located past the MRT Santolan-Annapolis Station and past the old V.V. Soliven buildings; and sandwiched between shiny new car dealerships and huge billboards. It's a marker of what EDSA once was. And if you've ever wondered what it looks like inside—because yes, the KFC frontage is just a little part of this suprisingly large structure—allow us to usher you in and be your guide to the offices of Pacific Sun Solutions.

Also read: 10 Brutalist Buildings in Makati You Can See in a Day 

Who designed the brutalist Pacific Office Machines building along EDSA?

The building is tied to the history of the Pacific Office Machines, a company founded in 1963 and well-known for distributing office machinery from foreign brands. Think typewriters, calculators, and big, heavy cash registers. The company was headed by Kathryn's father Ronald Reidenbach and his partners, the Dychiao brothers. "The original office was in Makati, in Buendia, then they decided to buy property here in EDSA," Kathryn tells us, crediting her mom Victoria's influence for the decision.

By then, they were renting out spaces to use as storage in Makati and delivering their products across the Metro, so Mrs. Reidenbach believed it was time to build their own bodega on a good middle ground which happened to be a still very much empty EDSA. "We didn't have very many neighbors then, so [the building] really stood out. Even EDSA wasn't that wide," Kathryn recalls.

So the Reidenbachs and Dychiaos set out to build the Pacific Office Machines building, and tapped the then already established architect Antonio Heredia to design. Some may know him for his work on the old Greenhills Theater nearby. He was also responsible, as per Reidenbach, for the old Unitop which was demolished many years ago. While those structures used a more modernist, block-type design, it's clear Heredia wanted to be more out-of-the-box for Pacific Office Machines.

"The version I know of where he got the idea," Reidenbach tell us, "is he was looking at the typewriters stacked up in the shop. Because when machines are being repaired, to save space, they stack them on the side. So you see those wedges, that's what it looks like." Admittedly, she's not entirely sure if this family tale is accurate. "I don't know why it would go the other way," says Reidenbach laughing, "Is the typewriter baliktad?" But whatever the case, the unique shape of the building continues to catch eyes decades after it was completed in 1975.

How Pacific Sun changed things up

Pacific Office Machines started as a distributor for brands like Triumph, Monroe, and Sweda. They had service centers across the nation for their machines and were the go-to for decades. 

As the youngest of the family, Kathryn didn't imagine picking up the business. "I was getting a bit frustrated with the oldies," she says laughing. "They had their own way of doing things and I wanted to start something new."

"We wanted to go a different direction, but still in line with the whole solutions-for-business type thing. We wanted to hire programmers, we wanted newer technology."

So the younger Reidenbach started her own company with partner Deliza Ridoloso: Pacific Sun Solutions. (Yes, they knew what they were doing with the name, Kathryn admits cheekily). Headquartered in Ortigas, they specialized in banking solutions, starting out as banks were recovering from the Asian crisis. They were lucky to have been situated right next to a BDO who took them on. "We did well, we grew. We had the right idea, and we were there at the right time."

After about six years of running their own company, Kathryn's parents reached out and asked them to come back as her father was retiring. "I said okay, I'll give it a shot," Kathryn says. The two businesses ran as separate entities for a while, but Kathryn's company eventually bought the business rights to Pacific Office Machines—which now continues as Pacific Sun Solutions. This also meant the latter taking over the building, changing and updating the homebase as the business changed.

Kathryn now uses her dad's old office, which is separated from an old partner's office (now Ridoloso's) by a meeting room with a circular wooden table she recalls standing on as a child. She even remembers playing with the diorama of the building back when she was a child. Practically all the wooden furniture from the old days has remained; some just needed reupholstering or minimal repair. They even have a few old units from the original business scattered around: clunky calculators that need cranking, typewriters both electric and purely mechanical, and many more. (Another big change in the offices is that there are no more ash trays around.) 

As the business shifted to include software, and as shipping became less complicated—"Even the machines got smaller; like your cash register would just be a tablet," says Kathryn—Reidenbach and Ridoloso came to realize they no longer need as much space. "We didn't need the whole building anymore," says Kathryn. "If you think about it, this is a lot of real estate, so we decided to start renting out space."

This was around the time the building's gray blocks facade turned a bright blue and yellow as the AAP took over the front space in 2012. And when the AAP lease expired, KFC's red and white arrived, and the fastfood branch even hollowed out a part of the building for its drive-thru service.

What's next for the Pacific Office Machines building?

Driving down EDSA today is sure nothing like driving back in the '70s or '80s. Where the POMINC building—as the Pacific Sun team calls it—was once the only big building along this stretch, it is now just one of many.

Yet for all the change that's happened, you can step into this building and be greeted by metal reliefs of the first three main products the original business once distributed, alongside original hardwood floorings and fixtures you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere now. There's an aquarium by the stairs, tucked under the facade's slope, a key feature many employees and visitors remember from years before.

Today, the Pacific Office Machines lives on in Pacific Sun Solutions, and it celebrated a total of 60 years in 2023. The building, meanwhile, turns half-a-century old next year. "We have a mix of old and new. We're dealing with technology, we're always looking at new things," Kathryn says. So while things continue to change in and outside this famed Brutalist structure, one glance at its solid facade and thick columns will tell you what you need to know: "Our foundation is strong. There's history there."