The “Plazas in the Philippines: Places of Memory, Places of the Heart” Exhibit |
The “Plazas in the Philippines: Places of Memory, Places of the Heart” Exhibit, opened last May 4, 2023 at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, is an ingeniously curated and designed multimedia exhibit on Philippine plazas. It narrates our contemporary understanding of Urban Heritage in the Philippines harking to this year’s National Heritage Month theme: Heritage: Change and Continuity. Here, award-winning city planner, landscape architect, historian extraordinaire and exhibit curator (among many other hats) Paulo G. Alcazaren highlights a selection of 16 plazas from around the country in celebration of their role as the beating heart of many a town and city. The exhibition runs until June 3, 2023.
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Landscape architect, urban planner and exhibition curator Paulo G. Alcazaren
Paulo packed a wealth of
information into a compact space where the unlikely centerpiece is a real
basketball half court, representing the modern-day equivalent of the plaza for
many Filipino urban dwellers, the type you’ll find in many congested barangays
and the de facto plaza today of communities across the land. The
installation, a striking demonstration of the curator’s playful, insightful
take on his subject, features several pairs of actual rubber slippers arrayed
beneath the backboard, a silent homage to the nation’s countless barefoot
players and to our poignant fondness for a tall man’s game.
Panoramic black-and-white
photos of actual barangay courts, jammed with action (much of it not even
basketball-related), illustrate Paulo’s point that these modern-day plazas
serve multiple purposes in communities lacking in parks and wide open spaces. Paulo
has also been calling out, on social media, the absurdly unpeople-friendly aspects
of city life such as the inhumanely steep pedestrian overpass on EDSA nicknamed
Mount Kamuning.
Basketbol (Emmanuel Garibay, oil on canvas, 1994, the M Collection)
The plazas are featured to
show their contexts alongside archival images, interactive artworks, photo
collages of Rizal Monuments that form part of the built environment of plazas,
and a selection of artworks from The M’s own collection, highlighting the
history and trajectory of town and city plazas in the Philippines.
Bumnabun (Pablo Baens Santos, oil on canvas, 1997, the M Collection)
Plazas in the Philippines
have been central to communal celebrations and other social and political
events in over 1,600 towns and cities for hundreds of years. However, it has
fallen prey to the pressures of population and economic growth, as well as the
attendant consequences of urban densification and commercial real-estate
development.
L-R: Plaza Roma (Intramuros, Manila) and plazas of the City of Zamboanga and City of Bacolod
Jose Rizal Monuments in the Philippines
He completed his Bachelor of
Science in Architecture and Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degrees from the
University of the Philippines (Diliman) and his Master’s degree in Urban Design
from the National University of Singapore. He has taught at the University of
the Philippines as well as at the Ateneo de Manila University.
Panoramic black-and-white photos of actual
barangay courts
Paulo has been a practicing
design consultant in planning, urban design and landscape architecture for the
last 40 years, with twelve of those spent in Singapore as head of PDAA Design
Pte Ltd. He has been principal planner, urban designer or landscape architect
in charge of close to two hundred projects in 14 countries and is currently
head of PGAA Creative Design, Manila.
L-R: Plazas of the cities of Mandaue (Cebu) and Tagbilaran City (Bohol), the municipality of Santa Barbara (Iloilo), Plaza Molo (Iloilo City) and Plaza Libertad (Iloilo City)
PGAA’s portfolio of completed
projects in the public realm include the Iloilo Esplanade, the renovation of
eight plazas in Iloilo and Pasig City, as well as parks in Manila, Makati,
Pasig, San Juan, Quezon City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Singapore.
Plaza of the City of Tabaco (Albay)
Paulo is the founder of
MADAFAKAS (Metropolitan Alliance for the Development and Fixing of All Kantos
and Sidewalks), a faux political party with its own Facebook page.
Plaza of the Municipality of Pagsanjan (Laguna)
A co-production of the Metropolitan
Museum of Manila (The M) and the Filipino Heritage Festival, Inc. (FHFI), it is
supported by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts with partners
Security Bank Corporation, Business World and DDB Group Philippines.
Plazas
in the Philippines: Places of Memory, Places of the Heart: 3/F, South Gallery A, Metropolitan
Museum of Manila, Mariano K. Tan Centre, 30th St. cor. 9th Ave., Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City, Metro
Manila. Mobile number:: (0917) 160-9667. E-mail: info@metmuseummanila.org. Open
Tuesdays to Saturdays (except on public holidays and other special notices).
Pre-register a day before your visit. The museum offers free admission on
Tuesdays.
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