TAMAK SHARIFF AGUAK

I see so much green areas and unpaved roads.  I see shanties, bahay kubos on each stop.  Rural areas, not surprising.  My first travel to Shariff Aguak was as tiring as every long rides are. I am about to partake on a distant work, out of town mis-adventure/experience.  Just never thought that it'll be in Maguindanao.

President Estrada stepped down from office, and Vice President Arroyo took over.  The shock of September 11 terrorist attacks on US soil were still afresh. Around 2002, I was led to work for an architectural firm, for a group of building contractors.  I am about to be assigned on field for the construction of a Provincial Capitol somewhere in Maguindanao.  I heard all about it months before. They badly needed some junior staff and draftsmen to handle and supervise the construction.  Our office, made up of three licensed Architects, are apparently commissioned as subcontractors to gear up the construction of this massive three-storey government building.  Talks went on, until that time came when I agreed to go.  They already got one of my pals assigned way before me.  They were more than happy to welcome me aboard. 

With skull-guard and cheap long-sleeve work shirt, like a chess piece pawn, I worked for the town, and the boss. I don't know how much I helped build it.  The construction started way before I arrived and it was pretty much done when I was reassigned somewhere else in Cotabato City. 

My unfinished thesis for a government center hung on.  I lost interest. But it had a profound impact on me.  But I was just a draftsperson, a staff member, a site worker.  I understand that not every situation is the same. At that staff level, there wasn't a great deal I personally could have done, although I felt horrible when I heard about the fighting that happened near us.  And not long after I gave up working for that group,  the massacre happened.  Two buildings now sit on the site.  The capitol and the gym. I heard that only the soldiers occupy and use them.  Shameful or what, I don't know...

THE FILIPINO ARCHITECTURE DELUSION

This I heard from a famous Filipino Architect's perspective. Having something to identify their designs to themselves and their country with. Of course there's nothing wrong with it but it's not completely right either. Subjecting one's design explorations restricted to a suggested concept is not that reasonable.  An Architect may perhaps use materials readily available from his own country, his own city, and his closest environment, thus identifying him from his contemporaries but this does not mean that he could not use foreign materials either.

But why limit your designs with a prevailing concept just to be identified as Filipino?  If the sole purpose of your building is to have identity, why then should one be constrained by their own country's prevailing thought?   If the purpose of one project is just to promote one's nation's flagship and tourism, then that should be the guiding concept only to that particular project and not with local design community as a whole.  It is not to be treated as a general design purpose for every commission.  An architect may treat to design Filipino as or to be his advocacy but I don't think it would be wholly truthful. Celebrating one's sense of identity varies among fellow and countrymen.

It could not  be an identity crisis when one is free. Open ended thought should rule every Architect's design. Not just to justify having to incorporate foreign or unusual influences but to have the freedom to  create something raw and undisturbed by the prevailing trend. Buildings should be done for the present conditions, not the past or even the future. Who's to say consciously anyway unless the architect doesn't know or just can't say how his design came to be. It may have been done subconsciously.  How the pen or the pencil moved with his command. How it progressed to the final draft and to be eventually built and used by the occupants, seen by observers. Leaving for time to decide its true value and identity.  Filipino or not.  What's the big deal anyway?  

VISION IMPOSSIBLE

All Photos: http://www.ufunk.net/photos/victor-enrich/