Leandro Locsin

Leandro Locsin (1928-1994) was in some ways a quintessential Renaissance man. A brilliant
architect, interior designer, artist and classically trained pianist, Locsin was also a keen art
collector, amassing a sizable collection of fine Chinese art and ceramics during his
lifetime. It is for his buildings, however, that he is remembered; from airport terminals to
memorial chapels, arts centres to stock exchange structures, Locsin left his mark on the
urban landscape of the Philippines.

Locsin was determined to reconfigure Western architectural mores for a Filipino audience. His
most substantial contribution to Filipino architecture is the Cultural Center of the
Philippines complex, a collection of five Locsin-designed buildings that demonstrate
the architects drive to find a vernacular form of modernist architecture. The National
Theatre building within the complex is a good example of Locsins trademark style, known
as floating volume: consisting of a two-floor-high block of travertine marble cantilevered
12 feet into the air, the theatre harks back to traditional Filipino dwelling huts, but on a
monumentally modern scale.

Despite the wide range of buildings Locsin created, all of them have one thing in common:
concrete. His ability to make this most monolithic of materials appear weightless, and to
elegantly combine Western brutalism with vernacular elements, led Locsins peers to dub
him the poet of space.
Francisco Maosa

Francisco Bobby Maosa has been challenging architectural convention in his native country for five
decades. He displayed an artistic temperament from an early age and remained a keen painter
throughout his life; but, along with his three brothers, Maosa eventually chose to pursue
architecture, and before long became the outspoken champion of indigenous architecture,
popularising the idea of Philippine architecture for Filipinos.

Maosas distinctive style, known as Contemporary Tropical Filipino Architecture, is a

heady mixture of seemingly incongruous elements; coconut lumber, rattan, shell, thatch and even
indigenous textiles are juxtaposed with hypermodern materials: metal, glass, concrete. The
Coconut Palace at the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex typifies Manosas style, its
coconut gourd roof, coconut shell chandelier and pineapple fibre bedcovers infused with
technological innovation for the modern era.

In 2009 Maosa was designated a National Artist in Architecture, like Leandro Locsin, IP Santos,
Pablo Antonio and Juan Nakpil before him.