ARCH 17 EXAM NOTES (unfinished)
outside.
SPECTACLE OF POWER
HISPANIC STRUCTURING OF THE COLONIAL
SPACE:
Spaces of Colonial Encounter:
Colonialism:
- Set of interactions between the colonizers and
colonized in a complex relation of political
control of powerful states over weak ones.
- Implies condition dominance that expansionist
foreign powers instantiate, engendering
hegemonic relations on resisting peoples who
defend their indisputable interest over a
contested area.
- “directed change”- establishing dominance
through the use of military conquest, and to
change the way of life of the dominated group.
Through instruments of urbanism
- Spaniards cemented their territorial and spiritual
take over in the archipelago.
Panoptic mechanism of disciplinary power
- By Foucault
- Imposing power through subtle and almost
undetected means was used spatially by the
colonialist
Colonial space:
- Configured in terms of racial and social
differentiation.
Intramuros: The Bastion of Authority
Intarmuros- manila’s prime city within the walls
- Manila’s self-contained colonial city built
exclusively for western elites.
- Buildings and street patterns were to imprint the
urban order with a sense of awe for Iberian-
American culture and civilization.
- It sought to replicate European grandeur in the
colonial domain.
- Suspicion of revolt marshalled deployment of
cuadricula with garitas (watch towers) under s
panoptical maneuver that subjected the
colonized people under constant surveillance.
- Protecting exclusivity of site to maintain cultural
superiority and cultivate a system of “othering”
as Indios, Chinese, and Japanese relegated
- To preserve colonialist ideology of pureza de
sangre or hygienic purity of Iberian blood.
1590: Walled city of Intramuros took form:
patterned after medieval city-fortresses of Europe.
- Under Gov-Gen. Gomez Perez Dasmarinas
using adobe
- Leonardo Turriano as designer and supervisor
appointed by the crown
- Labors: tens of thousands of conscripted
Filipinos.
Galleon Trade: Became a well garrisoned
commercial emporium: significant role in trans-
Pacific commerce as traffic point with merchandise
exchanged between western and oriental worlds.
Spanish colonial churches:
- Used as a political strategy associated with
colonial discourses such as:
1. Force labor
2. Religious tolerance
3. Genocide
4. Obscurantism
Extramuros: Living Beyond the Walls
Extramuros: exclusionary spatial category
referring to non-western people living outside the
walls.
- Later pertained to villages outside walls became
pueblos
- Malate: home of ambitious maharlike
(noblemen)
o Tradesmen who amassed wealth from the
new imperial order
o Arrabal of Tondo: as underprivileged
natives who regularly provided food
produce for the markets Manila and can be
easily conscripted.
Residential areas for Asians:
1. Dilao- Japanese district
- Brought by trade
- Had strong commercial link with coastal
communities of the Philippines
- Under spiritual guidance of Franciscans and
provided asylum and safe refuge for the
persecuted Christian who fled Japan.
1639: Japan’s self-isolation ceased the influx of
Japanese migrants, and gradually the identity of
Dilao as a district Japanese faded out.
2. Parian- Chinese district
- Sangleyes: Chinese trading merchants and
craftsmen
- With the increasing wave of immigrants in the
last decade of 16th Century triggered Spaniards
to allow to allow some Christian Chinese
married to Filipino women to permanently settle
north of Pasig in Binondo Isle de Binondo
- Urban restriction reinforced by cannons pointed
at raged toward Parian and Binondo.
3. Arrabales- Filipino
Instituting the Program for Colonial Urbanism
1565: Permanent occupation of the island by
Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (died at 1572)
o Started in Cebu
1571: Spaniards gained a foothold in Manila
o Launched military assault against Raja
Sulayman
o Legazpi occupied near Pasig River
o Was to institute urban prototype issued by
King Philip II in 1573 which future town was
to be modeled after.
Main ingredients in urban transformation of the
Philippine colonial landscape:
1. Establishment of Reduccion or forced
urbanization and resettlement.
- Scattered barangays were brought together and
reduced in number, making it easier to control
and facilitate religious conversion and cultural
change.
2. Creation of a land-use pattern through
encomienda system.
- Concept of land as private property and capital
was introduced.
- Communal and individual land were confiscated
and circulated through the encomienda system
of landownership, which the colony was divided
into parcels assigned to pioneering Spaniards
to allocate, allot, or distribute the resources of
domain.
3. Institution of a hierarchical settlement
system.
- With reduccion came hierarchical settlements.
The core of municipality where elites reside,
church was located, gave tribute: cabecera
(head) or polacion.
- Adjacent barangays as barrios.
4. Creation of structuring of towns
according to the cuadricula model of
planning.
- Cuadricula: system of streets and blocks laid
out with uniform precision, was structured in
hierarchical fashion, the central plaza as focal
point=seat of power.
- It maximizes space and supervision of colonial
subjects.
5. Introduction of building typologies and
construction technology through
colonial infrastructures.
- New activities jump-started urban life particular
building.
- The urbanization of landscape= creation of new
institutions represented by buildings that carried
functional and formal analogies.
- Colonial infrastructure- permanent materials +
novel construction methods= expressed
superiority to distinguished from indigenous
architecture.
Pre-hispanic communities:
- Characterized by decentralized pattern of low-
density settlements with substantial
sociopolitical fragmentation and independence
from one another.
Late 16th Century: launched Hispanic program
reduccion
- Policy: forced relocation of small, scattered
settlements into one larger town.
- Filipinos must be “congregated” or “reduced”
into compact villages.
- Enabled more control of a large number of
Filipinos.
- Not all were successful or passively accepted.
- Epidemics and cholera and small pox erased
even the stable reduccion.
Village: “under the bells”
- Cabecera
Codification of conquest and city planning:
City: indispensable factor in reorganizing colonial
territories.
- Focal point of decision making process.
- Instituting social control in metropole as first
step in establishing economic and political
continuity of those in power.
- Use of grid-pattern for urban fabric + other
architectural rules = consequence of ideal
Greco-Roman city concept, while Medieval and
organic urban planning methods had already
been abandoned.
July 31, 1573: Laws of Indies of 1573  Royal
Ordinance from King Philip II
- The most comprehensive set of instruction
issued to serve as guidelines for the founding
and building of Hispanic colonial towns.
- Represented an attempt of the Spanish crown
to establish uniform and extensive urban plan of
the colonies.
- It reinforced the unilateral objectives of
conquest; urban character of Spanish
colonization’s physical and organizational
arrangement to be developed in new cities of
Spanish empire.
- Encapsulated classic theories from Roman
architect Vitruvius and Italian Renaissance
architect Leon Battista Alberti.
Colonial cities in the Philippines were:
1. Elevated location
2. Orderly grid of streets with a centralized
plaza
3. A defensive wall
4. Zones for churches
5. Shops
6. Government buildings
7. Hospitals
8. Slaughterhouses
- “Plaza complex” evolved: grid-pattern with main
plaza at the center surrounded by church-
convent, tribunal, other important government
buildings and marketplace.
- Houses of various social classes: hierarchical
Manila: The Genesis of an Intramural Colonial City:
Spain’s objective:
1. Use island as base for further expansion.
2. To establish colony as center for production and
export of tropical spices.
3. Convert natives to Christianity.
Therefore, there must be:
1. Foundation of well-garissoned political
center
2. Adjoining space of residence for Spaniards
and Christianized Filipinos
3. Construction of a church as fulcrum of
socio-religious transformation of the
emergent colonial community.
Legazpi initially founded early colonial settlements
in Ceby and Panay:
- Due to natural and man-made problems:
o Shortage of food supply
o Sporadic Portuguese military threats
o Persistent hostilities of Filipinos
- But persistent plague of Locus forced him to
search new headquarters in Luzon: Maynilad.
1570: Legazpi sent Martin de Goiti to Manila and
returned a year after
- Legazpi landed on north shore and conquered
Manila under Raja Sulayman
o His forth was razed by its inhabitants so he
hid, and Manila fell
May 19, 1571: Lagazpi laid his foundation in
Manila.
June 24, 1571: Legazpi proclaimed Manila as the
capital of new territories under Spanish rule.
April 20, 1572: Early colonial city of Manila made
out of non-permanent materials.
1590: Colonialist proclaimed foundation in three
primary cuidades de espanioles in:
1. Cebu
2. Nueva Caceres (Naga)
3. Nueva Sergovia (Lal-lo, Cagayan)
- Two villas de espanioles in:
1. Vigan (Ilocos Sur)
2. Arevalo (Iloilo)
The Great Urban and Architectural Transformation:
Cabildo: municipal building
Disasters and tribulation:
1. Limahong piracy launched in 1574.
2. Threated internal piece by Chinese
insurrection in Parian quarter.
3. Earthquake and conflagrations (fires) took
heavy toll on life and property.
1583: Organic and traditional materials as building
materials caused massive fire.
- Gov-Gen. Ronquillo burnt to death in San
Agustin Church caused by vigil candles that
spread and reduced the whole city to ashes.
- Enforced the need to utilize more durable
building materials.
- Gov-Gen. Santiago de Vera ordered all
buildings made in stone.
o Kilns or hornos for ladrillos or bricks
o Tejas or v-shaped roof tiles
o Baldosas or square floor tiles
o Stone quarries nearby were exploited: gave
rise to stone-cutting industry
- The decree fostered am abrupt architectural
change and urban renewal in Manila.
Colonial Church: Two Focal Terms:
Point - Pulpito (pukpit)
1. Alta Mayor (main altar) - Altares menores (side
2. Sagrario (tebarnacle) altars)
1645: Golden years of building in stone reduced to
nothing by a devastating earthquake.
Arquitectura Mestiza:
- a hybrid-type of construction was invented to
avoid both fire and earthquake.
- Refer to structures partially build of wood for
upper floors and stone for lower/ground floor to
make it resistant to earthquakes.
1668: Coined by Jesuit Francisco Ignacio Alcina
Haligues: house post
1820-1890: Felix Rojas y Arroyo
- Economic boom where first Filipino architect
arrived from his studies abroad.
Edifices for Religious Conversion:
1. Augustinians
2. Franciscans
3. Jesuits
4. Dominicans
Baroque Churches: constituted the most
exemplary element of the country’s architectural
heritage.
Simbahan: before are private spaces for ritual
worship.
Juan Francisco de San Antonio- locals built their
places of worship as extensions in their homes,
called sibi.
- Held solemn feast and pandot as the
solemnest.
16th century: de cana y nipa (of bamboo and nipa)
friars-built chapels made of organic materials no
different than native houses.
- Flammable
- Later evolved into monumental stone
sanctuaries fusing European styles with
Indigenous influences but still retaining the
simple rectangular plan.
- Retablo (altar screen)