Edifice Complex :

Power, myth and Marcos State Architecture

By Gerard Lico

Report by Mae Urtal Caralde

 Chapters/Topics

1. Architecture and Society

2. Cartographies of Power in Philippine Architecture

3. Culture and Architecture under Martial Law

4. The CCP

5. Power and Myth in Marcos State Architecture

6. Beyond Frivolity and Political Amnesia

 Contributions
•  a study of place inscribes the study of social production

•  not neutral

•  considers archi as medium of expression, ideological trope,

system of knowledge, 

•  Allegory of social presence, transformative tech and labor

propelled by values 

•  foregrounds the myth of modern progress

•  shaped by politics
 A. Architecture and Society
•  Spaces have symbolic value
•   Michel Foucault---contends that space had a major role in expressing and
practicing governmental rationality
•   Panopticon--- knowledge tied to systems with human beings as objects of
disciplinary knowledge
•   power- knowledge; disciplinary power relies on surveillance to transform
its subjects
•   Gaze--- this social practice transform human as subjects --- an exercise of
disciplinary control thru symmetrical visibility
•   leads us to conclude that archi is never neutral

•   Marxist: space is viewed as 'capital' governed by the rules of ownership

and modes of production that determine class structure and consciousness'
The Panopticon
•  "Panopticism is the general principle of a new 'political anatomy'
whose object and end are not the relations of sovereignty but the
relations of discipline. [...] 
•  These disciplines~ which the classical age had elaborated in
specific, relatively enclosed places - barracks, schools, workshops -
and whose total implementation had been imagined only at the
limited and temporary scale of a plague-stricken town, Bentham
dreamt of transforming into a network of mechanisms that would
be everywhere and always alert, running through society without
interruption in space or in time.
•  The panoptic arrangement provides the formula for this
generalization. It programmes, at the level of an elementary and
easily transferable mechanism, the basic functioning of a society
penetrated through and through with disciplinary mechanisms."(2 
 Structural footprints

•  Imelda wrote " Architecture : The Social Art (1979)

•  "Architecture for the Common Man" (1975)

•  CCP complex 28- hectare reclaimed area

•  Leandro Locsin's abstractions of the Bahay kubo

•  Francisco Manosa indigenizing neo-vernacular

tahanang Filipino

•  Froilan Hong's modernist Parthenon

From Marco Diani and C. Ingraham

•  " ...architecture builds, over and over, philosophically

endorsed ideas of home, city, place

•  ...architecture is a deeply conservative force that keeps

what is philosophically, politically and ideologically
'proper' in place

•  ...architecture evaporates or melts into political, social,

linguistic, philosophical analysis "
 Structure and Authority

•  power is tolerable only on the condition that it mask a

substantial part of itself. It's success is proportional to
its ability to disguise its own mechanism 

Giddens theory

•  Agency--the capacity to transform the world

•  Structures--- organized properties of the social systems

in the form of rules and resources. 
•  Archi can be both structure and agency

•  Pierre Bourdieu:

habitus or systems of durable , transposable

dispositions which can be objectively regulated and
regular without it in any way being product of obedience
to rules
 Space is not Neutral

•  From Mark Wigley:

" Architectural discourse plays a strategic role in

guaranteeing assumptions that are necessary to the
operation of other discourses.”
 Manifestations of power in
architecture :

1. Orientation/ disorientation
2. Public/ private

3. Segregation/ access
4. nature/ history 

5. Stability/ change 
6. Authenticity / falsity

7. Dominant/ submissive 

8. Place/ ideology
 Dovey's nomenclature of POWER

1. Force-- undisguised exertion of power. ex. Prisons

2. Coercion--- uses threat of force to obtain compliance

ex. Archi programs everyday practice

3. Intimidation--- achieved when archi compels people to

behave in a certain way in given space 
 Dovey's nomenclature of POWER

4. Domination --- confronts the subject with

overwhelming physical scale and bombardment of
signifiers which destroys the subjects ability to map his or
her surroundings.

5. Manipulations--- coercive mode that keeps the subject

in a state of ignorance

6. Seductive--- tempting the human subject through a

conscious manipulation of interest, biases and desires.
 Cartographies of Power in Phil
Archi 

•  CHURCH---enduring patrimony of 3 centuries of Spanish

colonization

> King Philipp II: makes it clear that the edifice of the church
must demand attention, if not enthralling astonishment

> church must be open the plaza, must be beautiful to inspire

more respect, built in high ground

> bell tower as pan optical device for surveillance, population was
organized under the bells or ' banjo de las camapanas’

 
 American Period

•  Neo-classicism---seemed to portray the benevolence of

the US in setting up infra needed for the Filipino for
self-governance.

2 Ideological functions:

•  Attest greatness to the newly established American

empire

•  To create semblance of democracy in a colonial social

order.
PGH
YMCA building
Paco Train Station
National Museum
Post Office
Manila City Hall
(top view)
 Culture and Architecture Under
Martial Law

•  Palingenetic Ideology and construction of national identity

•  Paligenesis—a form of utopianism which evokes the idea of
rebirth or spiritual, reconnect with the past
•  Promote rebirth of the Great Malayan culture

•  Cultural renaissance made possible thru cultural programs

part of which is architecture

•  “ Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa”

•  Imelda and Ferdinand as parental figures of the Filipino

people
 Culture and Architecture Under
Martial Law

•  Tadhana: The History of the Filipino People (1976)

•  Modern-daya Malakas at Maganda

•  State becomes new patron of art, cultural sphere

becomes Imelda’s power base.

•  Established CCP complex --money from Cultural Dev

Fund---Special Fund for Education---Phil-Am war
claims

•  CCP as sanctuary of the Filipino sould

 Culture and Architecture Under
Martial Law

•  CCP grounds became venue of events like Kasaysayan

ng Lahi, Miss Universe 1974, MIFF

•  1976---opened the National Arts Center and the

PHSA

•  Edifice complex---large body of state-sponsored

architecture; monumental and imposing to the point of
intimidation.
 Bagong lipunan modernism and
romantic Nationalist sculpture

•  Derived pure Filipino form; goal is to ‘restore’ or

‘recreate’ those unadulterated forms = neovernacular
architecture

•  Attempt to recreate the architecture of the past

•  Folk architecture---high ceilings, large capiz windows,

tukod-like windows, traditional carvings, earth tone,
reproduced antique elements
•  Powerful and poetic imagery of the native bahay kubo
as source of inspiration= “romantic nationalist”
architecture

- a political category that create national symbols

rather than a style

- supported a politically motivated aesthetic and social

vision
•  The CCP intends to serve as the repository of Filipino
heritage. Because Filipino culture is fragmented, its
influences complex and diverse, such a repository
would serve to bring full flower to a culture so often
nip in the bud.
 Power and Myth In Marcos state
archi

•  Psy war and persuasion were undertaken by Marcosian

architecture to naturalize the regime’s pretension to
political legitimacy and to inspire obedience within the
“New Society”

•  Myth is the manipulation of language to depoliticize

speech. The CCP complex ----record of Marcos to
construct mythic notions of collectivity, nationality,
progress and monumentalism.

•  Myth is ritualized thru cultural events in the CCP

(Dularawan in 1969)
•  Myth of monumentalism---by building monumental
scale, we attempt to shape the physical embodiment of
social order, denying change and transmuting the fear
of the passage of time and death into splendor.

•  Myth of modern progress– monuments were actually

financed by heavy foreign debts

•  Myth of modernity---claim of progress and national

identity is dubious.
Demands of Modern architecture:

> honesty of materials and structure

> honesty in that the function of the building is

reflected in its forms, favoring simplicity

>honesty that reflects the true spirit of its time rather

than of the past

> architecture be true to themselves.

•  Imelda’s architects were not at all “modern” in the real sense of the
modernist movement.

•  Locsin’s design of the CCP Performing Arts Theater abandoned

modernist credo of “from follows function”

Ø  Myth of Nationality and Collectivity

---single national style in archi was sought an formulated to symbolize the

“nation”. Nation being the social formation of “imagined communities”

---archi as embodiment of national pride

----collectivity and equality in the access of space was negated

 Synthesis

•  Architecture and urban design are deeply ingrained

within economic and other structures of power

•  Power is more potent if it remains undetected, like

how it is in architecture which is usually viewed as
neutral homogenous space.
CCP Plan proposals