In 10 years, the Manila Metropolitan Theater, simply the Met, will turn 100 years old. It opened to the public on Dec. 10, 1931. From day one, it had been a cultural landmark at once local, even native, and global, an edifice built to house the Filipino proud of his place in the world.
A National Cultural Treasure, the Met is the last art deco building of its scale and size in Asia. It holds the record of being our first national theater, representing our loftiest ideals as a nation equal in artistry with the best in the world. Most significant is its use of indigenous icons melded with elements of art deco, which was formally introduced to the world at the Paris Exposition of 1924, only seven years before the Met.
The government commissioned Juan Arellano to build it, sending the architect-painter to the US to update his skills under the wings of American theater architecture pioneer Thomas W. Lamb.
Arellano’s exposure to the latest theater construction technologies emboldened him to depart from his neoclassical leanings, infusing the design of the Met with exotic decorative motifs, such as Binondo-born sculptor Isabelo Tampinco’s wooden relief carvings of mangoes and bananas set off against woven basket patterns on the high ceiling. While art deco was the principal design language, Arellano made sure the local narrative spoke loud and clear, turning art deco into, more precisely, Filipino deco. He chose to work with Tampinco and other collaborators, such as his brother Arcadio, who pioneered the use of native flora in the famous edifices and residential buildings he built for the elite of his time.
As a result, etched in the overall splendor of the Met were unmistakable symbols of Philippine rural life, wildlife, and art, as expressed in National Artist Fernando Amorsolo’s murals—“The Dance” and “History of Music”—which adorned the lobby, as well as the magnificent central stained glass window, which stylized the tropical sunshine in a floral pattern of blue, green, yellow, and purple.
As soon as it was formally inaugurated on this day in 1931, world-renowned artists, such as the opera divas Montserrat Caballe of Spain and Nelly Miricioiu of Romania, and key opera players like the Italian-American San Carlo Opera Company, came waltzing in across the marble floors of the Met to perform in its 1,670-capacity theater.
At the storied Met unfolded operas, plays, concerts, vaudevilles, zarzuelas, and even movie screenings, such as an early movie introducing Mickey Mouse. But so did history, such as World War II, which partially damaged it, leaving it in postwar years to turn into a boxing arena, a gay bar, a motel, a basketball court, and a squatter colony.
The biggest blow was a conflict of ownership between the City of Manila and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which left it abandoned and decaying for decades.
Today, in the runup to its first centennial in 2031 and after many years of restoration since the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) bought it from GSIS in 2015 for ₱270 million, the Met reopens exactly 90 years since it was first built.
“This our cultural link to the glorious past,” says NCCA chairman Nick Lizaso. “And it should open the door to our people’s thriving cultural future.”