MEDIUM RARE
Gone with the smoke, the fire, the tears of Manilans who consider the Manila Central Postal Office a part of their living collective memory. Mayor Lacuna has quickly assured city residents that the post office will stay where it has always been for the past 97 years.
Not everyone who heard the news or saw the fiery devastation was in tears, though many netizens were angry. Others were saddened, too heartbroken to express themselves.
Jun Palafox, urban planner, has been warning that treasured structures should be audited periodically: “It’s 90 percent less expensive to address the hazards before they become disasters.”
Manny Samson, interior designer, decorator, stylist, wonders, “Why are government buildings seemingly vulnerable to fire?”
The Post Office, as Manilans called it, was designed by Juan Arellano and Tomas Mapua. As Jun points out, “It’s one of a few remaining samples of neo-classic architecture introduced by Daniel Burnham and his City Beautiful movement as part of his plan for Manila 1905 and Baguio and Chicago in 1909.” (The Manila Hotel was built in 1912.)
The post office stands on elevated ground like a cake with its fluted columns topped by Ionic capitals. “Centrally located along converging avenues” as another source puts it, it’s a perfectly symmetrical work with bulging wings east and west.
A “grand” structure in its time, but as recently as during the term of Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, a would-be, frustrated architect, the building was put to good use as a one-time outdoor concert venue, admission free to Manilans as they watched a full orchestra perform under the stars. What a night! The portico with its marble floor, the ceiling acting as a dome for acoustical purposes, an audience willingly surrendering to the spell of romance cast by music.
Will last Sunday’s fire render the building forever useless now, all P300 million of it? Depending on what the structural engineers find out, Mr. Palafox proposes an alternative, what he calls an “adaptive reuse,” following the examples set by “Singapore, whose post office is now Fullerton Hotel; London, whose old city hall is now the Marriott; and the former Army Navy Club, a dilapidated building which is now Rizal Park Hotel.”
First, you’ll have to convince Mayor Honey Lacuna, Jun.