arkitekturang

FILIPINO
Space, Power and Political Ideology
“SPACE is
fundamental in any
exercise of power.”
- Michel Foucault
The Relationship
of Architecture
and Power
"Architecture reveals not only the aesthetic and
formal preferences of an architect/client,
but also the aspirations, power struggles and
material culture of a society.”
Buildings are not just mere empty or
“neutral containers”
•conventions of architecture operate within a
system of power relations to perpetuate or
transmit social values, which may stand to
subvert or support hegemonic power
•Buildings are mechanisms of representation,
therefore, they are political and ideological
•Architecture, is also deeply embedded within
the structures of power and architects is no
free agent and can only act in behalf or based
on ideological dictates of the client.
To map the terrain of power discourse
embedded in architecture is to
question how architectural
program spatial
arrangements and symbolic
appropriation/re-presentation
of the body operate as apparatuses of
domination and subversions
 architecture may become an apparatus for
creating and sustaining power relation
independent of the person operating it.

Architecture becomes a form of social control

and maintains the asymmetry of
power relation
 SPACE is not inherently powerful…it is the
politics of spatial usage that governs its power.

“Force, coercion,
domination, manipulation,
seduction and authority
are forms of everyday
practice which are
inevitably facilitated by the
architectural built forms.”
 neutral space is manipulated for self-serving
political intentions of colonialism, dictatorship, or capitalism.

Architecture and places have symbolic value, which

represents the power of the state or capital.

Space becomes an instrument of thought and action, enacting

the struggle over power between the colonial and the
indigenous, between the dominant and the
dominated, between classes and genders.
An analysis of power discourse
in architecture can be played out
in the following thematic clusters:
• orientation/disorientation
• public/private
• segregation/access
• stability/change
• nature/history
• authenticity/falsity
• dominant/submissive
• place/ideology
CHURCH as the locus of
COLONIAL POWER
Plaza Complex
American NEOCLASSICISM
colonial power legitimization
and
IMAGING the
tropical empire
Custom House, Cebu, 1911
Capiz Provincial Government Building 1912
City Aquarium, 1912
Fire Station, 1913
Paco Market, 1911
Commonwealth and
Quezon’s Vision of a City
Architecture and Japanese
propaganda
EDIFICE COMPLEX and
modern Marcosian
state architecture
The EDIFICE COMPLEX
is a syndrome which plagues
an individual, nation or
corporate institution with an
obsession and compulsion to
build grand and monumental
edifices as a hallmark of a
greatness, as a signifier of
national prosperity, as a
conveyor of an individual’s
status, or as a projection of
corporate image.
Batasang Pambansa Complex
Philippine International Convention Center 1976
PHILCITE, 1976
Museum of Philippine Traditional Culture
Philtrade, 1978
Population Center
Manila Film Center 1982
When Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, reigned they ordered 29 presidential rest houses to be built

ILOCOS NORTE LA UNION PANGASINAN BULACAN MANILA

Malacanang of the North Presidential Guest San Fabian Romualdez Metropolitan Museum
Sarrat Museum House in Agoo Rest House Mansion Coconut Palace
Sarrat Guest House   Intramuros
Batac Museum Administration Museum
Batac Guest House National Museum
Juan Luna Museum
Currimao Guest House/Beach
House

RIZAL-CAVITE-LAGUNA ALBAY LEYTE

Bamboo House in Puerto Azul Presidential Mansion Nipa Hut
Palace in the Sky, Tagaytay Kagayonan  Beach Olot Rest House
National Arts  Center, Resort People's Center
Mt. Makiling Sto. Nino Shrine
Canlubang Presidential House Price Mansion
Green House
Dio Island Resort
Architecture of resistance:
slumming
modernity