CALVO BUILDING

The Calvo Building was built in 1938 and designed by Architects Fernando Hizon Ocampo, Sr. It
is one the historic building and fine examples of Beaux Arts architecture even to this day.
Throughout the years it served as offices of commercial companies until it was temporarily used
by the Japanese Imperial Forces in 1944. It was destroyed during the Battle of Manila in 1945
and undergo a heritage conservation process in the following year that has a cultural values and
collective memory of habitants. Currently, the building is still home to various commercial
establishments such as restaurants, pharmacies, among others, while also housing a museum
which showcases the glory days of Escolta. Many heritage sites and ancestral houses were
demolished, adapted as local warehouses or converted to high-rise condominiums in the sake
of modernization and development, or just being left out to deteriorate. People see cultural
heritage as something without use or value and has no return of investment but it was wrong.
It is important to restored buildings that carry a cultural monument so that it can be passed on
to the next generation.

El Hogar Filipino Building

-Don Ramón José de Irureta-Goyena Rodríguez and fransisco perez-muñoz in the Don Antonio
Melián Pavía, el Conde de Peracamps, and owner of the El Hogar Filipino.
Just this year, news involving the El Hogar sparked when it was reported that it was sold to a
Chinese-Filipino real estate developers, which reported that it will demolish the El Hogar
because of the building's stability, and be turned into a condominium. The news spread like a
wildfire throughout heritage conservationists, cultural advocates, and ordinary citizens alike.
Heritage conservationists had written to both the city government of Manila and the National
Historical Commission of the Philippines, or NHCP, to stop the demolition of the El Hogar.
Because of this, a petition to stop the demolition was created. As of today, 730 supporters have
already signed the petition. The new owner of the El Hogar however, who was not named, said
that they do not have plans of demolishing the El Hogar, but will use it as a warehouse instead.
The El Hogar Filipino, one of the city's oldest American era structures

- IN REGARDS OF INVOLVEMENT OF ARCHITECT IN THIS PARTICULAR STRUCTURE WHICH

PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE, WHERE IN ARCHITECT Don Ramón José de Irureta-Goyena Rodríguez
and fransisco perez-muñoz THE ONE WHO DESIGNED THE EL HOGAR, IN A BEAUX-ART STYLE.
WHICH NOW A DAYS BECAME ONE OF THE ICONIC LANDMARK IN MANILA WHICH CAPTURES
THE ATTENTION OF EVERYONE SHOWCASING THE LATE AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE WHICH
DATED YEAR BACK IN 1920’S. AS FOR THE NHCP THE ONE WHO SAVED THE EL HOGAR FROM
THE DEMOLISHON AND TURNING IT INTO A CONDOMINIUM, AND GATHERED A CERTAIN
PEOPLE TO SIGN A PETITION TO SAVE EL HOGAR, THIS JUST SHOWS THAT EVEN FROM A LONG
DECADE THE VALUE OF A STRUCTURE STILL REMAINS AND GOT STORIES TO TOLD THAT YOUNG
GENERATION OF TODAY CAN LOOK BACK AND ASTONISH THE BEAUTY OF THE YEAR THAT
PASSED BY.

Capitol Theater

ARCHITECT INVOLVEMENT
-The Capitol Theater was built in 1935
-a masterpiece of National Artist Juan F. Nakpil de Jesús
was designed and built in the art-deco style of architecture, an architectural style that was
prevalent in the 1920s and 1930s
who also designed the Pérez Samanillo Building together with the great Andrés Luna de San
Pedro.
Inside the theater, Nakpil made use of double balconies, which was then a rare architectural
design.
Its façade has two bas-relief sculptures designed by Italian sculptor and expatriate Francesco
Riccardo Monti.
The Capitol Theater, designed by Juan Nakpil in 1935, explicitly portrays Filipinas in the native
garb on the front elevations.
It's sad to see it being torn down of the facade of the Capitol Theater, one the few remaining
heritage structures along Escolta and a work by National Artist Juan Nakpil, with sculptures by
renowned Francesoc Monti. As an aspirant architect, we must save our heritage and order
property owners to protect these landmarks and cultural icons. The said Fighting for a better
city means saving its cultural treasures, and its heritage, and developing them for the people.
Not worshipping profits over our collective identity.