Last of two parts
IN part one of this column, “The charm of unprescribed urbanism,” I wrote about why organic or unprescribed urbanism fascinates me. This part is about where we can actually see it happening. Metro Manila offers some wonderfully imperfect examples, places where architecture provides the framework, but time, memory, commerce and human behavior have done much of the city-making.
I keep returning to three very different places: Escolta, Poblacion and Makati Cinema Square. Each developed a distinct cultural life through adaptation, persistence and the accumulated choices of the people who live and work there. It is easy to generalize and say this is gentrification driven by low rent. But there is a fine line between the organic evolution of a neighborhood and the forces of gentrification.
Unprescribed urbanism is about how a place acquires its identity through time — through the adaptation of buildings, the persistence of businesses, the arrival of new occupants, and the everyday decisions of the people who inhabit it. Gentrification happens when that accumulated character attracts investment, raises property values, and potentially makes it harder for the people who created the place's identity to remain.
Escolta may be Metro Manila's most compelling example of the tension between prescribed and organic urbanism. Once Manila's premier commercial address in its heyday, it embodied the aspirations of a bustling modern city. Its buildings represented grand architectural styles, retail culture and financial power. Then the metropolitan center shifted to Makati. Escolta lost much of its economic primacy.
But urban decline can produce an unexpected condition, spatial opportunity. In the Escolta district, specifically First United Building, adaptive reuse became a mechanism of urban regeneration. It enjoys a cultural life that emerged partly through the reoccupation and reinterpretation of its existing building stock. The old city has not been erased to make room for the new one. Instead, the two coexist. That is what makes the district compelling. The architecture carries memory, while new occupants continually renegotiate what that memory means. I enjoy coffee, street parties and classical music in that old building. The attempt at reviving Escolta is almost surreal and wonderfully urban. No big retail stores or coffee brands have rolled the gentrification ball yet, but homegrown coffee roaster connoisseurs not only moved in, but also expanded next door to the Burke Building.
Poblacion is a Makati residential neighborhood that became a destination. It represents another form of emergent urbanism. It developed as an established settlement within what eventually became Makati’s CBD, yet retained a unique urban fabric with smaller lots, narrow streets, older residences, and locally oriented businesses.
Families still live in Poblacion. I’ve experienced within the past 10 years actual homes and apartments turning into bars, with very little renovations. Some bars even kept the beds in the original bedrooms. Garage driveways became restaurants. I remember fashion designer Rajo Laurel speculating early and building his high-end atelier amidst smaller old houses and sari-sari stores. There were no Michelin-star restaurants and hip bars yet back then. It was just a neighborhood with an emerging energy.
And then the intensity crept in from the outskirts of the red light district that is P. Burgos. Some say El Chupacabra, an old favorite Mexican taco joint, started the “gentrification” wave in 2013. Poblacion became a dense social, economic and cultural hub while still retaining its neighborhood vibe. It became fashionable without first having to be designed as fashionable. It keeps evolving and may be in danger of being too saturated, that cool kids are looking elsewhere.
And then there is Makati Cinema Square, or MCS. I can’t decide if it’s a liminal space that is forgotten and ironic, or actually a hidden gem of a thriving ecosystem of coolness for those who know. Originally conceived by the Rufino family as a cinema and commercial mall in the late 1970s, it had to be built as a multi-use condominium complex in the early 1980s where mall tenants owned units instead of renting from the developer. The same autonomy of the tenants contributed to the mismanagement of the space. By the 1990s the cinema complex was overtaken by newer and better-managed malls. MCS then housed an eclectic mix of uses ranging from Japanese and Korean restaurants, hobby shops, vintage stores, shooting galleries, bootleg DVD sellers and KTV bars.
The significance of MCS lies less in its formal architecture than in the urban ecosystem that has accumulated within it. Businesses have persisted. Customers have returned. Particular trades and subcultures have found a home there. Its identity has been produced through repetition and familiarity rather than branding. A building can be ordinary and decrepit and still become extraordinary as a place. I’m fascinated with MCS because despite its architecture being frozen in time, it cultivated its own urban relevance through memory, habit, social networks and the continuity of everyday activity. There seems to be an ongoing revival. Perhaps it’s a spillover from Poblacion culture. Nokal, El Gatto, Fat Cat, and Cattery attract cool kids from then and now. Aida’s manokan made it to the Michelin Selected list last year and drew in a new crowd. The architecture is just the container. People make the place.
Once planners, architects and developers understand why organic neighborhoods are attractive, they package these qualities. Heritage becomes a development strategy. Industrial buildings become lifestyle destinations. Walkability becomes a marketing proposition. Bonifacio Global City was even marketed as the “Home of Passionate Minds.” But their being global, or even a “city,” was tested when stray cats were taken away and teenagers with oversized streetwear and hoodies were banned for security reasons. Authenticity cannot be simplified. A neighborhood cannot be made authentic just by installing heritage-style façades, adding cafés and commissioning murals. Community culture evolves.
I am not romanticizing our messy metropolis. My work is in policy and governance so I know that there are forms of urban disorder that are not charming at all and are even dangerous. Organic urbanism can create character but it cannot substitute for good governance. We definitely should plan the infrastructure that makes urban life possible: transport, drainage, utilities, public space, accessibility, environmental systems, street networks and basic safety. Our urban problems cannot be left to chance. The answer is not to choose between planning and spontaneity. We need to plan what must be planned, and leave room for the city to surprise us.