What is METROPLEX?
Perplexities in Today's Complez Metropolis
This is my first post. And it has been a long time before I decided to finally say something in the blog world, to the "city-zens" of Manila and to the denizens of the Architecture/ Design Culture all over the world! Ok, that sounded too ambitions. But the blog is all about my musings, my rants and most importantly, my ideas for the city. I shall start where I am currently base... Manila, The capital of the Philippines and home to a multiplying 11 million souls. This is a city often misuderstood and and misinterpreted (e.g. Claire Danes' comments about our hospitable roaches)/ Sometimes, Manila is more recognizable than the nation itself, made familiar with the 7,099 islands, is it? and 2,000 shoes of Imelda MArcos. The country was the "can-opener" of Asia in the mid-twentieth century, but then again in the age of internet and terrorism, that cheesy term is already obsolete. I am still obsessed with the city as I am obsessed with Prison Break (TV series). I continuosly fascinate myself with photos of old buildings and streets scnes that show how kickass the city was. I admit that I am a hopeless romantic for Manila. I still dream how this capital could have grown, had the Americans not bombed, and some misinformed locals deliberately destroyed what is left of the city. Yes, time to move on. A University of the Philippine professor once asked me, why the obsession with the past? Although I remain a fan of Grandma Zaha and her uncle Rem (world leaders and thinkers of Modern Archtecture...so far) I want the past to be preserved! These old buildings shall be th eplatform to juxtapose new ones. Imagine the high-tech monsters of War of the Worls ravaging same high tech cities. You cannot. The movie will not be as gory because the human factor attached to the familiar and nostalgia is not there. Like a director, I will need a set to enhance and sometimes hypothetically "destroy," for the city to spring new ideas to give way to cuter architectural monsters. As a debut, I make Manila, my hometown as subject for this experiment.
