Why are there hardly any bahay na bato left in Bayambang? Unlike other old towns, Bayambang does not have a profusion of the old Spanish-era houses that draw tourists from all over today. There are four most likely reasons, and the first is the most obvious one: the ravages of fire, flood, and typhoons, not to mention termites. The second is the need to keep up with the aesthetics en vogue at the time, at the same time with consideration to the prevailing economic realities (i.e., the price of materials and labor).
Another reason could be the accounts of juez de cuchillo or massacres that happened during the Palaris rebellion, wherein the houses of locals who didn't join the uprising were torched or that the houses of those who did received the same destructive fate.
A fourth, and historically confirmed, reason is World War II. According to the account of local historian and educator Dr. Clarita D.G. Jimenez: In the 1940s, "The Japanese atrocities left bitter memories among the Bayambangueños. Big buildings like the church, the schools and the big houses were the target of bombings as these were suspected to be the headquarters of the enemy. ... Many Bayambangueños joined the guerrilla forces who fought against the Japanese Imperial Army. Some of them were tortured, killed and forced to join the infamous Bataan Death March."
Aside from old family pictures of locals, archival photos from the National Historical Institute, resourcefully accessed and reproduced by Municipal Consultant on Museum, Culture and Arts Gloria D.V. Valenzuela, confirm that there were indeed such houses in town. Take these photos of the Sabangan and Dauz houses, which are both gone, sadly.
They were constructed in the American colonial period, but they were fine examples of the bahay na bato (at kahoy) Hispano-Filipino architectural style that bloomed during the Spanish colonial period. (Some call it Antillean, to be exact, to refer to the Antilles.) They featured most of the elements present in such a house, including its fixtures and furniture inside, from antesala to zaguan.
The Dauz House, the caption reads, was "built in 1933 and designed with tall, wide windows with sliding capiz shell panels." The Sabangan House, on the other hand, was also "built in 1933, and features a continuous balcony or gallery at the second floor of the house, cutwork in the eaves and an occasional acroteria in the roof."
It must be pointed out that the combination of American, Spanish, and indigenous architectural elements is uniquely Filipino, and this is what makes houses like these historically and architecturally significant. This is a little reminder that it was in the Philippines where, to quote historians, "the first instance of true globalization occurred," thanks to the galleon trade. It is where cultures from all the four corners of the world did not just clash or meet and match, but actually mixed and melded, resulting in the fusion of elements in our cultural markers with those of others. We can observe this consistently not just in Filipino architecture but practically in all facets of Filipino culture -- cuisine, wear, games, literature, music, dance, and so on.
It is only probably in the Philippines where various styles traditionally mix and match to suit an overall theme or mood: capiz windows that remind of Japanese paper windows, the expected ornate baroque details, and the Art Deco and Art Nouveau flourishes in the ensuing American decades... It is just like finding pineapple finials and fu dogs (Chinese lions/gargoyles) together in one notable church, the San Agustin Church in Intramuros, or baroque churches with a Borobudur-like (Indonesian) silhouette and Eastern symbols like sun faces (Paoay church), Churrigaresque detailing, solomonic columns and other neo-Mudejar touches, pagoda-like bell towers, and so on.
There is a pervasive halo-halo (as Gilda Cordero-Fernando puts it) sensibility (which others scoff at as "mongrel culture"), but it is one that is not totally thoughtless. The eclecticism, Fernando Nakpil Zialcita notes, is more careful than desultory cherry-picking. The resulting cultural chimera or, say, platypus, that is the Pinoy halo-halo culture, to the outsider, 'works' on some level of collective understanding that, in the long run, would garner the approval of people like Anthony Bourdain, sophisticated taste and all, at least on the culinary level.
In specific terms, what this means is that the Antillean house architecture was adjusted to suit the tropics, and this resulted in several elements of the bahay kubo being retained, thus distinguishing the bahay na bato at kahoy from the Spanish pueblo house and similar colonial residential architectures in the Antilles and the rest of Latin America. These ingenious adjustments are the following, as the Old Manila Nostalgia blogger observantly took pains to note:
- making the structure more earthquake-proof
- allowing more light into the house
- allowing more air to circulate
- shielding the house from the rain and heat of the sun
- raising the floor as a precaution against flooding
References:
https://filipiniana101.blogspot.com/2014/03/list-parts-of-bahay-na-bato.html
Read the bold claim on the Philippines' place in the history of globalization by historians such as Irving in Colonial Counterpoint: Music in Early Modern Manila (Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music) by D. R. M. Irving (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)
Old Manila Nostalgia Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/oldmanilanostalgia
Ancestral Houses in the Philippines Facebook page members Maria Cecilia Atienza Sunico, Chris Chan, Murvyn Callo, et al.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28427065/Philippine-Spanish-Interior-Design
Bahay na Bato by Rodrigo D. Perez (2007) http://www.librarylink.org.ph/featarticle.asp?articleid=110
These are reportedly the authoritative resources on he subject of bahay na bato (I haven't gotten a hold of them yet.)
Philippine Ancestral Houses (1810-1930) by Fernando Nakpil Zialcita and Martin I. Tinio, GCF Books (1980)
Arkitekturang Filipino: A History of Architecture and Urbanism in the Philippines by Gerard Lico, UP Press (2008)
Philippine Heritage Homes: A Guidebook by Jaime C. Laya, Cristina V. Turalba and Martin I. Tinio, Jr. (2014)
Another reason could be the accounts of juez de cuchillo or massacres that happened during the Palaris rebellion, wherein the houses of locals who didn't join the uprising were torched or that the houses of those who did received the same destructive fate.
A fourth, and historically confirmed, reason is World War II. According to the account of local historian and educator Dr. Clarita D.G. Jimenez: In the 1940s, "The Japanese atrocities left bitter memories among the Bayambangueños. Big buildings like the church, the schools and the big houses were the target of bombings as these were suspected to be the headquarters of the enemy. ... Many Bayambangueños joined the guerrilla forces who fought against the Japanese Imperial Army. Some of them were tortured, killed and forced to join the infamous Bataan Death March."
Aside from old family pictures of locals, archival photos from the National Historical Institute, resourcefully accessed and reproduced by Municipal Consultant on Museum, Culture and Arts Gloria D.V. Valenzuela, confirm that there were indeed such houses in town. Take these photos of the Sabangan and Dauz houses, which are both gone, sadly.
They were constructed in the American colonial period, but they were fine examples of the bahay na bato (at kahoy) Hispano-Filipino architectural style that bloomed during the Spanish colonial period. (Some call it Antillean, to be exact, to refer to the Antilles.) They featured most of the elements present in such a house, including its fixtures and furniture inside, from antesala to zaguan.
The Dauz House, the caption reads, was "built in 1933 and designed with tall, wide windows with sliding capiz shell panels." The Sabangan House, on the other hand, was also "built in 1933, and features a continuous balcony or gallery at the second floor of the house, cutwork in the eaves and an occasional acroteria in the roof."
It must be pointed out that the combination of American, Spanish, and indigenous architectural elements is uniquely Filipino, and this is what makes houses like these historically and architecturally significant. This is a little reminder that it was in the Philippines where, to quote historians, "the first instance of true globalization occurred," thanks to the galleon trade. It is where cultures from all the four corners of the world did not just clash or meet and match, but actually mixed and melded, resulting in the fusion of elements in our cultural markers with those of others. We can observe this consistently not just in Filipino architecture but practically in all facets of Filipino culture -- cuisine, wear, games, literature, music, dance, and so on.
It is only probably in the Philippines where various styles traditionally mix and match to suit an overall theme or mood: capiz windows that remind of Japanese paper windows, the expected ornate baroque details, and the Art Deco and Art Nouveau flourishes in the ensuing American decades... It is just like finding pineapple finials and fu dogs (Chinese lions/gargoyles) together in one notable church, the San Agustin Church in Intramuros, or baroque churches with a Borobudur-like (Indonesian) silhouette and Eastern symbols like sun faces (Paoay church), Churrigaresque detailing, solomonic columns and other neo-Mudejar touches, pagoda-like bell towers, and so on.
There is a pervasive halo-halo (as Gilda Cordero-Fernando puts it) sensibility (which others scoff at as "mongrel culture"), but it is one that is not totally thoughtless. The eclecticism, Fernando Nakpil Zialcita notes, is more careful than desultory cherry-picking. The resulting cultural chimera or, say, platypus, that is the Pinoy halo-halo culture, to the outsider, 'works' on some level of collective understanding that, in the long run, would garner the approval of people like Anthony Bourdain, sophisticated taste and all, at least on the culinary level.
In specific terms, what this means is that the Antillean house architecture was adjusted to suit the tropics, and this resulted in several elements of the bahay kubo being retained, thus distinguishing the bahay na bato at kahoy from the Spanish pueblo house and similar colonial residential architectures in the Antilles and the rest of Latin America. These ingenious adjustments are the following, as the Old Manila Nostalgia blogger observantly took pains to note:
- making the structure more earthquake-proof
- allowing more light into the house
- allowing more air to circulate
- shielding the house from the rain and heat of the sun
- raising the floor as a precaution against flooding
These adjustments were no doubt present in the original houses of Bayambang's oldest families.
https://filipiniana101.blogspot.com/2014/03/list-parts-of-bahay-na-bato.html
Read the bold claim on the Philippines' place in the history of globalization by historians such as Irving in Colonial Counterpoint: Music in Early Modern Manila (Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music) by D. R. M. Irving (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)
Old Manila Nostalgia Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/oldmanilanostalgia
Ancestral Houses in the Philippines Facebook page members Maria Cecilia Atienza Sunico, Chris Chan, Murvyn Callo, et al.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28427065/Philippine-Spanish-Interior-Design
Bahay na Bato by Rodrigo D. Perez (2007) http://www.librarylink.org.ph/featarticle.asp?articleid=110
These are reportedly the authoritative resources on he subject of bahay na bato (I haven't gotten a hold of them yet.)
Philippine Ancestral Houses (1810-1930) by Fernando Nakpil Zialcita and Martin I. Tinio, GCF Books (1980)
Arkitekturang Filipino: A History of Architecture and Urbanism in the Philippines by Gerard Lico, UP Press (2008)
Philippine Heritage Homes: A Guidebook by Jaime C. Laya, Cristina V. Turalba and Martin I. Tinio, Jr. (2014)
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