My Lasting and Proud Architectural
Legacy over the Last 50 Years
The Architecture of Leandro V. Locsin, FUAP
Rod Hackney, HFUAP
Mae Michelena-Cruz, UAP
62
UIA – United Kingdom
An early milestone in Mae Cruz’ career at the firm
was serving as project coordinator for the Istana Nurul
Iman in Brunei. Ten years later, she was elected to the
partnership, in 1995. She is currently Partner-In-Charge
of the firm’s Interior Design Group and a coordinating
partner, with a specialization in project management,
building technology, and internal quality controls. Ms.
Cruz’ focus on new building technologies qualified her to
lead the research and specifications writing team. She
has traveled on behalf of LVLP to Italy, China, Thailand,
the United States, France, Singapore, Australia and India
for technical consultations on various building systems
and materials for projects in the Philippines. Ms. Cruz
has been Partner-In-Charge of the Nuvali Visitors’ Center,
the Serendra development, the New Philippine Stock
Exchange (in design) and the Oakwood Joy Nostalg Center.
She is currently handling the Monochrome events place in
Nuvali; the latest expansion of the International School in
Manila; and a hotel development in the Mall of Asia area.
Dr. Rod Hackney, born in Liverpool, England, is
a former Presidency of the Union Internationale des
Architectes (France), the Royal Institute of British
Architects (London), and the Snowdonia National Park
(Wales). According to The Times newspaper in London,
he is the first Community Architect with over 20 offices
throughout the world; a regular contributor to radio and
TV programmes; and a keen debater. He regularly chairs
or partakes in international design competitions, and
has working experience in the Far East, the Middle East,
Europe and the Americas. Between 1981 and 1984, he
assisted Raphael del la Hoz, the then President of the UIA,
to arbitrate between the Philippine Institute of Architects
and the United Architects of the Philippines, which allowed
the UIA to have its Congress and Assembly in Manila in
1985. For this, and his international work in Community
Architecture, he was formally honoured by the UAP as an
honorary fellow.
Abstract
Abstract
Leandro V. Locsin, architect, has reshaped the
urban landscape with a distinctive architecture reflective
of Philippine Art and Culture. He believes that the true
Philippine Architecture is “the product of two great streams
of culture, the oriental and the occidental…to produce a
new object of profound harmony”. It is this synthesis that
underlies all his works, with his achievements in concrete
reflecting his mastery of space and scale. Every Locsin
Building is an original, and identifiable as a Locsin with
themes of floating volume, the duality of light and heavy,
buoyant and massive running in his major works. From
1955 to 1994, Locsin has produced 75 residences and
88 buildings, including 11 churches and chapels, 23
public buildings, 48 commercial buildings, 6 major hotels,
and an airport terminal building. Locsin’s largest single
work is the Istana Nurul Iman, the palace of the Sultan of
Brunei, which has a floor area of 2.2 million square feet.
The CCP Complex itself is a virtual Locsin Complex with
all five buildings designed by him—the Cultural Center of
the Philippines, Folk Arts Theater, Philippine International
Convention Center, Philcite, and The Westin Hotel.
Leandro V. Locsin served as the UAP National President
from 1981-1982.
Rod Hackney’s presentation is an illustrated
discussion of his life as a community architect over the
past 50 years. Spanning from his training in England;
his first jobs in Montreal designing the Expo ’67 railway
stations; the rebuilding programme and World Heritage
Sites in Libya; then to working with Arne Jacobsen on the
Kuwait Central Bank and the American Express Offices in
Copenhagen during the late 1960s. Setting up his own
architectural office in 1971, he became Britain’s first
community architect to save slums from the bulldozer
and helped teach ordinary people to create their dream
homes and neighborhoods. He went on towards the early
twenty first century working on projects in the Middle East
while balancing the books with romantic structures for the
famous. Hackney’s diverse and unstructured life journey
has its share of politics too. Though he feels that he is
possibly leaving a mark without ever writing a business
plan, as the song goes, “could you ask for anything more?”