RM Ph 10/2014

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D E S I G N

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INTERIOR MOTIVES PHOTOGRAPHED BY STEVE TIRONA

ROGUE MAGAZINE / 220 PESOS

INSIDE JOHN LAUTNER’S MID-CENTURY MASTERPIECE IN THE CITY OF ANGELS | THE SLEAZE, SYBARITES, AND SCANDALS OF MALATE’S SYQUIA APARTMENTS | THE MEN AND WOMEN BEHIND MANILA’S TOP BRANDING STUDIOS | A FINAL LOOK AT THE CITY’S DOOMED HERITAGE SITES BY NEAL OSHIMA

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CONTENTS October 2014

140

COVER STORY

8 O C T O B E R 2014

A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD James Goldstein has spent the last three decades dipping into his immeasurable and recondite wealth to tweak his Beverly Hills estate, the renowned Sheats Goldstein Residence. Patrick Green speaks to the enigmatic owner of the home that’s as famous for its architecture as it is for its bachelor pad points.

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FEATURES

Models on the roof of Palazzo Pucci in Florence, 1967.

A room inside the North Syquia Apartment photographed by Neal Oshima.

114 IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK In the eight decades since their establishment, the North Syquia apartments have reflected the spirit of Manila’s most eccentric and creative personalities. Paolo Lorenzana speaks to residents past and present to get a sense of what life was like in what is arguably Manila’s most storied address.

128 THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS Though they operate in the background, design studios play an indispensable role in a company’s success at a time when a brand’s look holds the same weight as its purpose. In Rogue’s design portfolio, five branding teams are given the attention they duly deserve.

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CONTENTS October 2014

El Hogar photographed

by Neal Oshima.

FEATURES 158

102

THE WAY THEY WERE Mired in politics, bureaucracy, and our obsession with development, Manila’s heritage sites have long been losing the battle for preservation. Julia Nebrija outlines the measures we should be taking while we’ve still got time.

THE SLANT Marianne Carandang probes the complex issue of the airport overhaul. Ali Figueroa expounds on how functional design gives impetus to urban improvement. Jeannie E. Javelosa discusses the essentials of good design. Manuel L. Quezon III assesses the contentious subject of charter change from an atypical angle.

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29 PETER MENDELSUND UNCOVERED You may not be familiar with his name, but you’re definitely familiar with his work.

In Cover, the artist behind the designs of countless best-selling titles has finally got a book of his own.

Ramen King and Ippudo founder Shigemi Kawahara photographed

by Tim Serrano.

32 RAMEN RISING Even with Manila’s relentless obsession with ramen, Ippudo is giving all other ramen houses a run for their money. In an exclusive interview, Rogue talks to founder Shigemi Kawahara, the true Ramen King.

36 A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE As he adds Gone Girl to his roster this month, examine the anatomy of a David Fincher film.

38 SIGN LANGUAGE The once-ubiquitous painted signs of Manila are dying out. Filipino Folk Foundry looks back at Manila’s iconic painted presswork and pays homage to a fading tradition.

40 THREE’S COMPANY The brains behind Mamou, Mesclun, and LU bring you CDP, a new restaurant that’s casual dining at its finest.

44 COMIC RELIEF After their foray into the silver screen, comic books are now charging into television. We walk you through the adaptations you should watch out for.

48 ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE Told through two different vantage points, Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby is a love story like no other.

AGENDA 14 O C T O B E R 2014

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50 HEADING SOUTH There’s far more to Hispanic dining than just tacos. We highlight seven local restaurants and give South American cuisine the attention it deserves.

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CONTENTS October 2014

Casa Ponti in via Dezza, Milan with tables, chairs, and rugs designed by architect Gio Ponti.

SPACE

57 ATTACK THE BLOCK! Get your hands on these objects that reflect the playful and imaginative side of design, because homeware doesn’t always have to be about sleek lines and slick composition.

66 THE HOUSE OF MIRTH Buoyed by appearances in Manila FAME and Milan’s Salone del Mobile, Eric Paras is now tacking on new collaborations and a boutique hotel to his already extensive portfolio.

62 COLLECTOR’S EDITION Molteni & C revisits the collection design grandmaster Gio Ponti and gives it a modern upgrade.

70 EASY RIDERS The daily commute just got a little easier with these three taxi-hailing apps—but which one’s ahead of the rest?

64 HOME ON THE RANGE With faucets that remember your ideal temperature and phone-based house keys, it seems we’re well on our way to living like The Jetsons.

72 LEVIATHAN, BOUND The soon-to-open Fondation Louis Vuitton built by Frank Gehry and commissioned by LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault is an architectural wonder set to regenerate the Parisian landscape.

16 O C T O B E R 2014

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CONTENTS October 2014

An exhibition space at the Frank Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton.

SPACE 76 THE NEW RADICALS From streamlined designs to new safety measures, take a look at the vehicles of the future by way of these five concept cars.

18 O C T O B E R 2014

80 LIVE BY DESIGN As evidenced by Hyve and Sugarland Hotel, creative collaboration is the driving force behind the designs of architect Denise De Castro.

84 ABOVE THE CLOUDS Designed by some of the most illustrious architects and interior designers, these upscale residential towers are the new homes of the world’s power set.

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CONTENTS October 2014

A vintage photo from the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo's Equilibrium exhibit, representing the relationship between the human body in motion and Ferragamo's devotion to the study of shoemaking.

THE EYE 87 TALKING HEADS The lines are blurred between the disparate styles of Christopher Raeburn and Chris Cunningham in this issue’s style editorial.

94 BALANCING ACT Museo Salvatore Ferragamo’s latest exhibit is a study in the legendary shoemaker’s intricate understanding of the relationship between a man’s feet and his footwear.

98 SPANGLED ANKLES Hesitant to dress in bold patterns and bright colors?

Take it one step at a time with these playful printed socks.

100 DESIGN DIVERSITY After a decade of partnership, Marc Newson and G-Star Raw come together once more for a special anniversary collection.

20 O C T O B E R 2014

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SF719S

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BUCKLE.FERRAGAMO.COM

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WorldMags.net EDITOR IN CHIEF CREATIVE DIRECTOR

PAOLO R. REYES MIGUEL MARI

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

CARMEL A A. LOPA

MANAGING EDITOR

JACS T. SAMPAYAN

ST YLE EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR ASSISTANT EDITOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT CONTRIBUTING FEATURES EDITOR CONTRIBUTING ST YLE EDITOR EDITOR AT L ARGE

GINO DE L A PAZ MICHELLE V. AYUYAO DON JAUCIAN ARIANNA LIM RAYMOND ANG MANO LOTHO TEODORO LOCSIN, JR.

ART ART DIRECTOR SENIOR DESIGNER

MIGUEL LUGTU PATRICK DIOKNO

PHOTOGRAPHER AT L ARGE

MARK NICDAO

PHOTOGRAPHER

STEVE TIRONA

ILLUSTRATOR

MENEER MARCELO

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

MARA COSON, JAMES GABRILLO, TRICKIE LOPA, L.A. CONSING LOPEZ, TATS MANAHAN, TEDDY MONTELIBANO, NEAL OSHIMA, NICOL A M. SEBASTIAN, GUTSY TUASON, MARTIN VALDES, MARITES VITUG, JJ YULO, CLINTON PAL ANCA

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

APA AGBAYANI, ANDREA ANG, KAREN BOLILIA, NANA CARAGAY, MARIANNE CARANDANG, PAMELA CORTEZ, GIO DIONISIO, ALI FIGUEROA, PATRICK GREEN, JEANNIE JAVELOSA, PAOLO LORENZANA, MIGUEL LUIS, PETRA MAGNO, JULIA NEBRIJA, MANUEL L. QUEZON III

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS & ARTISTS

MARTIN DIEGOR, TERENCE EDUARTE, MONICA ESQUIVEL, SAM LIM, MIGUEL NACIANCENO, TIM SERRANO, ROM VILLASERAN

INTERNS

KATRINA CHUA, DANIELL A DE LOS REYES, MARIKA MANGL APUS, ALBERT SASPA, TOCH BARREIRO

ROGUE MEDIA, INCORPORATED PUBLISHER HEAD OF DIGITAL STRATEGY ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER ACCOUNT MANAGERS

FELIPE P. CRUZ III / felipe.cruz@roguemag.net

On The Cover Lauren Young wears a Giuseppe Zanotti necklace, Eres bodysuit, Jerome Rousseau shoes Photographed by Steve Tirona Stylied by Kyle Edward Blackmon Makeup by Amy Strozzi Hair by Bobby Eliot Shot on location at The Sheats-Goldstein Residence, Los Angeles ERRATUM In our September 2014 feature on the Re-vive Chair (page 90), the store information should have been credited as "Available at Natuzzi."

We apologize for this oversight.

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THIS ISSUE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE HELP OF GEMMA ARANETA, CARLOS CELDRAN, MICHAEL COURTNEY, DENISE DE CASTRO, JULIE KRAMER, ROBERTA LEIGHTON, HENRY NELSON, CHIQUI MABANTA, TATS MANAHAN, EMMAN MONTALVAN, APA ONGPIN, JAY POU, KELLY TOMLINSON, PHYLLIS ZABALLERO, HEBE HARTENDORP ZWEIGEL

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ISSUE 81

THE EDITOR’S NOTE October 2014

efore we knew it, we were inside the dark belly of the Ogre. Like a Six Flags rollercoaster on its slow and climactic ascent, the cogwheel train clawed its way through the cold intestinal canal of the Eiger (“Ogre”), one of the three highest massifs of the Bernese Alps, its ebony bowels lined by limestone, gneiss, and metamorphic rock.

“Next stop, Eigerwand station,” a robotic voice blurted out in seven successive languages, provoking the carriage’s passengers, with their puffy vests and pallid faces slathered with sunscreen, to stretch their stiff limbs and shake off the languor of the musty, sunless morning.

After 51 minutes and seven miles of darkness, the locomotive slowed down to a tortoise’s pace, the shrill sound of its brakes muffled by the painful pressure in our ears. Rectangular chinks of fluorescent light began seeping through the interstices of the train windows, revealing a platform gallery of sportsmen—Federer, Schumacher, Phelps—in frozen moments of athletic glory.

It was 9:22 A.M. and we had finally reached the end of the rabbit hole: Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe, which sits on a dramatic saddle between the peaks of the Mönch (“Monk”) and Jungfrau (“Maiden”) mountains.

A series of roped paths—like you would encounter in any packed Florida vacationland— led us to the lifts, where we were greeted by a 24 O C T O B E R 2014

mob of Indian nationals making a mad dash to the first open elevator marked “Sphinx.”

When the elevator doors slid open 25 seconds later, we were engulfed in an arctic whiteness, the frigid draft varnishing our eyes with a cellophane of frost. This was the $24 million Sphinx Observatory, a state-of-the-art research center equipped with Cassegrain telescopes, weather stations, and an astronomical dome.

I followed the aural trail of the winds to the two-tier outdoor terrace, where nature—or something like it—was putting on quite a show.

A few tenuous steps to the railing, and there it was, the 360-degree view that made this day trip all worth it: a deep indigo sky brushed with boat-shaped wisps of cloud; a furry platoon of Greenland huskies leading dog-sled rides across the snowfield; the hazy outline of skiers trudging towards the horizon like prehistoric ants of the Ice Age; and beyond, the Vosges Mountains of France, Germany’s Black Forest, and the Great Aletsch Glacier—Europe’s largest—too beautiful for the pen or brush of man to portray.

It was not hard to imagine how this holy trinity of peaks—unconquered until 1938— earned an enduring place in mountaineering legend; their massive ramparts of rock and snow still stained by the footprints of fallen climbers.

I squinted my sun-strained eyes and scanned through the green carpets and empyrean plains of the Bernese Highlands. From this abovethe-clouds perspective, it’s easy to feel, even

for a passing moment, suddenly protective and possessive of the world beneath you—as if you were Thor, the Norse god of Thunder, whose hammer kept the gargoyles and ogres, both real and imagined, at bay; or Thunderdell, the paternal and oft-misunderstood giant of English lore, whom Jack, a bean farmer of questionable wealth, should never have fee-fi-fofummed with.

Gods and monsters. Monks and ogres. Light and dark. The Swiss Alps, lauded by 19th century Romantics as the embodiment of everything sublime in nature, seemed to manifest this duality: a land of stark contrasts and opposing perspectives, equal parts lovely and savage.

It was hard to tear myself away from the view, but then again, that’s the flip side of something so beautiful—the fatal attraction. Before exiting the Sphinx, I was surprised to find a sign by the door that I hadn’t noticed earlier. It read in French: “Venez et voyez les oeuvres de Dieu” (“Come and see the work of God”). With that in mind, I hopped on the Jungfraubahn and welcomed the deep, dark descent into the belly of the Ogre.

Paolo R. Reyes Editor in Chief

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK NICDAO

The Grand Design

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THE GUEST LIST October 2014

Patrick Green is an LA-based man of the street with a business card that reads: Film.

Food. Bourbon. Border Collies. He’s spread his Kipple across print, apps, online, and film.

For more of his tales, lies, and exaggerations, he is @lastreetfoodapp, on both Twitter and Instagram.

26 O C T O B E R 2014

Julia Nebrija is the executive director of Viva Manila and an urban planning consultant who received a Masters in Urban Design from the Spitzer School of Architecture in New York. She came to Manila in 2009 as a Fulbright Scholar researching informal settlements and has since collaborated with artists, communities, and government agencies on projects to realize Metro Manila’s true potential.

She tries to spend as much time as possible exploring the city on her bike and talking to new people.

Steve Tirona was born in Manila and raised in Southern California. He’s always had an interest in the arts but didn’t seem to find his calling until he picked up a camera. This month, he takes the Rogue cover shoot to LA, where he photographs the legendary home of James Goldstein.

Marianne Carandang is a tourism and travel trade journalist by profession, as well as a food and lifestyle writer. Born and raised in Italy, she has lived in Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Manila and speaks four languages. She has studied at Ateneo, UP, and Le Cordon Bleu Dusit, where she received a diplome de cuisine.

Neal Oshima is an esteemed art and commercial photographer whose works have been viewed and auctioned in galleries around the world. The first full profile on him and his body of work appeared in the September 2013 issue of Rogue, which also featured a rare portrait of him shot by Mark Nicdao. In this issue, he immortalizes a few of Manila’s most significant heritage sites.

Paolo Lorenzana has written for GQ, Details Magazine online, and New York Magazine’s Vulture and Grub Street. After a stint at Opening Ceremony as a copywriter, he’s back in Manila as online editorial director for Homme et Femme and the Bench group of companies.

Petra Magno graduated from the Ateneo de Manila with a degree in Literature, a minor in Philosophy, and the Loyola Schools Award for the Arts for her poetry. None of these are of any help in the world, but she is grateful all the same.

She is currently in New York, functioning on Manila time.

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Ali Figueroa is a designer and educator who first taught philosophy at Ateneo de Manila University in 1998, then became a pioneer design teacher at the Fine Arts Program in 2004. His work includes brand identity, books, environments, campaigns, packaging, costumes, sets, and more. He heads creative strategy at the Islands group of companies, sings with the Bukas Palad Music Ministry, works with theater companies, and performs in educational tours of Intramuros.

WorldMags.net O c tob e r 2 0 14

E DI T E D BY

M I CH ELLE V. AYUYAO

AGENDA

F O O D + E N T E R TA I N M E N T + C U L T U R E + T R AV E L

WORDS BY ANDREA ANG

Peter Mendelsund is a visual master, backed by his work on more than a hundred iconic book jackets. This year he receives a book of his very own which, to say the least, is long overdue

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ISSUE NO.

81

AGENDA BOOKS

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YOU OWN A PETER Mendelsund

book.

You just don’t know it, but it’s sitting there, on your shelf. You own a Peter Mendelsund book.

Which is unsurprising, considering most of them find their way not only on bestseller lists but on every cultural purveyor’s “best” or “most” or “must” list. A few titles that you will undoubtedly find familiar: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The Dubliners. War and Peace. Lolita.

Who is Peter Mendelsund? He creates book covers, and as one of the present’s most renowned artists to do so, his work often sandwiching the words of Julio Cortazar, Jo Nesbø, James Joyce.

And now, he has created one for himself— that is, for his own book, Cover (available at select National Book Store and Powerbooks branches).

With it, the reader is able to match Mendelsund eye for eye: it’s a look into his own design process, making Cover not just a collection of the book jackets Mendelsund has designed, but a portfolio of his mind.

While Mendelsund may not have penned the books he designs, the covers he creates are the finishing touch, the period at the end of the intricately structured sentence. A book cover should, of course, be about the book; as with a writer penning copy for an advertisement, the voice should not be of the writer’s, but of the brand’s. Hence, while each cover is created for a specific book, a Mendelsund creation is marked not by preference in style, but a play of the mind.

“I love the frisson created when the traditional is juxtaposed with the unexpected and dissonant,” he explains in a 2010 interview with The New Yorker. “In my own work, I take great enjoyment playing off formality—making something predictable feel subversive.”

Mendelsund emphasizes that “whatever visual form it takes, is always the author’s idea, not mine. My job is to realize this idea visually, to translate it onto the cover.” To a certain extent, when Mendelsund creates a cover, the book itself is subjected to Mendelsund’s own analysis. His part, then, is “to tease out that meaning, that authorial impetus.”

Which is why—along with rejected cover 30 O C T O B E R 2014

“In my own work, I take great enjoyment playing off formality—making something predictable feel subversive.”

TO JUDGE A BOOK

Above: The iconic Larsson cover underwent an estimated 5070 versions before it was finalized. Top: Unlike some authors, Martin Amis played a useful role in his book’s cover design.

studies, jacket sketches, and quotes from authors of books he’s designed for, all separated, as you would in a library, by genre—Mendelsund, unsurprisingly, has included his own close reading of certain titles. Clearly a lover of the written word, Mendelsund shares of the first cover he had ever created, “Someone wanted to hire me! To pay me . . . to read and to design books! Incredible.”

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AGENDA FOOD

A ROG

UE

EXCLUSIVE

RAMEN RISING Shigemi Kawahara, the force behind ramen emporium Ippudo, talks about his Star Wars influences and the thought behind the ramen revolution WORDS BY MICHELLE V. AYUYAO PORTRAIT BY TIM SERRANO

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I’m asked through an intermediary.

A dainty woman named Keiko is our translator, the day’s bridge between two strangers: myself and Shigemi Kawahara, founder of ramen emporium Ippudo (3/F Mega Fashion Hall, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong, 4701837). Why Mr. Kawahara posed a science question over my already empty bowl of ramen caught me completely off-guard. We are here to talk about your noodles, sir.

But, okay, I bring myself back to high school physics class, second row from the back, and think desperately “YOU KNOW FORCE?”

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AGENDA FOOD

“I don’t want to betray anybody or let anyone down. Thirty years ago, my vision was to have young ladies be able to enjoy ramen, but now I would like people all over the world to enjoy it.” about what force is. My pregnant pause becomes painfully, and quite obviously, overdue as Mr. Kawahara cuts the tension and breaks away from his rhythmic Japanese. “Force!” he begins, taking out all the English he can muster, surprising me, and Keiko, and possibly himself, “Do you know Star Wars?”

Suddenly we’re on the same page, speaking the same language, in a galaxy far, far away.

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More than three decades ago Shigemi Kawahara ran a restaurant called After the Rain, a complete 180 of the restaurant chain he’s become known for. The place cropped out the usual Western dishes, from burgers to pizza to spaghetti, which seemed to be a hit with young couples of the time. After service, he and his staff would go out to drink and, by default, end up at the nearby ramen shop. In the years that

preceded his tastefully decorated ramen houses that diners have become accustomed to, the standard noodle houses were dark and dingy, with unkempt floors glossed over by a coat of oil and grease. So bedraggled were these places that women diners there were almost unheard of. The sad state of these shops was the “on” switch to Kawahara’s light bulb idea. A destination ramen house became the dream.

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WorldMags.net SEE RAMEN RUN

Left: Ippudo founder Shigemi Kawahara celebrates 30 years of Ippudo next year. Major milestones include being named the Ramen King, and collaborating with Cup Noodles on a special edition Ippudo Cup Ramen. Below: Ippudo’s flagship store in Fukuoka, with a seating capacity of 10 people.

“Force,” he says once again, pulling me back into space. “Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker he has The Force, says ‘use it!’ because with force, there is energy. If there is energy, there is power.” Chikaraa in Japanese, he tells me, means power, influence, and it is from there that Chikaranomoto was created, the umbrella company of Kawahara’s chain, with its first born being the 10-seater Ippudo in Fukuoka. It took almost three years before Ippudo even became a blip in Japan’s dining scene radar, but Kawahara, in the restaurant’s early years, lived on the fact that his was a place fashionable enough to attract

customers that ranged from older couples to yuppies, to women, and even children.

He explains that it seemed as though dark clouds had stifled the ramen industry, and his intent was to send fresh air coursing through it.

Hence “Ippudo,” which translates directly into “one wind hall,” with Kawahara breathing a gust of new life down its track.

In the next few years, Kawahara garnered three consecutive first place wins on the Japanese television show TV Champion Ramen Cheff which earned him a place in the Ramen Hall of Fame and, accordingly, the title of Ramen King. Since then, Kawahara has branched out the brand across the globe, with shops in Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, and now Manila. Each shop queues more than a hundred people on a daily basis, and an estimated collective amount of 50,000 bowls are dispatched each day. “There’s this big responsibility that comes with having this much power and influence,” Kawahara shares solemnly. “I don’t want to betray anybody, or let anyone down. Next year, I am celebrating my 30th anniversary for Ippudo. Thirty years ago my vision was to have young ladies be able to enjoy ramen, but now I would like people all over the world to enjoy it.”

We end our chat as the person in charge of his Manila leg taps at her watch to signal their departure time for his next appointment elsewhere in the city. Mr. Kawahara nods at her but, before leaving, makes a bee line for the open kitchen and—to the surprise of the kitchen staff—picks ff up a handful of noodles, tosses it into a mesh metal strainer, and begins to cook. Instantly, the little peep holes that line the kitchen become filled with hands holding up cameras and mobile phones, while behind the stove tops, the line cooks imitate the instant audience, camera phones aimed square at the Ramen King. He crafts a perfectly pleasant bowl of Karakamen, with delicate squares of chashu fanned out to one side, and a mass of spicy miso trembling at the center. Everyone around applauds his kitchen improv, but Kawahara makes no notice of this as he makes his way to the table where Keiko sits, fiddling with her phone. While Ippudo has elevated ramen to an international scale, here is the company’s CEO, Mr. Ramen King in the flesh, amicably taking time off ff his already full schedule to make lunch for the lady that became his voice for the afternoon. As he gives Keiko a full explanation of the tabletop condiments to use on the ramen, I ask him if he’s fed up with ramen yet. “I am not tired of ramen, no, I will never be. That is what keeps me going.”

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SUPER BOWLS

The quintessential ramen trio at the center of every Ippudo noodle house

AKAMARU

crafted Ippudo Umami Dama miso paste

SHIROMARU

The original Ippudo classic, with Tonkotsu noodles and pork loin chashu

KARAKAMEN

A house blend of hot spices thicken up the broth of the spiciest bowl on the menu

O C T O B E R 2014 35

AGENDA FILM

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THE EVIL THAT MEN DO “The most detestable collection of people you will ever meet, my family,” Henrik Vanger warns journalist Mikael Blomkvist in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; also a useful preface to Fincher’s grittiest films. His subjects plumb the darkest recesses of the dark side: the Bible-thumping serial killers of Se7en and Dragon Tattoo, the unchecked conspirators of The Game, and the wild abandon of the Zodiac murders.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE As David Fincher releases another puzzler of a film this month, the Ben Affleck-starrer Gone Girl, we take a closer look at his award-winning oeuvre, a cold landscape that’s mostly inhabited by raging maniacs, rapid-fire dialogue, and the rancid underbelly of the human condition WORDS BY DON JAUCIAN / ART BY ROM VILLASERAN

MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION Whether it’s the drink that Mark Zuckerberg was chugging at his dorm room when he created Facebook or a 72-hour shoot for nine pages of script, Fincher is known for his attention to detail, a high-flying brand of obsessiveness that he’s fed off to his characters particularly those in Se7en, Dragon Tattoo, and Zodiac: tortured spirits whose minds reach down to the slightest change in detail or a mere photographic blur, making each film a confounding puzzle with strange delights.

GRAND CONSPIRACIES Either a disillusionment Fincher has harbored since his failed debut—studio execs were mostly to blame for Alien 3’s dismal critical and commercial performance—or a familiar rhythm that he’s hewn closely to his cinematic worlds, Fincher’s films are littered with corrupt corporate behemoths: WeylandYutani in Alien 3 that wants to extract the creature as a biological weapon, the “entertainment” company CRS in The Game, and the money-laundering tycoon Hans Erik Wennerström in Dragon Tattoo.

A WORLD OF HURT With the unusual exception of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fincher’s films are populated with the scum of the earth— from the back-dealing asshats of The Social Network, the women-hating anti-Semites of Dragon Tattoo, the underground nihilists of Fight Club, to the sly, library-card carrying serial killer of Se7en bent on proving ours is a world riddled with sin, chaos, and destruction.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS One of the defining stamps of a true-blooded auteur is the familiar cast of characters that he enlists to help realize his vision.

Fincher’s film credits are no stranger to recurring names. He has worked with Brad Pitt three times: two cult classics (Se7en and Fight Club), and one Oscar-crowd pleaser (Benjamin Button). And currently relies on Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor for music.

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AGENDA BOOKS

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JUST THE TYPE

A majority of the sign painters interviewed for the book attribute computer-made tarpaulins as the cause of decline in their business.

SIGN LANGUAGE

painting is drying out. The tradition—where fonts are descriptively nicknamed only for the convenience of sign printers— Typography has become a has long been largely undocumented springboard for good design. Filipino with no clear history, and, as seen more and more, has little ability to overcome giant print Folk Foundry, a new book launched “Though sign painters are fiercely at the New York Art Book Fair, looks billboards. proud of their skills,” explains Clara Balaguer, back at some of Manila’s iconic “it is as common to see them doubting and hand-wringing because we have recorded that painted presswork it is common for clients to complain about their WORDS BY MARA COSON work being ‘ugly’ and refusing to pay.”

Balaguer, who runs Hardworking Goodlooking, the publishing arm of the Office of Culture and Design (OCD), with designers “SAN MIGUEL,” “TAXI AIRCON,” and “Cubao Kristian Henson and Dante Carlos, explores Ilalim Ibabaw,” may never find its welcome in the the ideas that have long been unanswered in canon of typography or on our font drop-down Filipino folk lettering through their newly published book, Filipino Folk Foundry (FFF), menus, but for people who live in Manila, these ubiquitous font types are more than familiar, which was launched at the recently concluded pasted onto beer bottles, onto the back doors of New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. “It is said that documenting any form of material taxi cabs, and onto bus windshields in Cubao. culture is a way to preserve it for posterity, so Pushed out by the tarpaulin and the movie that it may continue to educate and influence poster, the once proud and prolific trade of sign 38 O C T O B E R 2014

people even if that particular cultural object or technique disappears,” says Balaguer, who interviewed 24 sign painters for the project, with the help of graffiti artist Nuno, and two anarchist collectives, urban gardening project Feral Crust, and DIY music and activities producer Flower Grave Collective. “I think that’s the biggest contribution this book will make, if it manages to make its way into the proper hands, libraries and archives.”

Balaguer understands this from past experience, having lived away from Manila for seven years before starting the OCD in 2010. “I developed a new appreciation for all the things I had taken for granted as ‘banal,’ ‘baduy,’ or ‘not interesting’ when I lived here,” she explains.

“Constant exposure desensitizes and absence makes the heart grow fonder. You can always spot tourists in a city because they look up and around when they walk the streets, drinking in the wonder of what is new. That’s what living abroad taught me to do in my own city: to appreciate it anew.”

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TO FIND OU T MORE ABOU T “FILIPINO FOLK FOUNDRY,” E-MAIL CLARA BALAGUER AT OFFICEOCD@GMAIL.COM

AGENDA FOOD

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THREE’S COMPANY The thought of three highly regarded voices in food joining forces under one roof may seem ludicrous—but not impossible. The brains behind Mamou, Mesclun, and LU welcome you to Chef du Partie (CDP) WORDS BY PAMELA CORTEZ / PHOTOS BY MIGUEL NACIANCENO

THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS is a complicated and tricky one. Many have failed, when partnerships that were meant to thrive and succeed fall apart. There are cases when businessmen just can’t seem to understand the creative minds of chefs, and others when bad blood runs through a family’s veins, and age-old companies split. Sometimes it is about a clashing of minds and of egos, where even delicious food and impressive concepts fail.

Then there are the crazy ones that decide to band together in one place—crazy, but genius, especially when these people have already established a name for themselves. Behind the recently opened CDP (Level R1, Power Plant Mall, Makati; 556-4454) are Malou Forés of Mamou and Recovery Food, Katrina Kuhn-

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Alcantara of Mesclun and Chuck’s Deli, and Kristine Del Gallego-Locsin of LU. Their restaurants are all cut from entirely different cloths, with no thread that could seemingly tether them together. Kuhn-Alcantara is trained in classical French, and the restaurants of Forés are inspired by hip neighborhood eateries in New York.

How does it all work then, and this well?

CDP’s menu, while drawing inspiration from such disparate countries as the Dominican Republic and France, seems to come from the same story. The carefully designed dining room, with its slate walls and brass ceiling could seamlessly belong to any of the trio’s restaurants. “The key was wine I think—Chablis, bubbly,” says Forés, who

TABLE MANNERS

Above: CDP’s alcohol infusions come in flavors like lychee, orange, and white grape. Top: The design of the restaurant, by architect Jorge Yulo, is meant to channel the warmth of European brasseries.

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AGENDA FOOD

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PORTION CONTROL

Clockwise, from top left: Traditional French onion soup; steak frites poutine which uses USDA rib-eye; Maine lobster vongole; maple mascarpone cheescake with a walnut shortbread cookie.

CDP is a global table, borrowing influences from their travels. The idea of small plates comes from Buvette, a gastrotheque that is part wine bar, part neighborhood restaurant.

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met Alcantara years ago, when they were new neighbors in Serendra, and Locsin, who is married to her husband’s cousin. Because of their love of good food, the three women met up regularly after service, popping open a bottle, while ideas and new recipes were shared.

In a way, CDP is a long-term result of that friendship, of trips to New York, London, and France, where they finally formed the idea.

CDP is a global table, borrowing influences from their travels. The idea of small plates for example, comes from Buvette in New York and Paris, a gastrotheque that is part wine bar, part neighborhood restaurant.

The dishes themselves reflect that transcontinental sensibility. Sancocho, a stew of pork, chicken, and beef, slightly sweet topped with an avocado salsa, comes from Forés’s Dominican aunt. A squid ink stew has Spain written all over it, made salty by an assertive chorizo, while rib-eye is served poutine-style with an addictive pot of melted cheese. Their cocktails are made with their own in house, fruit-infused liquors. All of them have bubbly of course, cremant in particular, French sparkling wine made across the region with the exception of Champagne.

At CDP, there are no egos to be kept in check, no clashes of creativity. “We respect each other—the flavor always comes first,” says Forés. “The heart and soul of each recipe, we respect it, we enhance it, then think about how it will blend with our concept.” With this mentality in mind, it’s no wonder that the tables are continually booked, and the drinks always flowing.

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AGENDA TV

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COMIC RELIEF As superheroes have flown across movie screens, it comes as no surprise that they’ve crossed borders and made it into television. Here are some comic book adaptations to watch out for WORDS BY MIXKAELA VILLALON / ILLUSTRATIONS BY ADRIENNE PONCE

DAREDEVIL Marvel Comics has becoome synonymous with bankable movies but less than stellar TV shows (as opposed to DC Comics’ chain of solid TV shows, and hit-oor-miss films). With the lukewarm m reception of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel is gambling on their less ostentatious superheroes for the t smaller screen. Daredevil is a smaart choice.

The blind lawyer with heightened senses who fights crime both in the courtroom and on thhe streets only requires a well-grouunded treatment without expennsive sets and effects. Still, the TV series will fight an uphill battle to get out from under the shadow of the failed 2003 Ben Affleckk movie.

Floating rumors include Boardwalk Empire’s breakout star Charlie Cox as the man with no fear.

HOURM MAN

Network: The good news is that Marvel is going all out with their gamble—offering Daredeevil on the online streaming service Netflix, arguably the biggest revolution to come to TV. With thee success of Netflix original shows House of Cards and Orange is thhe New Black, Dareedevil will be designed like a reallyy long movie, all 13 mmediately avvailable for episodes im binge-watcching.

One of DC C’s popular superheroes in the 1950s, Hourman began to faall out of fashion after the Goldenn Age of Comics but not without a fight. To date, there have been three characters with different storylines to carry that name, and we still don’t have h word on which one the plaanned TV show will focus on. Still, S Hourman could be the next installment in DC’s ever expanding comics-to-TV universe. Depending D on which Hourman they t plan to adapt, he roubled man who h cou b develops an addictive drug that gives him an hour’s worth of superpowers, or a super-cyborg with the power to see an hour into the future.

What it’s like: Law andd Order with ass-kiccking.

Network: CW’s string of fairly successful DC superhero shows Arrow and Smallville, and its ambitious show The Flash, have been strong from the get-go, but Hourman seems an odd choice to make a series about.

While he’s definitely a fun comic book character, the fact that they’re resurrecting a nearforgotten hero for a TV show over other popular characters like Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, or Zattana feels like a missed opportunity.

What it’s like: Probably a super-powered 24.

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WorldMags.net Made in Italy From innovative finishes to expressive pieces of design, Kuysen’s furniture collection showcase craftsmanship inherent only in Italian brands

PARTNER PROMOTION

BANNERED LIKE A gleaming statuette of excellence, the stamp “Made in Italy” boasts dignified provenance that is unmatched all over the world. Be it in the realm of style, arts, or design, celebrated Italian brands have set a benchmark for their elegant flair and exceptional craftsmanship. Representative of this heritage are furniture brands under Kuysen (236 E. Rodriguez Sr. Ave., Brgy. Don Manuel, Quezon City; 0917-532-0515): Baxter, Desalto, Pedrali, Slamp, and Zanotta. These award-winning furniture makers have long upheld the “Made in Italy” trademark, producing pieces that not only push design boundaries.

f BAXTER Counting such as Piero Lissoni, Paola Navone, and Christopher Delcourt under their stable of designers, Baxter bears a remarkable pedigree of wellmade pieces that preserve the valued tradition of territorial craftsmanship.

Kuysen currently carries some of the memorable Salone Del Mobile 2014 pieces from Baxter, such as the Memory mobile cabinet (pictured right) by Draga and Aurel.

j ZANOTTA With 60 years of design expertise and ambitious talent, Zanotta celebrates a landmark year by continuing the tradition forged by their founder Aurelio Zanotta. The new catalogue was launched at the Milan Furniture Fair earlier this year, featuring works acclaimed designers such as the Maserati lounge chair

by Ludovica+Roberto Palomba and Cavour tables by Carlo Mollino.

n PEDRALI Unveiled at Maison et Objet in Paris this year, Pedrali’s new collections include Patrick Joulin’s Ester series and Claudio Dondoli and Marco Pocci’s Volt. Joulin’s elegant Ester armchair is made of polyurethane foam with elastic belts on a steel structure. The Volt collection, on the other hand, injects a splash of color to thin and linear furniture design, each made of injection gas air molding polypropylene reinforced by glass fibers.

j DESALTO

n SLAMP

It’s almost a visual illusion; Nendo’s masterful manipulation of metal to form each of the impeccable pieces in the Softer than Steel collection for Desalto. Tables, chairs, and even coat stands, take on a new form using steel sheets and rods, all in immaculate power white.

Designed by Pritzker Prize-winner Zaha Hadid, the Aria and Avia are fluid and dynamic pieces of architecture, made of 50 different layers of Crystalflex and Opalflex, respectively.

These lighting pieces create mesmerizing sculptures of light; adding impressive objects of admiration in your home.

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AGENDA TV

WorldMags.net GOTHAM

PREACHER

Last year, rumors circulated that acclaimed DC Comics series Gotham Central was going to TV. The Th com mics focused on police officers off Gotham’s Major Crimes Unit andd only showed Batman and supeer villains in flashy, chaotic glimpsess, highlighting the frustrations of cops who put their lives on the line in a city that no longer made sense. The rumors were too good to be true but Fox’s recently launchedd series, Gotham, sounds a bit similaar. Set in the early days of Jim Gordon’s career, decades before Bruuce Wayne dons the cowl, featuringg origin stories of super villains, G Gotham might not be the show wee want, but is it the show we deserve?

Irreverent and unsettlingly funny, nothing was sacred during Preacher’s triumph phant Vertigo Comics run. Ceentered on the journey of a small-town preacher possessed by a power that rivals God’s own, thhe comic careens off the beaten narran tive, complete with a cast of hard-drinking Irish vampires, serial killing cannibals, a grossly disfigured Kurt Cobain fan, the shit-throwing inbred descendant of Jesus Christ, and a baldheaded megalomaniac who w literally resembles a penis. Rumors R that a Preacher film has been in development hell sincce 1998 should serve as a warninng for any TV network hoping to pproduce it. While Preacher may have h a lot going against it, we’dd be lying if we said we weren’t looking forward to it.

Networrk: Fox struggling in the recent ratings war and their casting of Ben McKenzie—from the cult noughties teen-drama, The O.C.—as young Jim Gordon are definite red flags. But the most gut-wrenching realization is that rival network CW owns the rights to all othher DC shows like The Flash, Arrrow, and Smallville. With zero chances of crossovers, Gotham will have to stand on its own.

Network: AMC has done tremendously well with Maad Men, the near-perfect Breaking Bad, Comand The Walking Dead. C pared to the monster off gore and controversy of Preaacher, Walking Dead is going too look like the cutest puppy. A part of me wishes it was HBO that picked this show up insttead.

What it’s like: At best, The Wire.

At worstt, a gritty Dawson’s Creek.

What it’s like: A bit like HBO’s canceled Carnavvale, but nothing like it either.

CCONSTANTINE Remember when Keanu Reeves went to hell to save Rachel Weisz’s soul?

Yees? Good, now forget abbout that Constantine.

Thhis series promises to doo what the movie neglected—honor its source material, Hellblazer, Vertiggo Comics’ longest and most successful series.

Thhe show is set in New Yoork but this John Con-

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stantine goes back to his roots as chain-smoking, h i ki trench coat wearing, potshot-taking blond British working-class conman/ occult detective. A true humanist who resents both divine and demonic influences, Constantine is regarded as a “weirdness magnet” by his equally strange friends.

Network: CBS is known for police procedural shows like CSI and The

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Mentalist so it’s no great l h leap to jjump on the popularity of supernatural dramas like Sleepy Hollow and True Detective.

If done right, Constantine can deliver gripping adventures in a gritty New York underworld with voodoo, demon possessions, and dark magic.

What it’s like: Supernatural where Sam and Dean are combined into one person.

AGENDA FILM

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ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE In the face of tragedy, a once happily married couple becomes estranged. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby is a glimpse into the subjectivity of relationships, told through the vantage points of those entangled in it WORDS BY MIGUEL LUIS

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HAVE YOU EVER BEEN the bridge between two friends breaking up?

You go back and forth, listening to each side of he-said-this she-didthat, piecing together a twotinted mosaic of a relationship’s culmination and crumble.

Ned Benson’s debut film The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby is a three-hour, two-part investigation of faded romance that deals with love in hindsight, through the often-clashing memories of the involved. Divided into segments called Him and Her, the movie premiered this year at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as a rare double feature.

The approach itself is nothing new—think of Akira Kurosawa’s classic Rashomon where three witnesses clash over one crime scene. It’s a delicate unraveling against linear progression.

We’ve seen it in action thrillers (Vantage Point), drama (Crash), and even the Bluth family, in the latest season of Arrested Development, where they told their story through non-sequential vignettes.

Supposedly, moviegoers can choose which film to see first. At TIFF, Benson decided to screen Him and then Her. Those who have seen it claim that this particular order tiptoes around a certain pivotal moment in the characters’ relationship, giving its eventual reveal the proper wind up before the punch to the gut. On the other hand, Harvey Weinstein saw it as Her

and Him, and he did buy the rights to the film. For those who can’t bear the burden of choice or are short on time, there is a third version aptly subtitled Them, a two-hour cut combining both sides of the story.

As far as feature debuts go, Rigby is a bit of an anomaly. Its total runtime when played back-to-back equals that of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The first-time director managed to snag a cast consisting of one Golden Globe nominee ( James McAvoy), two two-time Oscar nominees ( Jessica Chastain and Viola Davis), one Oscar winner (William Hurt), one former Saturday Night Live darling (Bill Hader), one French cinema treasure (Isabelle Hupert), and a Game of Thrones army leader (Ciarán Hinds). With James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain leading the ensemble, critics have expectedly heaped praise for the performances alone.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them had its US release last month, while Him and Her are cropping up in smaller art house theaters.

The tone and ideas should remain intact in Them, but the filmmakers insist on having the full experience of seeing the films as they were originally conceived, written, and shot.

Based on early reviews, one perspective remains consistent—this film is a memory that won’t be fading anytime soon.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY WILL BE RELEASED ON OCTOBER 10.

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AGENDA FOOD

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HEADING SOUTH There’s a whole lot more to Hispanic cuisine than just burritos and tacos.

This year, the flavors of Latin America receive a proper introduction with a new wave of restaurants inspired by the South WORDS BY PAMELA CORTEZ ILLUSTRATION BY MONICA ESQUIVEL

PEPI CUBANO

SOFRITO

LA CABRERA

Since 2006, Pepi Cubano has been churning out the quintessential Cuban sandwich, but has been thrust once again into the limelight due to the popularity of Jon Favreau’s Chef. Pepi is by delivery only, though fans are crossing their fingers for a standalone in the future.

This tiny space run by a husband and wife team has been creating quite the buzz since it opened this year. After deciding to permanently make a home in Manila two years ago, Millie and Jay Quiñones have brought the relaxed style of Puerto Rican cooking to Makati.

As Argentina’s second best restaurant, La Cabrera is often on recommended lists including one endorsed by San Pellegrino.

While its Manila branch has been receiving mixed reviews concerning the consistency of other dishes, it is the meat that one comes back for.

Street Cred: There are five sandwich variants available, but the Cuban Sandwich is incredibly traditional, with hardly any variations to the recipe.

Composed of pork shoulder, ham, dill pickles, mustard, and Swiss cheese, then placed inside Cuban bread and pressed in a plancha, it’s as close to classic as you can get.

Street Cred: The owners are always either behind the counter, or making their rounds with an interesting story to tell about their time in Miami, or imparting recipes on how to make a better garlic sauce for your pollo.

It feels like a cantina would, absolutely no-frills, with homecooked food coming straight out of the kitchen.

Street Cred: The place might seem a little stuffy, but in the back, the incredibly hot parrilla has people devoted to tending the fire, turning meats and chickens consistently over the burning coals.

Flavor Factor: Pepi Cubano’s other offerings have created a solid following. A Choripan with grilled chorizo and crust bread is simple but lets the garlicky, fragrant heat of the sausage shine.

There are also steak and chicken versions of the sandwich.

Flavor Factor: Mofongo is a rare thing to see here in Manila, and Sofrito does an excellent version of the dish made of plantains mashed with chicharon. The Shrimp Mofongo served with rice and an extra dosing of garlic sauce is hearty peasant food at its best.

0921-293-1784 Ground Floor, LPL Mansion, Salcedo Village, Makati, 0917800-9570

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Flavor Factor: The cuts of meat here are a stark contrast to the Wagyu and Kobes we are now spoiled with; this is a muscular, toothsome piece of steak, and the Asado del Centro, cut near the ribs, tastes of both fat and meat.

Ground Floor, 6750 Ayala Avenue, Makati, 0905-290-0703

WorldMags.net GAUCHO

BRASAS

SEÑOR POLLO

The Argentinian restaurant is often overlooked because of its location, but chef Markus Gfeller might be serving up the best South American cuisine in the city. The menu is generally consistent from start to finish, with most items made in-house to ensure that the flavors are truly Argentinian.

Brasas started out as a relatively nondescript kiosk hidden away in a busy mall. Latin American street food is their specialty, focusing on dishes known in the region for their authenticity.

Cuban slow-roasted pork belly is served alongside beans and rice while plantains feature all over their fast food menu.

When El Chupacabra was a secret, it was regarded as one of the best hole-in-the-wall restos in the city, with street tacos that were the antidote to the TexMex establishments we were used to. This year marked their second venture, a vibrant spot in the Tomas Morato area dedicated to chicken alone.

Street Cred: The grand interiors centered around a beautiful asador make the place feel like a legitimate Argentinian joint.

Parrillas are known for the way they grill their meat, always imparting a smoky flavor due to the intense char from a wood or coal-burning oven. Gaucho does the job just right.

Street Cred: Recipes at Brasas draw from the flavors on the streets of Medellin, Lima, Havana, and Santiago. Brasas is known for using hot coals to tenderize their meats, staying true to tradition, with only the fries a deviation from standard Latin American street food.

Street Cred: A simple takeout counter belies the busy restaurant above it, which has now become synonymous with drunken Saturday siestas north of Manila.

Covered in technicolor Dia de los Muertos effigies, the place transports you to a crowded Havana bar.

Flavor Factor: Morcillas are made in-house, its flavors deep and intense. There are traditional Locros, thick stews made of hominy and white beans. Their short plate or Falda a la Cruz has an exterior the color of squid ink, and a center with tender, rosycolored meat.

Flavor Factor: Arepas, a flatbread using maize flour, is the much more satisfying version of Mexican soft tacos, with carne asada covered in a piquant salsa, while the Patacones mimics nachos, with deep-fried plantains as a base, drenched in pulled pork, crossing the lines between sweet and savory.

Flavor Factor: To specialize in a bird often dismissed for its innocuousness is very brave, yet Señor Pollo takes on the challenge by serving two delicious versions. There is their Latin fried chicken, but the roast version is a hands-down favorite, best when drowned in chimichurri and garlic sauce, with a side of Latin coleslaw.

Third Floor, Robinsons Magnolia, Quezon City, 654-3148

Fifth Floor, The Podium, Mandaluyong, 570-5559

COCINA JUAN Cocina Juan blends influences across the continent, from Guatemala to Nicaragua, where owner Tom Adviento was once based. His versions of home-cooked Latin meals have made it popular enough for it to survive several years in spite of the fickle dining scene.

Street Cred: For that Latin feel, a table outside is your best bet; while your Cerdo Castillo is being grilled on hot coals, and the street traffic is slowly winding down, it feels as if you are on a side street somewhere in Managua, cerveza in hand.

Flavor Factors: Disregard the random Tex-Mex dishes made undoubtedly for the student clientele of the area. The Cerdo Viente is grilled until the fat of the belly melts into the meat.

Better yet is the Guatemalanstyle Churrasco, which they pair with chirmol.

100 Maginhawa Street, UP Teacher’s Village, Quezon City, 434-3911

F7 Building, Scout Rallos, Quezon City, 0977-142-9273

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PARTNER PROMOTION

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Winding Back The Clock Nearing its hundredth anniversary, the Cartier Tank has become a symbol of restrained elegance and the remarkable staying power of good design WORDS BY ARIANNA LIM

THE WATCHMEN

Clockwise, from top: Actress Simone Signoret and actor Yves Montand sporting the Tank; the 1925 version of the Cartier wristwatch; the Cartier boutique at 13 Rue de la Paix in Paris, circa 1915.

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THE BEGINNING OF the 20th century ushered in seismic changes in almost every aspect of human life. It brought with it monumental advances in technology with the likes of the telephone and the airplane, as well as unparalleled demonstrations of violence and destruction with the two World Wars. In 1917, history also made its acquaintance with a change that may have been smaller in scale but by no means less influential: The Cartier Tank watch.

The Tank wasn’t the world’s first wristwatch.

It wasn’t even the first of Cartier. But it swiftly took its place in history as a trailblazing icon by turning conventional watch design on its head.

At the time, the questions watchmakers troubled over were about how their watches would run— what they would look like was an afterthought.

But because he was a jeweler, Cartier also concerned himself with what his piece would look like on his client’s wrists. With its ruler-straight borders and precise edges, the Tank thus made a dramatic break with the curves that had since been known to wrist and pocket watches.

Testament to the power of good design, it has been 97 years since its debut, and the Tank has never fallen out of favor. It has seen minor alterations to fit the style of the times, but it has never strayed far from its original form. Cartier has reaped the rewards of its commitment to the straightforward design, with the Tank holding steady as the go-to watch of many of the world’s most remarkable people, a roster that includes Truman Capote, Princess Diana, Andy Warhol, and Michelle Obama. It is now nearing its hundredth anniversary, but the Tank is just as timely today as it was in 1917.

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PARTNER PROMOTION

SOUNDING OFF In recent years, the position that DJs occupy in our nightclubs has gone supporting role to leading man. Nix Damn P belongs among the industry heavyweights who have fine-tuned their craft, continually expanding our notions of their profession WORDS BY ARIANNA LIM / PHOTO BY PATRICK DIOKNO

YEARS AGO, DJS were packaged into your standard nightclub itinerary if only to blast the music that fueled the boozing and dancing that people came to do. The general understanding was that they were instruments to the overarching process, not the main attraction.

Today, the roles have reversed. Their skill level is measured not only by their ability to draw people to the dance floor, but by the way they transform clubgoers from the night’s focal point to its enthralled audience.

Club favorite Nix Damn P is one DJ who straddles both eras.

His career began at a time when securing gig residency at clubs was something of a political challenge, with senior DJs taking prime time slots. “Noong bago palang ako, it was really hard. ’Di ka makakakuha ng gigs. [The mentality was] sino ka?” he shares.

“I’d play for free, play three, four hours at opening or closing, when the more seniors ones were done. Magpapakahirap ka talaga. You had to earn your stripes.”

But genuine talent can’t be shrouded for long, and after countless nights of playing second fiddle to more established showmen, people began to take notice of Nix Damn P’s obvious creative chops. Then, in 2011, he earned his crowning achievement when he bagged the championship trophy from a Best Buy

DJ spin-off in LA. Suddenly, his name had exploded across both the local and international music scene.

He has since cemented his superlative status in the industry and played a hefty role in the ascent of DJing to a respected craft. While he’s reaped the rewards—travel and recognition chief among them—it’s music that will always be Nix’s driving force. His success boils down to his exhaustive understanding of how to work with a motley collection of genres, each of his sets more polished than the last but never less unpredictable.

Still, he contends with the misconceptions that plague all those in his profession. “[Most people think] we party a lot, we drink a lot. We just show up and play music, just push buttons,” he says. “They don’t see us inside the studio preparing, doing our homework. They don’t know how much research is involved.”

As far as people’s perceptions of DJing have come, it seems they still have ways to go—and Nix is bent on being at the forefront of that movement. Having reached the top of his game on the home front, he’s got his eyes set on turning the eyes of the rest of the world onto our local music scene. “I want to represent the Philippines and earn us a ‘first ever’ title,” he says. “I want something that we can say a Filipino DJ did first.”

Never stop. Never settle.

Never stop. Never settle.

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SPACE

E DI T E D BY

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ISSUE NO.

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DESIGN + INTERIORS + ARCHITECTURE + TECHNOLOGY

AT TA C

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THE DIOKNO PHOTOS BY PATRICK

Whether it’s the ba folk art whimsy of

lancing tricks of M

Alexander Girard’s

uji’s penguins or th

e

dolls, these object evoke design’s fo s ray into the imagin ative and the play ful

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K OC

SPACE HOME ACCESSORIES

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CATCH AND RELEASE VITRA LIVING

Designer Alexander Girard’s wooden dolls were inspired by his own collection of folk art from South America, Asia, and Europe.

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SEE SHOPLIST (PAGE 174) FOR STORE INFORMATION

WorldMags.net BREAK BOT CUBEBOTS

David Weeks’ hardwood robot, movable by elastic-band muscles, is inspired by Japanese Shinto Kumi-ki puzzles.

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O C T O B E R 2014 59

SPACE HOME ACCESSORIES

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SLANTED & ENCHANTED BO CONCEPT

These modular candle holders add a sculptural dimension to a traditional tabletop accessory.

60 O C T O B E R 2014

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SEE SHOPLIST (PAGE 174) FOR STORE INFORMATION

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THE ICE STORM MUJI

This Penguin Balancing Game makes for a playful addition to a boring office or study desk.

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SPACE DESIGN

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COLLECTOR’S EDITION

Showcasing decades of Gio Ponti’s design work, Italian furniture company Molteni & C brings the architectural master’s catalogue into the modern era WORDS BY DON JAUCIAN

THE MASTER

The designs of Gio Ponti (seated), courtesy of Molteni & C, have made rounds of design weeks around the world, including Milan and London.

LIKE A TRUE ARCHITECTURAL powerhouse, Gio Ponti, at the age of 80, was still actively making landmark structures, designing the Denver Art Museum and Concattedrale Gran Madre di Dio in Taranto in his final years. His 50-year career spanned a stellar list of clients and structures, works that can be seen from Milan to New York, from Tehran to Caracas.

He made his industrial design debut at the age of 23 in 1923 and continued on to the 1930s, a streak of genius that included works for established companies such as Cassina, Venini, and Fontana Arte. By then, he wasn’t

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only identified as a designer and an architect but also a publisher and a writer, having cofounded magazines such as Domus and Stile.

Half a decade of Ponti’s furniture design was recently resurrected by Italian company Molteni & C (Furnitalia, Crescent Park West, 30th St. cor. Rizal Drive, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; 819-1887). These pieces are hewn faithfully to Ponti’s original designs and include some of his iconic pieces including the 1935 aluminum chair for the first Palazzo Montecatini in Milan; bookcases, drawers, and rugs for the Casa Ponti in Via Dezza, Milan;

and the Apta series, first unveiled in the 1970s Eurodomus 3 tradeshow.

“In the Ponti case, as Italians, as Milanese, we have a heritage that should be highlighted, a huge and partly unexplored treasure of forgotten works,” says Salvatore Licitra, Gio Ponti’s heir and director of the Gio Ponti Archives, “reproposing pieces never produced, because Ponti designed a great deal more than what could be produced, or remaking forgotten pieces, offers us an opportunity for a better understanding of the man, his work and an important moment in Italian architecture.”

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SPACE TECHNOLOGY

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HOME ON THE RANGE Powered by the tech giants of today, the home of the future is a harmony of intelligent devices: showers with speakers and motion sensors, lighting fixtures that can imitate a sunrise, and a fridge that suggests recipes depending on its contents WORDS BY ALBERT SASPA / ILLUSTRATION BY TERENCE EDUARTE

HANSGROHE RAINBRAIN The RainBrain (Kuysen, G/F Eton Residences, Legaspi, Makati; 7407509) streams music via Bluetooth and has different modes of showering, letting you control the overhead, hand, and side showers, temperature, and lighting.

DURAVIT SENSOWASH STARCK The SensoWash Starck (Kuysen, G/F Eton Residences, Legaspi, Makati; 740-7509) is an automated toilet that makes use of a robotic spigot that washes and dries the user with a gentle breeze shortly after.

AMAZON DELIVERY This service enhances the retail experience that Amazon’s online store is known for. Any kind of need imaginable—from eggs and milk to meat—is readily available and ready to deliver the next day to your doorstep wherever you are in the world.

NEST PROTECT The Nest Protect (nest.com) detects fires via smoke and temperature fluctuation. It can also sense carbon monoxide within the environment, which prevents possible poisoning.

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WorldMags.net PHILIPS HUE LIGHTBULB Connected to your phone or the Hue Tap via a connector, the light bulb (meethue.com) is capable of changing a room’s lighting ambiance remotely. It can also act as an alarm clock by imitating the rays of the morning sun to help you wake up smoothly.

NEST THERMOSTAT

REVOLV HUB The Revolv Hub (revolv.com) connects devices within the home.

It can also configure and sync all gadgets depending on the time of the day and user preferences. Compatible devices include Nest, Sonos, Philips Hue, and Kwikset.

Nest Thermostat allows you to adjust the temperature of your home from your smartphone.

It also saves your pattern of usage based on habits and schedules.

WHIRLPOOL SMART FRONTLOAD With Sixth Sense Live, this frontloading washer and dryer combo can inform the user on whatever he needs to know regarding the washing and drying cycles, the machines’ status, and even when one of them needs maintenance (whirlpool.com).

GROHE K-7 F DIGITAL The Grohe K-7 F (wilcon. com.ph) faucet has a digital control and gives a visual feedback, changing as you adjust the water temperature.

When you have settled on the ideal temperature, the device saves it in its onboard memory.

DACOR DISCOVERY IQ OVEN SAMSUNG T9000 REFRIGERATOR Embedded with a smart tablet and Evernotecompatible, the T9000 (samsung.com.ph) helps keep track of the expiration dates of the items in storage and has an Epicurious app for recipes.

Equipped with a 1GHz, 512MB DDR2 RAM brain, a touchscreen panel and Wi-Fi connectivity, the Dacor IQ Oven (dacor.com) takes a lot off the plate by enabling the user to browse recipes online while cooking.

The oven also has pre-programmed guides and is self-cleaning.

GROHE MINTA TOUCH This Red Dot Award winner’s main draw is that you can operate it through the touch of the forearm, back of the hand or wrist just in case your hands are too dirty from all the housework (wilcon.com.ph).

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SPACE DESIGN

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THE HOUSE OF MIRTH The designs of Eric Paras have gone from being mere industry secrets to Salone del Mobile-approved pieces. This year, he adds a boutique hotel and a host of collaborations to his extensive portfolio WORDS BY KAREN BOLILIA / PHOTOS BY SAM LIM

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THERE’S A CONSTRUCTION site interrupting the usual scene that leads up to the entrance of the part-gallery, part-retail space that Eric Paras has groomed to be, as one of his friends have told him, “the coolest, most hipster store in Manila.”The narrow road that neatly divides the compound is lined with a few trees, immediately flaunting the view instead of obscuring it. The only indication that you’ve arrived at the right place, a conspicuous number 2680 on the side of the red gate, is clouded by gravel and dust coming from inside—and with it the anticipated postwar charm of the estate. Three houses are well under a big renovation, as Cebu-bred boutique hotel The Henry joins the burgeoning Pasay compound. Now slowly becoming a creative commune made up of artists from the Avellana Gallery, a fashion designer ( Jojie Lloren has just moved in a few months ago), and Paras—its first settler—remains the foremost torchbearer of the enclave.

A-11 (2680 F.B. Harrison Street, Pasay; 832-9972), the furniture and design gallery where Paras built satellite suite-like homes, fits snugly into the ideal narrative of domesticity and suburbia, without having to be too sweet, or too cheesy. It’s also consistently and oddly detailed, from asymmetrical shelving to imported soaps displayed inside miniature glass domes, A-11 is living the fantasy of playing house with everything in it available for purchase. In today’s terms: Instagram the Machuca tiles, and order them too. And it’s the same design philosophy and atmospheric curatorship that Paras has been asked to apply to The Henry. Targeted to open by December, the boutique hotel is the hospitality and aesthetic THE LOOKING GLASS effort between its owners, A-11, the furniture and design gallery of Eric the Picasso management, Paras, has gained a strong the restaurateurs behind following among Manila’s Apartment 1B, the artistic circles since it opened its doors. landscape architects of Idelfonso P. Santos + Associates, and Paras, as the interior designer.

Though the houses are being overhauled with the exemption of the exteriors and flooring, he’s set on interpreting the logic of a 1950s homeowner, the year that the compound’s residences were all built. “Each room will be a homey guest room similar to what I did to the rooms in A-11— mid-century furniture mixed with Filipino liberation-style designs,” he shares.

Paras’s eye is even impressive in the 2-D stages of the process. As he leafs through several sketches due for prototyping for this month’s Manila FAME, Paras is possessed with the willful consumption and earnestness of a millennial, sampling various pieces for the 12

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companies he’s designing for in the biannual showcase. From lamps inspired by fishing rods to leather seating that borrows baseball-style stitching to tables with a ceramic leg base, he admits that the groundwork will probably change during the development stages, but even then his collaborative nature sharpens into focus. His involvement in FAME and The Henry is just one of many projects he’s committed to this year—yet his designs for each venture remain distinct and decidedly his. Paras’s aesthetic— clean, experimental and mutable though not minimalist—renders itself as a chameleon, adapting to the function and market that the furniture serves. Paras co-opts with the instinctive ability to adjust to the temperament and structure of a brand, making it one of his strongest suits as a designer.

Take for example, his partnership with Jude Tiotuico of Industria Home, which recently participated in the prestigious Salone Internationale del Mobile in Milan. Industria’s inclusion within the in-house A-11 repertoire is so seamless, you would have to ask a store assistant to distinguish it for you. Incorporating metal sheets sculpted in either very dense shapes or carved out patterns and curves, it identifies itself well into the current collection without

announcing its newness and innovation. “Right now, it’s really all about collaboration,” Paras says.

“As a designer I worry too, and with my age, you can’t be stuck in your comfort zone. Because that’s the tendency when the practice has been around for a while, may formula ka na, ayaw mo na mag-experiment, so that’s the challenge for me.”

Rejecting the formula is perhaps what triggered another milestone—the rebranding of 68 O C T O B E R 2014

Top to bottom: One of A-11’s showrooms within the Pasay compound; the Industria Home showroom which showcases work (co-designed with Jude Tiotiuco) exhibited at this year’s Salone Del Mobile; the much-Instagramed dishes installation in A-11.

The aesthetic of Paras— clean, experimental, and mutable though not minimalist—renders itself as a chameleon, adapting to the function and market that the furniture serves.

A-11 by the design agency, Vgrafiks. Previously an establishment sustained by referral and word-of-mouth—an interior designer and decor enthusiast’s haven—Paras has decided to relaunch the brand officially, to a wider audience, equipped with a seasoned sense of today’s cultural currency and an understanding of the inevitability of secrets: you can only keep them for so long. “The generation now, it’s really about branding,” he muses. “Kailangan humabol ka.”

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SPACE MOTORING

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EASY RIDERS A road test of Manila’s app-based taxi services WORDS BY GIO DIONISIO ILLUSTRATION BY MARTIN DIEGOR

EASYTAXI, Grab Taxi, and Uber have garnered praise over the past year for their convenience, safety, and reliability as well as for enhancing the overall commuter experience. In Singapore, the technology has already begun to venture into the business-to-business arena. Uber, on the other hand, has affiliated with other applications such as Trip Advisor, Open Table, and United Airlines—further proof of its global potential. With the holiday season just around the corner, we hit the highways to road-test these popular app-based taxi services.

GRABTAXI The Rate P70 fee + P40 base + meter, P40 base + meter (outside Metro Manila) The Wait 15-30 minutes The Route Jupiter, Makati p Emerald, Ortigas (and vice versa) Road Map GrabTaxi is available in Metro Manila, Cebu City, and Davao .

The Fleet Affiliated cab fleets include 24/7 Taxi, World Taxi, and R&E Taxi.

Besides standard cabs,

the GrabCar service offers Monteros and Fortuners.

How They Fare GrabTaxi’s user interface is the most intuitive. The drivers are very amiable and will readily answer any questions and are selected from a pool of top-rated drivers from partner fleets. During rush hours, however, finding an available cab can still prove difficult, though having both apps on hand increases your chances.

UBER The Rate P40 base fare + P2.10/min + P5.7/km The Wait 10-15 minutes The Route McKinley Hill, Taguig p NAIA, Pasay / Quezon Ave, QC p Jupiter, Makati (and vice versa) The Fleet Hummer H3, Hyundai Sonata, MINI Cooper, Mitsubishi Montero, Nissan Teana, Toyota Camry, Toyota Fortuner How They Fare Uber actually emerges as the most competent choice.

Aimed at providing VIP

EASYTAXI The Rate P70 fee + P40 base + meter The Wait 15-30 minutes The Route McKinley Hill, Taguig p Makati Ave, Makati (and vice versa) / Jupiter, Makati p Timog, Quezon City The Fleet EasyTaxi is currently limited to standard cabs.

How They Fare Though intuitive and fairly simple to use, EasyTaxi is the most cumbersome of

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the applications. Pickup details are typed in and not map-based while large text ads take up more space than the taxi tracker itself. Function-wise, the app is satisfactory.

Once matched, users are obliged to get in touch with the driver for an even smoother transaction.

Although the cabbies were all very courteous and friendly, we experienced three separate cab requests that did not arrive at all.

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service, the chauffeurs are pleasant, knowledgeable, and graciously accommodating. Uber’s skilled drivers undergo security backgrounds and go through medical exams and training before they take their EuroTest. To ensure safety, vehicles are equipped with advanced security systems linked to local police departments. Because users register with credit cards, cash transactions are eliminated.

The only drawback as yet is Uber’s logistical restriction to Metro Manila.

SPACE ARCHITECTURE

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LEVIATHAN, BOUND

THE GLASS HOUSE

Opening on October 27, the Fondation Louis Vuitton is a $143 million masterwork built by Frank Gehry and commissioned by LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault WORDS BY DON JAUCIAN / PHOTOS BY TOD EBERLE

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From top: The Fondation Louis Vuitton sits nearby another LVMH property, the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris; the building uses 3,600 glass panels for the 12 sails of the outer shells or “verrière,” as its architect Frank Gehry calls them.

LOOKING AT THE finished form of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the glass menagerie that sits at the vast greenery of Paris’ Bois de Boulogne, it’s hard to imagine that it was initially designed as a transparent cloud, somewhat evoking the dreamscape that its architect, Frank Gehry, usually inspires in his works. It was a trip to another Gehry-designed marvel, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, that influenced Bernard Arnault—a modern-day Charles Foster Kane who keeps an extensive gallery of brands under the wing of the LVMH conglomerate—to commission the Pritzker Prize-winning architect and design what is probably the pinnacle of Louis Vuitton’s cultural reach: a “magnificent vessel symbolizing the cultural calling of France.”

But as remarkable as the building looks from the outside, the shell of which Gehry calls the “verrière,” a symphony of angled glass sails, as if the building is actually a group of pirate ships or a floating mass of icebergs, it was originally built from within, emphasizing the functionality of the building as a gallery and a hall for contemporary arts. The Fondation also acts as a high point for Gehry’s obsession with curving glass, using 3,600 panels of glass for the 12 sails, and 19,000 panels of Ductal (fibre-reinforced concrete) to achieve impeccable transparency.

The Fondation, Arnault told How to Spend It, is beyond the consumerism and the global clamor for luxury goods for high fashion brands, an undertaking that pushes Louis Vuitton as a

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STRUCTURAL

INVENTORY cultural ambassador, reinvigorating Paris in the process. And a piece of stunning architecture such as the Fondation—housing some of the most important works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries—is a grand way to make a gesture, especially if you consider the fact that the land the structure is sitting on will be given back to the city after 50 years. “It is also a fantastic motivation for our teams to be linked to something which is not related to numbers, to profitability, to growth. So we can create a feeling of belonging to a group with something other than just productivity, efficiency, motivation, something maybe bigger, giving more enthusiasm globally. It’s a way of cementing the group,” Arnault said.

Though we might not see Arnault’s Rothkos and Monets inside the Fondation, the scale of the collection inside—which, as of press time is still up for Arnault’s final curatorial approval— can only match Louis Vuitton’s contribution to contemporary art, including collaborations with artists such as Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, and Yayoi Kusama. This, in turn, pushed important artistic achievements to public consciousness; and transforming maisons into exhibition spaces and art bookshops.

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ARTISTIC LICENSE

Top to bottom: The Fondation's arches showcase a new proccess, pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with wood as a construction material; the spaces of the Fondation are largely dedicated to temporary and permanent art exhibitions selected by its curator, Suzanne Page.

the Fondation’s core, a celebration of art without the overbearing display of preciousness suffered by most museums—Gehry’s Guggenheim included. This only reinforces Arnault’s desire to make The Fondation focus on “the link between contemporary artists and the second part of the last century.”

“My galleries are pretty damn good,” Gehry told Architectural Digest. “They’re simple and not enfiladed, so the progression from one to another never feels monotonous. You always pass through a connective space with natural light.”

The Fondation Louis Vuitton by the numbers

126,000 the size of the building, in square feet

135,000

surface area of the glass sails, in square meters

350

auditorium seats

11

exhibition galleries

3

days of free entrance to the Fondation (October 24 to 26)

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SPACE MOTORING

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THE NEW RADICALS Concept cars set the shape and look of the future of motoring. Here, five cars that herald the genetic makeup of automobiles to come WORDS BY APA AGBAYANI / ILLUSTRATION BY MONICA ESQUIVEL

BUILT FOR SPEED

Top to bottom: The Honda Civic Type R Concept promises a 2.0-liter, four cylinder engine with at least 276 brake horsepower; the off-road T-Roc has 12.3 touchscreen displays with video feed from front cameras outside the vehicle.

CONCEPT CARS ARE a tricky deal. There can be a world of difference between the concept and what eventually reaches the market. Worse, some never even see full-scale production.

Still, they’re worth getting excited about for the chance to see automobile innovation as it happens. Although these cars may not be as far out as the other concepts you've seen in past car shows, these five concept hatchbacks are the ones you ought to know about, whether or not you’ll see them on the road anytime soon.

HONDA CIVIC TYPE R CONCEPT INITIAL BUZZ “The design is heavily linked to performance, with many of the elements offering real performance benefits, as confirmed by testing at the Nürburgring race track in Germany.” - Viknesh Vijayenthiran, motorauthority.com AT A GLANCE Honda (hondaph.com) calls the Civic Type R “a racing car for the road,” meant for zipping through the city with panache.

VOLKSWAGEN T-ROC INITIAL BUZZ “The The TT-Roc Roc is a compact, compact three three-door door crossover with aggressive styling and extra off-road capability beyond the next-generation Tiguan.” - Alexander Stoklosa, caranddriver.com AT A GLANCE

UNDER THE HOOD The TT-Roc Roc is fitted inside out for any off-road off road adad venture. Under the hood you have a 182-horsepower four-cylinder engine. Inside the cabin is a 12.3-inch touchscreen that displays video from cameras outside the vehicle—because filming your cross-country escapades is the best idea you’ve never had.

DUE DATE

Volkswagen’s (938 28th Street, Bonifacio Global City; 459-4562; volkswagen.com.ph) T-Roc offers a sleek supermini exterior with the road supremacy of an SUV. The removable roof is pretty cool, too.

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UNDER THE HOOD The Type R’s biggest selling point?

Its 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, with, “at least,” over 276 brake horsepower. This would make the Civic Type R Honda’s first offering with a turbocharged performance engine.

DUE DATE

A production version is expected to hit the road in 2017.

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Out sometime in 2015.

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VOLVO CONCEPT XC COUPE INITIAL BUZZ “There’s something inescapably right about a Swedish car with a set of skis on its roof. Surely it’s some sort of Scandinaviaan birthright, right along with immaculate complexion.” –Chris Paukert, autoblog.ccom AT A GLANCE Volvo (2272 Pasong Tamo; 893-6621; volvocars. com/ph) has crafted a two-door all-road hatchback with a keen awareness of both style and safety.

UNDER THE HOOD The Concept XC Coupe makes use of Volvo’s new Scalable Product Architecture, designed for intelligent impact absorption in the instaance of a collision. Safety is of prime concern forr Volvo Volvo, which plans to have no deaths or serious injuries from their cars by 2020.

SPEED TEST

Top to bottom: The XC Coupe continues the proud heritage of its XC cars, including the shooting brake; the Hazumi sports a longer wheelbase (4.7 in), making it a toned-down ride; the matte-grey body cladding and aluminum steel plates emphasize the Audi concept car as an all-road vehicle.

DUE DATE No word on when this hits the road.

MAZDA HAZUMI INITIAL BUZZ “According to Mazda, the goal was to make the Hazumi look like a ‘small but vigorous animal.’ We think Mazda has a pert honey badger here.” –Alexander Stoklosa, caranddriver.com AT A GLANCE Mazda (2245 Pasong Tamo cor. Sabio St.; 751-2235; mazda.ph) designs an ostensibly tame hatchback that packs a serious punch on the road.

AUDI ALLROAD SHOOTING BRAKE INITIAL BUZZ “Concept cars are seldom more pragmatic, visionary, and realistic than this bonsai Audi.” – Georg Kacher, automobilemag.com AT A GLANCE

UNDER THE HOOD Don’t be fooled by the Allroad Shooting Brake’s unassuming hatchback exterior. Running on a 2.0TFSi engine, it has a combined output of 408 break horsepower and is estimated to go from 0 to 62 mph in an impressive 4.6 seconds.

DUE DATE

The Allroad Shooting Break finds Audi (11th Ave. cor. 28th St., Bonifacio Global City; 5537911; audi.ph) building an elegant vehicle you shouldn’t be afraid to take across rugged terrain.

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Out by late 2014.

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UNDER THE HOOD The Hazumi will be the first to use Mazda’s 1.5 SkyActiv-D diesel engine, which offers powerful performance while significantly reducing CO2 emissions. The bird of prey-inspired headlights are designed to channel a sense of “prime evil” on the road DUE DATE Expect a toned-down take on the Hazumi in the form of 2015’s Mazda 2.

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SPACE ARCHITECTURE

WorldMags.net WALK THIS WAY

Award-winning architect Denise de Castro, who has worked under Ed Calma and studied architecture courses in Wellesley, MIT, and Harvard University, at the DDC office in Makati.

LIVE BY DESIGN For DDC principal architect Denise de Castro, who has made her mark through boutique nightlclub Hyve and Bacolod’s Sugarland Hotel, design should be about creative collaboration WORDS BY JANSEN MUSICO PORTRAIT BY EDRIC CHEN

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DENISE DE CASTRO’S designs are driven by dialogue. They all start out as casual exchanges of opinions that go beyond mere aesthetics.

She and her team get to know their clients meticulously—their goals, tics, routines, and preferences—and then translate these interactions through form and material to create not only structures that are interesting to look at, but also experiences that are new and engaging.

For Hyve, the boutique nightclub in Bonifacio Global City, their client wanted them to convey the energy that pulses through club music. Design-wise, it was a challenge. Back then, the space was nothing but a big black box with plumbing and wires sticking out of the ceiling. They also had a tight budget. De Castro and her team went through a roster of concepts,

using one material after another before finding something that was cost-efficient, space-saving, and in sync with Hyve’s DNA—light.

Using acrylic sheets, a bit of programming, and LEDs, they were able to create striking kinetic patterns that adorned the club’s surfaces.

The design bagged de Castro a bronze Spark Award in 2013.

Two decades ago, it was her itch to do something technical and creative that made her abandon her biology dreams and take design and architecture courses in Wellesley, MIT, and Harvard. Her first few jobs brought her to a few firms in Boston and New York but it was her brief stint in a renowned global design firm in the West Coast that changed the way she approached design.

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PARTNER PROMOTION

Michael Cacnio’s Brass Connection Staying connected with PLDT HOME Fibr – an indispensable element in the world-class artist’s body of work PHOTO BY JOSEPH PASCUAL

TO SAY THAT the name Michael Cacnio rings a bell would be synonymous to disparaging his life’s work as an internationally acclaimed Filipino artist. His brass masterpieces have gained high praises all over the world in Asia, Europe, and the United States. With over fifty exhibits both in the Philippines and abroad, and being the first Filipino artist to be featured in a solo exhibit in the European Commission’s headquarters in Berlaymont, Brussels, 45-year old Cacnio brings new meaning to being world-class. His achievements in the arts also earned him the status as one of The Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines (TOYM) in 2006.

With brass as his chosen medium, his masterpieces take on a different light. Cacnio explains that “there’s a maturity in brass that makes pieces look instantly classic.” His unfounded love for brass sculpting reveals the material to be a malleable texture that exudes timelessness in the most ordinary things.

Prodigy by birth right to his father, highly revered artist Angel Cacnio, who is recognized for depicting Philippine heritage – historical events, heroic deeds, Filipino legends, traditions and values in his paintings, Michael Cacnio followed in his father’s footsteps and has been in the art industry for more than two decades pursuing his passion for sculpting. His works are sought after by art collectors worldwide and have been commissioned by top corporations and dignitaries. But despite the awards and the prestige that he’s received over the years, Cacnio admits that he’s just a person who finds joy in the simplest of things.

At home, on a typical Saturday afternoon, Cacnio joins his wife and sons either playing games or watching movies in their home.

Amongst the robust laughter and the continuously strengthened connections between a father and his family, Cacnio’s extensive collection of vintage die-cast iron miniature cars and Lego sculptures, created by the artist and his eldest son Jacob, are proudly displayed in their theatre room. All of which lend an atmosphere of fun and merriment, bringing together Michael Cacnio’s family. However, once in his work studio, Cacnio revels at the push of creativity stemming from his valued time spent with his family and chunks of inspiration he finds as peruses the

TIES THAT BIND

Top to bottom: Michael Cacnio lives and breathes art, his world-class masterpieces seamlessly integrating with his upscale life at home. He gets his inspiration through his PLDT HOME Fibr connection, which he also uses to update his website, michaelcacnio.com; though very dedicated to his work, Cacnio makes it a point to spend time with his wife Tess and sons Jacob (16), Mateo (12), and Lucas (8); Cacnio’s sculptures depict social realites of the simple joys of children, integrated with creative themes such as his Balloons series.

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internet, all powered by his PLDT HOME Fibr connection. With his fondness for watching art documentaries and films, doing research and drawing inspiration from noteworthy stories he finds online, Cacnio admits that home’s most powerful broadband, PLDT HOME Fibr, is vital to his work.

Like any tech-savvy dad, his most trusted tool is his laptop. Using the power of his PLDT HOME Fibr connection, this helps him stay connected with his friends, and clients, even when he’s at home, where he values his time with his family, or away from his workshop. He also uses this to maintain his website (michaelcacnio.com) which is a crucial marketing tool to show his gallery of works and upload news about his latest exhibits.

“The mere fact that you create the kind of art that you love and still affect and move people is what I really love about what I do,” he shares.

Cacnio values most the connection created between his work, its admirers and his family. It is a strong bond that comes from an inspired and earnest place and which provokes a comforting familiarity and appreciation for the simplest joys of everyday life.

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“I never walk into a project with an idea in mind,” de Castro says. “It always evolves during the collaborative process.”

USER FRIENDLY

Top to bottom: The Philippine Pavillion at the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, which de Castro worked on under the firm of Ed Calma; the lighting design at nightclub Hyve, which used acrylic sheets and programmable LEDs.

“I never walk into a project with an idea in mind,” she says. “It always evolves during the collaborative process.” Her tenure at the multiawarded design consultancy IDEO made her embrace a concept called “design thinking.”

“It’s user-centric; about people and how we help them through design. We do a lot of research and interviews before our pen even hits the paper,” she says.

When noted architect Ed Calma learned of de Castro, he asked her to work with him on a project that was supposed to last for a few months. She ended up migrating back to Manila and staying with his firm for three years. With Calma, she took on a handful of high-profile projects such as the Philippine Pavilion, which won gold in the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan.

Her growing office in Makati (DDC Architects, Unit 5/6 Roof Deck, Molave Building, Chino Roces Avenue, Makati; 551-7806) is a flurry of activity.

Pinned on the walls are schedules and several concept proposals that range from mild to wild.

Behind her own desk are shelves of books she’s amassed over time.

De Castro’s projects, such as the house she designed for artist Renato Vidal, have been featured in international publications like Habitus and The Sustainable Asian House by Paul McGillick.

“That house was interesting. Vidal already bought all the [fixtures] he wanted. So instead of building a house to put stuff in, we had to build a house around the stuff,” she quips.

At the moment, de Castro and her team are immersed in a number of commercial and private projects—including a Porsche garage, an untapped island resort, designer Bea Valdes’s workshop, and a photographer’s house that plays with shadows.

By engaging their clients in constant dialogue, they’re able to involve them in creating functional spaces with personality. De Castro says, “I want people to look at the work we’ve done and know that they’ve been part of that.”

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PARTNER PROMOTION

Sky High Blue With the storied past and rich heritage of New Manila , Sky Villas at One Balete offers a return to the locale's prestigious address ALTHOUGH THE TREE-lined thoroughfare of Balete Drive has been catapulted into Filipino folklore for its legend and mystery, this two-lane street in New Manila is a haven of heritage, with mansions and ancestral houses recalling the gentle calm that washed over the city after World War II ended. Uprooted from the ruins of Malate, Ermita, and Intramuros, families sought refuge in the country’s new capital, Quezon City, building new beginnings in the district of New Manila. Their new houses were designed by famous architects of the period, dotted with manicured gardens, and winding driveways that led to grand staircases and uniformed staff ready at your beck and call.

This era was also matched with the bustle of Cubao, then growing as the capital’s shopping

VERTICAL LIMIT

Top to bottom: Sky Villas is 31 storeys tall and is part of the One Balete development; bathroom includes fixtures by Grohe and Kohler; each unit boast fullheight bedroom windows.

district, with Matsuzakaya opening its doors in Araneta Complex, attracting thousands of shoppers, all eager to try the first escalators in the country as they marveled at the goods brought in by the Japanese department store.

But as progress swept on with time, newer urban development moved to other cities. With this shift comes the toll of inconveniences: heavy traffic, longer commutes, and the suffocating pollution.

It’s this problem that PhilRealty gives a new solution to; a return to the prestigious address of New Manila with Sky Villas at One Balete.

Built by Architect Roger Villarosa who also did the Tektite Towers, EDSA Shangri-La Hotel, Radisson Hotel Cebu, and Hamilo Beach Club, Sky Villas offers the pleasures of a vertical residential development while still keeping the comforts of living in an actual house. It is a challenge that Villarosa took to heart as he designed the 31-storey Sky Villas, making each unit a veritable living space that harbors the conveniences of home.

Inside each unit (ranging from 205 to 405

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square-meter)—only four units per floor—is a glass and steel balcony. The room’s full-height windows with a maximum floor-to-ceiling length of 3.1 meters allows for fantastic views and brightens the kitchen, filled with SMEG appliances and fixtures by Grohe and Kohler.

“Every PhilRealty project is carefully crafted to reflect our thrust to design spacious living spaces within intimate communities that enable generations of people to live and grow,” says PhilRealty Chief Executive Officer Andrew Alcid. “We are guided by our continuing thrust to offer large, quality living spaces within accessible locations and secure environments.”

To know more about Philippine Realty and Holdings Corporation and how it nurtures its vision of spacious living within intimate communities, visit www.philrealty.com.ph and www.skyvillas.com. Contact 416-8686 or 0917462-1222. Visit the showroom: Sky Villas at One Balete, 1 Balete cor. N. Domingo Street, New Manila, Quezon City.

O C T O B E R 2014 83

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ABOVE THE CLOUDS

What’s it like to live in the world’s most expensive apartment buildings?

Designed by the world’s leading architects and interior designers, these highend residential towers are the new sterling addresses of the powers-that-be WORDS BY KATRINA CHUA ILLUSTRATIONS BY TERENCE EDUARTE

CRED The Residences’ four-pavilion

W

NEW YORK

3 O N E 57 N E

TYPE 170m 86-apartment residential and retail complex

YO

A One Hyde Park: The Residences LONDON

B One57

RK

SPACE ARCHITECTURE

TYPE This 306-meter structure will be the tallest residential building in New York upon its completion this year.

CRED Designed by Pritzker-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc, One57 mimics a cascading waterfall to seamless integrate with Central Park, while its opulent French modernist interior was devised by Danish designer Thomas Juul-Hansen who is responsible for some of the priciest apartments in New York City.

structure is a utilitarian conception by award-winning architectural firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to maximize both light permeability and privacy, while the light installation was created by critically-acclaimed artist James Turrell to add an artistic perspective.

HOME FRONT Although the 21-meter stainless steel ozone swimming pool and virtual games room with golf simulator are impressive, the Residences’ best feature is the 24-hour service provided by Mandarin Oriental, which includes the Residential Elite program that gives holders VIP status upgrades to Mandarin Oriental hotels around the world.

LO N D O N

HOME FRONT Equipped with the amenities of any luxury residence and the services of Park Hyatt, One57 also includes a library, arts and crafts atelier room, and a discreet private entry to 58th street. Furthermore, its 24-foot aquarium pays homage to the tower’s aquatic exterior.

ES

ID

EN

CES

PRICE TAG £6,000 pounds per sq ft

PRICE $6,000 per sq ft, plus a $226.9 million penthouse

C Tour Odeon

3 ON

RK E HYDE PA

:T

HE

R

D Princess Tower

MONACO

I

3 TO

UR OD O EON M NACO

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reigns as the world’s tallest residential tower. Its architect Adnan Saffarini might be relatively obscure, but it is the developer, Tameer Holdings Inc., that holds a prestigious reputation for building residential towers all over the Dubai.

A

PRICE TAG €91,000/sq meter, plus a €47.7 million penthouse

UB

HOME FRONT Offering Russian and Turkish baths, sauna, gym, private spa, and a wide selection of pools, Tour Odeon also houses a supermarket. Furthermore, a touch-screen is integrated within each residence to easily contact the 24/7 concierge, daily housekeeping, and chauffeured limousine service.

However, access to the wine cellar and the water slide-equipped infinity pool is exclusive to the penthouse.

CRED Princess Tower currently

RD

Spanish and Italian Calacatta marble, architect Alexandre Giraldi and interior designer Alberto Pinto produced a modern structure that respects the Monaco’s distinct European elegance.

completed in 2012.

I N C E S S TOWE

CRED Incorporating colonnades of

TYPE This 414-meter building was

3 PR

TYPE At 170 meters high, this double skyscraper will be the second tallest building in Europe after the 185m Grand Hotel Bali.

DUBAI

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HOME FRONT Princess Tower’s greatest perk is its location, being at the heart of the commercial hub of Dubai with apartments overlooking the Dubai Marina and the Palm Jumeirah. But if you’re one who prefers a laid back leisurely activity, the indoor and outdoor swimming pools, play areas, billiard and table tennis rooms, saunas, and the Tower’s proximity to sea, offer a break.

PRICE TAG Dh2,300 per sq ft

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E DI T E D BY

GINO DE LA PAZ

THE EYE

ISSUE NO.

81

FA S H I O N + S T Y L E + G R O O M I N G

talking heads Blurring the lines between Christopher Raeburn and Chris Cunningham, today’s thrill-seeker deftly fuses the freshest street wear with the coolest running shoes in town

Y-3 PRINTED BLACK TEE, OAMC NAVY CAMOUFLAGE SHIRT, CHRISTOPHER RAEBURN GREY PRINTED SWEATPANTS, CDG GANRYU GREY FLEECE JACKET

PHOTOGRAPHED BY PATRICK DIOKNO

STYLED BY MANO LOTHO

MODELED BY ADRIEL OF ELITE MANILA / SPECIAL THANKS TO DENISE DE CASTRO OF DDC

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SEE SHOPLIST (PAGE 174) FOR STORE INFORMATION

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FRED PERRY BURGUNDY HARRINGTON, YMC FLORAL PRINTED SHIRT, FRED PERRY X JAMIE REID SHIRT, APC WASHED DENIM JEANS, NEW BALANCE 860V4 TRAINERS. OPPOSITE: AMI CAMOUFLAGE BLOUSON, FRED PERRY NEON GREEN PULLOVER, APC WOODLAND PRINT TEE, OLIVER SPENCER BLEACHED DENIM PANTS, ASICS GEL KAYANO

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MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA WOVEN GRAPHIC TEE, RICK OWENS BONE JEANS, VOLTA STRADA. OPPOSITE: OLIVER SPENCER OLIVE JACKET, FRED PERRY BLUE PLAID SHIRT, SAINT LAURENT PARIS GRAPHIC TEE, APC WASHED NEW STANDARDS, ASICS GEL KAYANO

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SEE SHOPLIST (PAGE 174) FOR STORE INFORMATION

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Y-3 PRINTED BLACK TEE, OAMC NAVY CAMOUFLAGE SHIRT, CHRISTOPHER RAEBURN GREY PRINTED SWEATPANTS, CDG GANRYU GREY FLEECE JACKET

SEE SHOPLIST (PAGE 174) FOR STORE INFORMATION

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THE EYE STYLE

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BARRE NONE DENNIS STOCK/MAGNUM PHOTOS

James Dean attends a dance class with Katherine Dunham in New York City in 1955.

Dunham is best known as a choreographer and educator who propelled the awareness of the cultures of the African Diaspora.

BALANCING ACT

“THE WEIGHT OF OUR BODIES, when

The latest exhibit at Museo Salvatorre Ferragamo in Florence examines the equilibrium between feet and footwear that the legendary shoemaker strived to deliver WORDS BY NANA CARAGAY

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we are standing erect, drops straight down on the foot arch,” wrote Salvatore Ferragamo in his autobiography, Shoemaker of Dreams. “A small area of between one and a half and two inches on each foot carries all our weight. As we walk, the weight of our bodies is swung from one foot to the other.”

A swinging pendulum, balance, and the relationship between the foot’s arch and the shoes created to support it are the inspirations behind Equilibrium, on exhibit at Florence’s Museo Salvatorre Ferragamo until April 2015. Curated by Stefania Ricci and Sergio Risalti in collaboration with Emanuele Enria, it picks up from the young Ferragamo’s meticulous study of the foot’s anatomy. The aspiring shoemaker even went as far as

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THE EYE STYLE

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NEW BALANCE

The first room of the exhibit is devoted to Salvatore Ferragamo’s research, including the wooden lasts he constructed for his famous clients.

HEIGHT OF MADNESS

In the summer of 1974 daredevil aerialist Philippe Petit attempted the seemingly impossible: a death-defying walk across a tightrope suspended between the World Trade Center's Twin Towers. The 24-year-old succeeded but was arrested for his stunt and was ordered to give a performance in Central Park as his sentence. His impressive feat was later featured in the 2008 documentary Man on Wire.

FANCY FOOTWORK Museum director Stefania Ricci pays tribute to Ferragamo by turning his life into the stuff of fairy tales Equilibrium is the follow-up to the museum’s recently concluded exhibition, The Amazing Shoemaker, immortalized in a book edited by Ricci and published by Rizzoli. Here, Ferragamo’s extraordinary life is framed against the context of myth and legend, in which shoes (think Cinderella, or Puss in Boots) can play a central role. It follows his adventures from his voyage via steamer to the United States and arrival in Hollywood, where he worked with the screen queens of the modern age.

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ONCE UPON A TIME

Ricci’s imaginative novel, The Amazing Shoemaker: Fairy Tales and Legends About Shoes and Shoemakers, should appeal to both shoe enthusiasts and lovers of folklore.

enrolling in night classes at the University of Southern California at the beginning of his career, which eventually led to his patented inventions that revolutionized the way shoes are constructed.

Twenty-seven of these patents are proudly on display, together with 100 wooden lasts for the feet of illustrious clients such as Michael Jordan and Marilyn Monroe. The rest of the exhibit is devoted to celebrating the feats that feet can perform, from dancing (as seen in the Grecian relief Dancing Maenads and bronze sculptures

by Edgar Degas) to tightrope walking (as portrayed by Picasso’s Rose Period masterpiece, Les Saltimbanques). There is also video of Marina Abramovic and Ulay’s memorable walk along the Great Wall of China and archival footage of man’s first steps on the moon, signifying the leaps and bounds that man, as one of only a handful of beings with the ability to stand upright, can achieve.

Ferragamo himself was fascinated by the opportunities of movement that this provided, and dedicated his life to creating shoes that would give its wearers the greatest comfort possible. “In my shoes, [clients] told me they felt differently. In my shoes, they were happy,” he wrote. It helps that they looked beautiful, too.

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GETTY IMAGES

“Inmyownwork,Itake greatenjoymentplaying offformality—making somethingpredictablefeel subversive.”

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THE EYE FASHION

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COOL

Pharrell Williams and G-Star RAW transform marine plastic into a desirable denim collection WORDS BY GINO DE LA PAZ

I

DESIGN DIVERSITY Prolific Australian designer Marc Newson marks a 10-year partnership with Dutch denim brand G-Star RAW with a special anniversary collection WORDS BY GINO DE LA PAZ

THAT APPLE HIRED Marc Newson, one of the most accomplished and influential designers of his generation, to join its design team ahead of the launch of its first wearable device last month was a coup for the iPhone maker. Born in Sydney but now based in London where he runs a larger studio capable of tackling more ambitious industrial projects, Newson is a long-time friend of Apple design chief Jonathan Ive. Last year the two collaborated on a one-off aluminum desk for U2 singer Bono’s (RED) auction that sold for $1.68 million.

Newson’s signatures—sculptural forms with an organic bent, and color, particularly orange— have appeared on everything from a first-class lounge for Qantas to an Ajinomoto bottle.

While he believes that most collaborations between fashion labels and industrial designers fail because of the “terrible snobbery” between the two fields, he too has conjured products for apparel companies such as Nike.

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The prolific Australian recently marked a decade-long partnership with Dutch clothing group G-Star RAW (Ground Floor, C1, Bonifacio High Street Central, Taguig). Showcased through a party at London’s Design Museum, the 10th anniversary range from Newson’s biannual capsule collection comprises a fine selection of Japanese selvedge denim, outerwear, and t-shirts. The highlight is a reversible bomber jacket that features a cluster of graphic patches on grey silk sateen. Of his experimental output, he says that they’ve now identified an audience for this stuff and it’s a global one. As he told design publication Dezeen, “We’ve gotten to a point where it works, commercially as well.”

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s there anything Pharrell Williams can’t do? The seventime Grammy winner, a fixture on best-dressed lists, adds another triumph to his hyper-hyphenated, multi-disciplined life: a foray into sustainable fashion with G-Star.

Raw for the Oceans (rawfortheoceans.g-star.com) weaves fiber hewn from plastic bottles that have washed up on beaches across the world into the Dutch label’s famous line of denim. Williams serves not only as creative director of Bionic Yarn, the New York-based initiative that transforms recycled plastic into durable textiles, but also as the collaboration’s co-designer. The partnership will also result in G-Star integrating Bionic Yarn material into its existing product lines.

Everyone has jeans in the closet, the 41-year-old musician reasons, and he hopes that this new project will raise awareness and create change within the denim retail industry. So far, Raw for the Oceans has already transformed over 10 tons of marine plastic into a very covetable line of apparel. “Working with G-Star was an obvious choice, because they have a legacy of pushing the boundaries of fashion and denim forward,” said Williams.

The first collection is available at select G-Star Raw stores and online and a second one for Summer 2015 was unveiled as part of New York Fashion Week. The N.E.R.D. frontman and his design team sent models down the runway in a range of jeans, shirts, coats, jumpsuits, and hats, some of which carry an illustrated squid as its motif. Of this latest endeavour, the sartorial star states that “making fashion that considers the planet, considers water, and considers the people who consume it—that’s a good day at work for me.”

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JACS T. SAMPAYAN

THE SLANT

ISSUE NO.

81

OPINIONS + IDEAS + PERSPECTIVES

R Terminal Blues

Taming the Forbidding City

Sense and Sensing

The Unbearable Burden of Being

Marianne Carandang

Ali Figueroa

Jeannie Javelosa

Manuel L. Quezon III

A visitor’s impression is formed starting from a country’s airport.

Why is it taking so long to rehabilitate ours?

One professor says one of the fastest ways to untangling our knotted problems is quite possibly through good graphic design.

What should go through one’s head when determining good design? Here’s a rundown from an experienced judge.

What prevents the issue of charter change turning into a real debate is the power of public opinion, which is ruled by cynicism.

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Marianne Carandang ON THE AIRPORT OVERHAUL

Terminal Blues

I

am a trade journalist who writes about Philippine tourism for a living, so it’s a regular part of my job to interview travel agents, hoteliers, and transport operators, who are used to making the best of a difficult situation. NAIA is on the list of the most hated topics, and few have anything good to say about the way the airport is managed—perhaps more so about the way it looks.

Mostly, however, their stories are about how much visitors love it here. Two years ago, I was on a ferry boat taking us back from Caramoan, where we’d stayed at the newly opened Tugawe Cove Resort and done an enchanting sunset “island hopping” tour around the island’s cliffsides. A travel agent based in Naga told me many young Europeans—some of them students on a gap year, backpackers, or community

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volunteers—stayed on the islands for weeks, trying to emulate the simple living of the locals.

Another time, one of the groundhandlers of the first big international cruise ship that docked near Boracay in October 2012 recounted how the local government was scrambling to build a decent pontoon ready to welcome the hundreds of guests who were to arrive in a few hours.

Dozens of smaller boats would have tendered these visitors, who’d be on shore leave only for eight hours, onto the island, the shuttling backand-forth a logistical feat in itself. They were having a hard time accounting for those coming back, because many wanted to stay on the island longer than allowed, she said.

Last year, a big tour operator organized 13 fully booked charter planes from Vladivostok in

northern Russia after buyers had come here and discovered the majestic beauty of El Nido and Misibis Bay. They had walked on powdery white sand and feasted on fresh seafood, and would go back to Russia to describe exactly how their guests could find a memorable escape from the cold Siberian winter.

I kid you not when I say these are but a smattering of the accounts that reflect a change in perceptions of the Philippines, also handed in from international tour operators who were used to recommending other destinations over us. Tourists traveling in groups or organized tours are a lucky lot, because it can be tough getting out of NAIA without experiencing some kind of discomfort while trying to change money, passing through Customs, or getting into a “metered” cab

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GETTY IMAGES

Years into the NAIA redesign project, there are still many questions left unanswered

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While DMCI was hired for the ongoing P1.3 billion facelift due in March 2015, says DOTC Secretary Joseph Abaya, it doesn’t prioritize the aesthetics, although Cobonpue, Layug, and Pineda “are on board.” What a squandered opportunity. coordinate with Customs and Immigrations to manage the flow of people and cargo. Filipinos are the airport’s primary audience, and we want better, especially at Terminals 1 and 4. They’re also not helping us create a better impression of our country.

The current rehab works at Terminal 1 were spurred by the upcoming APEC 2015 meetings and pressure from the APEC National Organizing Committee to address the airport’s current state. As I understand it, Kenneth Cobonpue, Budji Layug, and Royal Pineda were invited to do pro-bono work on the terminal’s internal and external redesign in late 2010 or early 2011.

When one reviews what news filtered to the public in months that followed, it was clear that a political battle was raging within, the government officially ready to hire and pay architect Andy Locsin, son of original builder, to do a “facesaving” project, instead of giving at least part of the deal to people willing it to do it for free.

Had it not been for Mar Roxas’s transfer, or the Bohol earthquake a year ago, the decision to prioritize the terminal’s structural soundness would not have given the administration impetus to find another party for the undertaking. So while in the end DMCI was hired for the ongoing P1.3 billion facelift due in March 2015, says DOTC Secretary Joseph Abaya, it doesn’t prioritize the aesthetics, although Cobonpue, Layug, and Pineda “are on board.”

What a squandered opportunity.

To be fair, we saw some definite improvements starting last August, from the look of the departure area, which has new wall finishings, newly installed check-in counters, and two brand-name coffee shops. Brighter ceiling and floor finishings can also be seen in the arrivals carousel area, which has done away with the bumpy, discolored linoleum and the gray lighting. But we aren’t likely to see improvements to the terminal’s tiny circular parking lot, the depressing greeters area, or the jungle that is the passenger waiting area.

Do we want more? Definitely. We know that if we don’t ask—in fact, demand—for it, we don’t stand a chance in years to get it.

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T H E

D E S I G N

I S S U E

INTERIOR MOTIVES PHOTOGRAPHED BY STEVE TIRONA

ROGUE MAGAZ NE / 220 PESOS

operating under the airport mafia.

It is difficult to say why the Aquino administration is having such a difficult time deciding where to build the next big international airport Manila is going to need. Hong Kong International Airport has two terminals totaling 710,000 square meters. Singapore’s Changi Airport, which has three, measures 1.018 million square meters. At 331,000 square meters, NAIA’s three main terminals aren’t half the size of Hong Kong’s airport, not even a third of Changi’s.

Lack of space isn’t an excuse, although it has become the truth. Who knows why we allowed several terminals to build far apart around NAIA grounds instead of adjacent to one another, and not connect them with the MRT or any internal railway system, or a more effective shuttle service; or why a new fifth terminal will be built near Terminal 2 to accommodate projected increases in low cost carrier traffic instead of committing definitively to one of many larger proposed locations.

Our Department of Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. has often said, “Build it and they will come” almost as much he says, “it’s better to create the problem first” of drawing tourists, then solving it afterwards.

Clearly, it isn’t his job to build the airports, but to promote destinations and stimulate tourist arrivals, which is exactly what the new tourism campaign is doing. Ironically, it isn’t happening quickly enough. We are far from the National Tourism Development Plan’s desired target of P10 million foreign visitors in 2016, as we made 4 last year, and in the first half of 2014, we’ve only grown 2.2 percent year-on-year to 2.43 million visitors.

Part of the problem is definitely our airport, which isn’t living down the “worst airport” tag, the source of which I had never even heard about.

But the impression sticks, and that is valid. If that was the only way to put pressure on Department of Transport and Communication to salvage the impression created for decades by Manila International Airport Authority, over which it has direct supervision, then so be it. MIAA is mandated to operate the terminals and charge fees for its use of its facilities and services, and

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READ ROGUE MAGAZINE ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ON YOUR IPAD, ANDROID, MAC, AND PC. ZINIO.COM/ROGUE

Ali Figueroa

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ON REIMAGINING THE CITY

Taming the Forbidding City

M

etro Manila is, by far, my favorite place in the world. Yes, the city is a mess. But it’s a glorious mess, and I love it.

Cities are powerful and wonderful places because housing so many people in such close quarters makes huge things possible. This is astonishingly true in Metro Manila, the native habitat of perhaps the most ingenious, resilient, and fascinating people on the planet. Every inch of its traffic-choked streets are slathered with layers upon layers of riotous color and culture.

It can be such a joy to brave the tangled train systems, dine beside the esteros of Binondo, roam the skyscraper-lined sidewalks of Makati, wade through the church and market crowds in Quiapo and Baclaran, and stroll down the broken cobblestone streets of Intramuros.

And yet, most people disagree with me, often quite vehemently, when I say how wonderful our city is. Because the Manila of most people is quite hard. Generations of corruption, natural disasters, and general neglect have formed the metropolis into something that can be quite monstrous. People can and will go on and on about the pollution, the poverty, the traffic.

Everywhere and all the time, the traffic. And it’s getting worse, fast. The “gates of hell” that Dan Brown described in his book, Inferno, just last year seem almost scenic now.

Bad design plays such a big part in our continuing plummet. The Philippines is a signatory in a United Nations treaty on standardizing street and traffic signs, but our streets are a babbling mess. Designs shift and change from city to city, even district to district.

Fonts are crammed into tiny spaces. And the design goal, in many cases, seems to be to glorify local officials. And to add to the riot, our traffic and law enforcers across the city come in a rainbow of colors and styles, answering to countless confusing authorities and offices.

Metro Manila has developed an almost supernatural terror. We look at this mash-up of 16 cities (and one municipality), and we’re overwhelmed. And most of us have been so terrorized and jaded by our city that it has become very hard, almost impossible, to see how wonderful it is, and how much better it can become. I think this is the first and most urgent problem to solve. Manila has become such a forbidding city that people no longer see

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possibilities. Only terror. Only trash. Only traffic, stretching as far as the eye can see.

Design will fix the city, if it ever gets fixed at all. There are other necessary factors, of course.

Urban planning is vital, and traffic engineering is a discipline we have to learn, fast. We desperately need strong urban design to disentangle the complex issues in the megacity. But that will take time. Generations, even. And it will take armies of politicians, architects, engineers, businessmen, and many other people, spending billions upon billions of pesos, to get it done. The first, the fastest, and perhaps the cheapest and most trailblazing weapon we can unleash is good graphic design.

Good graphic design can enable the city to “speak to us.” Good graphic design, on the streets, helps everyone function and navigate better. But more than that, good graphic design can change people’s minds about the metro.

The city is a monster, but it is a monster mostly because it looks fearsome and we can’t understand it. There isn’t anything necessarily or absolutely frightening and evil about it. Even traffic, our great enemy, is just a case of vehicles crammed into the streets. But when we’re trapped, we see no signs of relief. Then things feel even more hellish.

New York can be every bit as squalid and chaotic as it is here, yet New Yorkers love New York fiercely. This is a sentiment that can’t be disentangled from design, as the strength of the graphic design that pervades their streets and defines their public transportation system lend the whole city a powerful and deeply engaging presence.

Singapore is as Asian, as tropical, and as busy as Metro Manila, but even visitors new to the city rarely get the feeling of being lost and trapped; everything is labeled, everything is clear.

Thoughtful, consistent, and clear street signs shape and guide our travels. But they also give us a sense of comfort and peace. Legible text can make the city itself legible. And once we begin to become more fluent in the city’s language, we can understand it better and deal with it more effectively.

In the end, of course, graphic design alone cannot fix everything here. But this monster can be our monster. And taming the beast, perhaps using color, typography, and graphics, is a powerful first step.

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY KASEY ALBANO

There are many problems and challenges in Metro Manila, but the first step in the right direction might be good design

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Jeannie E. Javelosa ON CRITIQUING GOOD DESIGN

DESIGNER SHOWCASE

Sense and Sensing

Orion chairs and disc from local furnituremaker Lightworks, which were showcased in this year’s Manila FAME and Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

Assessing and understanding design is a full sensory and cerebral experience all on its own

P

eople say you either have the “eye” or you don’t. By this I mean a critical eye that can pass some level of judgment on something visual—be it an exhibition, a painting, a design piece, a setting, a photograph, and yes, even store window displays. I guess it’s the same as having the “ear,” where a musical score will come across as being excellent, good or downright lousy. And so this “eye” differentiates the critic, and the critical eye in the appreciation of defining what is good. The understanding of art-design history, trends, and production techniques are likewise “must” stock knowledge for those called in as “experts” entitled to pass judgment.

Being a practicing artist (painter-printmaker) in the early part of my career, then an art critic for the visual arts and continuing on to morph into a museum curator, my eye has pretty much been honed on the critical level. So when I zero in during judging of design pieces in competitions, people end up asking me the criteria by which I based my final statement.

What is good design? How do we determine what good design is? Is there good design in the country?

I believe the newest of design directions in the country can be seen at the Manila FAME. Sure, some museums may highlight design, but so far, functional cutting edge directions would find its showcase twice a year at FAME. I have been a regular visitor to the biannual show for decades.

Through each visit, one sees the progression of phases of how a craft becomes a product then is later transformed into a designer piece. Through each phase, a level of what we say good design is justifiable, and expressed.

Good design will always stand out. Innovative new ideas in product design will come across to astonish us amidst the cornucopia of products on display. It will make you stop in your tracks to appreciate, to look at its simplicity and clarity.

Don’t get me wrong, its not all about minimalist directions all the time, but there can likewise be clarity in a piece that looks like a creative, playful or colorful mess that somehow, illogically comes together.

But first, its antithesis. I know when I am staring at a badly designed product. It gets on my nerves. It bothers me. Just looking at it makes me feel this sense of opposition and disconnection, and a bit of anger at how something can 108 O C T O B E R 2014

look like this. What was the designer thinking?

Good design supports a message—either of material and how it is being manipulated, or used in an innovative manner. The clarity of function is also present where the design supports the intended use, or optimizes this by pairing down all non-essentials and allowing the user the most complete experience in its primary use. The functional experience becomes one with the user and the product itself is sublimated into the experience. Okay, this sounds too philosophical, but when we get down to it, good design’s best expression is the ease by which it integrates into the user’s life.

Then there is aesthetics.

The beauty of the product, that intangible part that appeals to the user-viewer, is totally subjective. When I see a new product, I know when a product goes through a designer’s hands—and the level and sophistication of the designer’s creative mind process. And this is where the relationship of design and viewer-userbuyer connects. How can the designer bring out the most visually appealing aspect of a product and balance this with the required production process to attract the user to purchase and really use it? This requires skill, time, intuition, and understanding of trends. If the product doesn’t sell, it would have somehow failed in part of the end objective.

Like art, good design has no generational boundaries but is appreciated for its functional purity, visually appealing factor that fulfills its purpose by adding a dimension of well-being to our daily life.

Then good design is timeless, ageless, and universal. It is like what a piece of art is, a masterpiece. Perhaps I should instead say good design is sustainable and durable: in its processes, materials and can stand up against any new trend. In our society driven by overconsumption, good design today must make a statement for sustainability.

Today, when I sit as member of a jury to

pass judgment on product design, we get into a lot of healthy arguments between jury members—most who know the Manila FAME cycle and participants through the year. That being said, the judging process quickly highlights the newest and best entries for the year. New products today are reflecting the awareness of Filipino designers to dive back into tradition, study and be inspired by cultural influences, meaning, and motifs alongside indigenous material usage. This direction will balance our constant look at the western. In the global world, what will differentiate our products will be our culture-speak.

In trade fairs I have attended in New York recently, one emerging trend for design and products is focused on sustainability that supports the green movement, the community hand-made artisan directions and ecological sustainability.

Products are now designed to bring us closer to nature, to a lifestyle that sensitively supports the fast paced world of communication and information exchange, to the need for meaningful design that can shift behaviors towards inclusion.

With the creativity of our Filipino designers, I have no doubt we will see the best of them riding this emerging trend.

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Manuel L. Quezon III

ON AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION

The Unbearable Burden Of Being Is any change to the country’s political system at all possible when we have become so cynical and rigid in our ways?

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An OFW I once met on a flight home, after hours of singing the praises of good government, pulled out a big wad of cash and flamboyantly counted it out in my presence. “For customs,” he shrugged.

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ince independence in 1946, we have nearly doubled the number of our provinces, and gone from 18.4 million people to 100 million today. The sheer volume of both people and government means you have more doing less for more. And so you have officials and citizens, both, exasperated with the system.

Having reestablished the government of France after the German Occupation, Charles de Gaulle went into a decade-long retirement, sulking in his tent like Achilles until the Algerian Crisis when he made a political comeback and established an almost monarchical presidency. He found the parliamentary government established after World War II frustratingly chaotic, leading to his famous remark, “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”

Luigi Barizin in his highly entertaining book The Italians explained his society in this manner: Italians, he argued, followed a double standard—

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Manuel L. Quezon III

ON AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION

Someone bolder than I might take a stab on a fascinating book waiting to be written: the Filipinos whose ability made this country too small a pond for them to get big in, but who, upon achieving success abroad, came back, only to become every bit as cynical, venal, and ruthless as the movers and shakers they’d once despised and despaired of. extremely honorable in matters internal to the family, and willing to cross any line when it comes to the government which they are convinced is out to get them.

Sounds quite familiar, doesn’t it? Barzini did say that the Jews and the Chinese were quite similar; the writer and diplomat Leon Ma. Guerrero once described our society in a similar way, and for similar reasons. The sociologist Randy David has argued in recent years that the latest manifestation of this is something he calls a Crisis of Modernity in our country—where old instincts and habits among the political class leads that class to be increasingly incapable of adjusting to the challenges of a society that is outgrowing what I call the “old obediences.” The institutions that linked together to give cohesion to society—Church, club, and school—are increasingly losing out to new challengers; but the old network built around these institutions stubbornly cling to them, leading to the kind of frustration over social exclusion that drives so many of our best and brightest abroad. Not just as economic refugees, but in a kind of collective protest vote against how things are at home. And so while Lasallians, Ateneans, and UPeans still enjoy the best access to jobs in the public and private sector, those sectors are too small to absorb enough talent, which looks for opportunities elsewhere (this includes the Top Three graduates, by the way, particularly those who may have a degree but lack social or political pull).

The son or daughter of a kasama, who becomes a seaman, or nurse, or nanny abroad, and who then saves up to buy a small house in the province, enables their family to leapfrog in status from serf to middle class in a generation.

Without the acculturation—yes, Church, club, and school—the old middle class took for granted as setting it apart from the hoi polloi and granting it proximity to the so-called leading families. If the family remains teetering on the edge of security, say due to not being frugal, then the old powers-that-be retain a hold 112 O C T O B E R 2014

over the family of that breadwinner; but if, for example, the breadwinner in turn has children who study in better schools, but who focus on learning simply to be able to line up for a ticket or contract to go abroad, then the only stake at home they will fiercely defend is that most thorough of middle class rights, that of property.

But politics? Whether in its crudest form, voting for a patron, or in terms of civic participation in the community? It is irrelevant and possibly downright dangerous and best avoided.

An OFW I once met on a flight home, after eight hours of singing the praises of good government, of a genuine party system, and other blessings of democracy, excused himself from our conversation as we began our descent by pulling out a big wad of cash and flamboyantly counting it out in my presence.

“For customs,” he shrugged. We had earnestly discussed the changes the country needed—but for him, some things would never change. One day, someone bolder than I might take a stab on a fascinating book waiting to be written: the Filipinos whose ability made this country too small a pond for them to get big in, but who, upon achieving success abroad, came back, only to become every bit as cynical, venal, and ruthless as the movers and shakers they’d once despised and despaired of. They had, in a sense, already beaten them—so why join them?

Which brings me to the debates on forms of government, the arguments about amending or not amending the constitution, that periodically take up column inches in the papers and from time to time lead to “experts” being trotted out to say nothing about something in front of the cameras. To be sure everyone seems pretty eloquent about what they are against but become vague when asked to put forward what they actually want. You cannot help but think we are well and truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. A Filipino political scientist once expressed his exasperation with our post-EDSA system of government in this manner: “It is,” he said, “set up to guarantee to fail.” When I asked

what, then, did he propose as a solution, he put forward a thoroughly middle-class proposal.

Take away the vote from the masses! Abolish the presidency or make it a decoration! Shift to the parliamentary form of government where the professionals can elect one of their own to run the nation!

Oscar Wilde once described an aristocrat in a foxhunt as the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. You have the unelectable in full pursuit of the unpalatable.

There are many earnest and eloquent advocates of things like the parliamentary system but they tend to ignore the inconvenient question of how you convince a national electorate to give up the one basic democratic right they understand, which is to periodically cast their vote—freely or for a fee—for the country’s leader? Then they expect congressmen and senators to lead the charge, when legislators themselves derive their position from the same electorate (which doesn’t mean they don’t dream of it: taking a cue from de Gaulle or Barzini, they would probably much prefer not having to deal with a head of state with a mandate independent of theirs). And yet, parliamentarists have at least tried to imagine a status quo different from the one we have at present. It is all very interesting.

But it is not, in any real sense, a real public debate.

Writing in his diary on December 23, 1938, former Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison caught his friend Manuel L. Quezon in a moment of reflection. “The people care more for good government than they do for selfgovernment,” Quezon told him, adding that “the fear is that the Head of State may either exceed his powers, or abuse them by improprieties. To keep order is his main purpose.”

In the three generations since then, this seems as good a rule of thumb regarding public expectations of our leaders as any.

In the end, what makes or break any proposal is something not found in any constitution—the constantly shifting sands of public opinion.

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For nearly 80 years, the North Syquia apartments have mirrored the creative spirit of offbeat Manila.

They’ve been home to all manner of outsize characters and borne witness to spectacular debauchery inimitable in even the most riotous of nightclubs. Paolo Lorenzana looks back on the glory days of a legendary residence that has since retreated into itself, waiting for Malate’s next incarnation WorldMags.net

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With dim lobby lights, North Syquia seemed to look sleepily out into the street, its entrance yawning with neither comings nor goings. It was unlike how I remembered it years ago, where you could hear conversation from within flow like rollicking jazz and see stairwells awash with drink-dangling revelers.

The fabled Christmas party Syquia’s residents threw each year since 2005 was a gift to Manila’s wearied night crawlers: those who dragged their knees across the same bars and through the same crowds of Makati and Fort Bonifacio. After all, it was where the people who gave life to Malate decided to live. Where the renowned artists and outsize personalities who made the storied party district their canvas, dance floor, and stage rested their heads, if ever they found the time to do so, of course.

Finding it around the corner of Aristocrat, Roxas Boulevard’s sentimental marker, I first marveled at a building blushing with the exuberance that once fueled the creative heart of Manila. The year was 2009 and it would be the last Syquia party held by its residents. Since then, what is arguably Manila’s most interesting address 116 O C T O B E R 2014

has recoiled, never to hold an open house again. Maybe it was folding into its own reputation of exclusivity until the city could cough up characters worthier of its welcome. Or it was hibernating until the next incarnation of Malate.

Whatever the case, I approached the building with hesitance. As if it were an acquaintance I wasn’t sure had remembered the glorious night we once spent.

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ndios Bravos. Blue Café. Penguin. Stargazer. Velvet Slum.

Grey November.

Unless supplied with one of his rich anecdotes, the places in Carlos Celdran’s abridged history of Malate nightlife sound like kitschy old Internet chat handles. “The tisoyss were hanging out in Moviola or Rockola. And then right beside Café Adriatico was Hard Rock Café, the first fake one that became 10 Years After. That’s where the tisoys would go because they played requests,” says Celdran, giving playful context to the area’s nocturnal past as he does the historical sites in his walking tours of Intramuros.

Places like Patina, which stood across Prego, which became Limelight— these are footnotes of his own evolution in Malate. He had strayed from his cushy Dasmariñas Village upbringing to immerse in an area of absolute abandon. “I flew far and wide to fucking earn my stripes here. It was hard to get accepted. I was the youngest one in the room—the young one looking in,” he says, recounting his initiation into Malate’s nightscape at 17 owing to the 25-year-old woman he began a decade-long affair ff with. Hebe Hartendorp, a “Makati Med doctor by day and a dominatrix by night,” was a character among many who burned through the Malate after-hours: John Glenn, the man behind Blue Café; designer Paolo Basa and boyfriend

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WorldMags.net NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH

From top: A portrait of Sanya Smith taken for Rogue in May 2008 by photographer and former resident Juan Caguicla in Syquia; the bookshelf of Apa Ongpin inside North Syquia; writer Nick Joaquin photographed in North Syquia by Neal Oshima, 1997.

Opposite: Restaurateur Chiqui Mabanta, a third-generation Syquia, photographed by Oshima in her apartment; Mabanta’s grandfather, Gonzalo Syquia Sr., in Europe, 1950s.

Greg Dorris; Jess Abejo, who “used to go around in a fairy dress and wand.”

“The parties indoors were always crazier. Like Denisa Reyes’s parties, the parties of Rene Knecht, who lived upstairs,” he says of the apartment above the two-bedroom space in North Syquia he’s inhabited for eight years now.

Its impressive high ceiling, original hardwood floors, and sunken, sprawling living area are simply afterthoughts when considering the succession of tenants who’ve stoked the flames of local culture at one point or another.

“Imagine how it was before. This used to be Denisa Reyes’s apartment.

And Mark Garry. A couple of Eraserheads videos were shot in this place,” says Celdran, the spirit medium denoting the countless crimes of creation committed by people like Garry, noted director and cinematographer, or Reyes, artistic head of Ballet Philippines. “Rogue’s first covers were here— Juan Caguicla lived right there,” he adds. Not one inch of the 150 squaremeter space we’ve settled in speaks of the generic lifestyle all too prevalently marketed by big-name property developers.

Within these secure walls was an alluring sense of the unexpected. First visiting with Celdran in 2006, it was enough to lure filmmaker Ria Limjap from gated Alabang to her own slice of Syquia two flights up. Before her, tempestuous actress Cita Astals had made the apartment her home for several years. Despite relinquishing her lease a couple of years ago when a roommate had moved out, it’s almost as if Limjap never left. She visits frequently, many convivial nights beginning around Celdran’s antique wooden table joined by the likes of top advertising gun Jun Poblador, a longtime resident of the similarly legendary South Syquia. “I remember Denisa Reyes was moving out and Carlos was like, ‘Come with me to Malate,’” says Limjap in crisp, singsong parlance befitting a proper hostess retelling gossip over tea, if it weren’t for the spliff being passed around.

“I mean, I hung out in Malate in college but not here. I was sheltered in Alabang.

“So we come up here and the dining table was up there. There was an opium bed over there. And there was entire tribal dance sequence

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FUNNY PEOPLE

Top to bottom: Fashion designer Helena Carratalá, photographed in 1982 by Neal Oshima for the cover of The New Miscellaneous; Malate nightlife impresario and Coco Banana owner Ernest Santiago; visual artist Phyllis Zaballero.

happening with drugs, but because [the walls] were poured concrete, the neighbors couldn’t hear anything,” she exclaims, relishing the memory. “It’s that kind of space. Imagine having a dance recital here.”

“I had dance recitals here all the time,” Celdran contends.

Through the mid-aughts, Apartment 24 was known as The Living Room. From the head of global photo agency Magnum to a British couple that made lamps, artists from around the world shacked up in the apartment, performing or exhibiting their work. Celdran had simulated this sort of environment during the building’s Christmas parties. On the night Syquiaa first revealed itself to me, Celdran’s apartment stood out from the blur of festivity: films projected on the wall, experimental beats from a DJ, and interpretative dancer Donna Miranda tumbling about in a bathtub.

That was what The Living Room was: an anything-goes gallery, its creative convergences once documented on an eponymous blog. It was Malate for the Millennium. The district’s bohemian home on the web. However, for Syquia’s more senior residents, not everyone—much less the world— was welcome.

When the Syquia grandchildren prohibited the subleasing of Apartment 24, Celdran’s global salon became just another tale in the lore of Malate.

Much like the Syquia Christmas parties of the 2000s and all that had come before it. The street parties of the late 90s, where Ecstasy-fueled pedestrians poured out of Verve Room and Insomnia. The post-Martial Law “golden days,” according to Poblador, when Bencab roamed the night and Makati made its pilgrimage to “Louie Y’s empire.”The big bite the 70s took out of Ernest Santiago’s Cocobanana, where drag and disco ruled. And all the tastes and temptations in between.

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WorldMags.net IMMORTALS AMONG US

Celdran has been a North Syquia tenant since the early 2000s. Below: Syquia resident Rene Knecht at a 1960s party with Rosarito Caro Agustines and Joey Escaler.

IT WAS WHERE THE PEOPLE WHO GAVE LIFE TO MALATE DECIDED TO LIVE.

WHERE THE RENOWNED ARTISTS AND OUTSIZE PERSONALITIES WHO MADE THE STORIED PARTY DISTRICT THEIR CANVAS, DANCE FLOOR, AND STAGE RESTED THEIR HEADS, IF EVER THEY FOUND THE TIME TO DO SO. “Malate’s been through so many cycles of gentrification and the undoing of that,” Limjap says, contemplative.

Breaking from his perpetual puckishness, Celdran sighs. “Yeah, and now we’re in the undoing part.”

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ne could pinpoint the urban ascendance of Manila to the rise of the Syquia Apartments, comprised of three landmark buildings constructed a stroll from one another: North Syquia, South Syquia, and Michel. Giving her name to the third building was Asuncion Michels de Champourcin y Ventura, a Pampanga rice heiress who married a Syquia, descendant of Ilocos Sur’s prominent trading family and one of the Philippines’ oldest clans.

A huge chunk of what is now known as the Clark Air Base had been rice lands owned by de Champourcin, and sometime in the 1920s, she won a lawsuit against the US government for expropriating the property. The substantial payout spurred the Syquias’ relocation to Manila.

Malate was residential limbo flanked by a highway to Cavite before de Champourcin’s sons Gonzalo, Pedro, and Leopoldo ushered its development.

The Syquia Hermanos, as their company was called, became responsible for the three engineering feats that turned a district at the fringes into an address to aspire to.

North Syquia was the first among the three apartment buildings to be constructed (and later, when the brothers drew straws to allocate properties, it would be owned by Gonzalo). Upon completion in 1936, it was the tallest building in Manila. Not only did it boast the city’s first car garage but also the first passenger elevator, which served four five-storey towers linked in such a way that the building could withstand earthquakes. With a foundation of molave tiles and US-imported poured concrete, it suffered ff little damage when Japanese navy sabotaging the building from American

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STORIES OF SYQUIA AND BEYOND ENDURED THROUGH THE NIGHT: THE SCANDALOUS

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WorldMags.net THE INSIDE JOB

Neal Oshima’s photographs of Syquia today. “I wanted to show how each tenant’s personality infects their space,” he says. “They can do their worst at Syquia, but the moment they leave, it goes back to what it was when they first moved in.”

SOUTH SYQUIA MURDERS, NUMEROUS GAY LUMINARIES DYING AT THEIR CALLBOYS’ HANDS…

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NAUGHTY NINETIES

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Clockwise, from top left: Mikey Cojuangco (far right), Elna Sison, and Karen Hernandez-Montinola (far left) at a 1992 party in Apa Ongpin’s North Syquia apartment; Apa Ongpin at a Blue Rats rehearsal, 1995; Richard Danao in 1997; Noel Bautista, Al Tengco, Jojo Marquez-Ocampo, and Rina Go in 1992; Marianna Montelibano-Ongpin and Mauro Agustines in 1995; Vic Agustines, Vicky Concepcion-Araneta, Bon-Jin Bolinao in 1994; Rene Banzon and Johnny Montinola in 1992; Annette Coronel, Charlie Carmona, and Mar Roxas in 1992; Louie Guerrero, Louie Prieto, and Rina Go in 1992. Opposite, from top: In the last decade, North Syquia, or “The Living Room” became a venue for artists to exhibit works or hold performances such as this interpretative dance titled “Kamuros”; Rafe Totengco, Junjun Poblador, Richard Gomez, and Maricar Totengco; Jesus Romero-Salas, Mandy Boy Eduque, Miguel Fabie, and Hebe Hartendorp Zweigel; Paolo Basa, Hebe Hartendorp Zweigel, and Youri Augousti; Junjun Poblador, Rafe Totengco, Budoy Sanchez, and Nilene Garcia.

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“IT WAS TOTAL CHAOS.

AN INSTANT PARTY, JUST ADD WATER,” SAYS APA ONGPIN. “IF ANYTHING CRAZY WAS GONNA HAPPEN IN MANILA, THERE WAS A 50 PERCENT CHANCE IT WAS GONNA HAPPEN IN SYQUIA.” forces tried to blow it up with mines or set its floors on fire. After the Americans bombed Malate in 1945, North Syquia and its sister buildings were the only ones left standing, ever resilient.

Over half a century before it was exalted for the people within, the building itself was a thing to marvel at. Due to lost records, it’s unknown whether pioneering architects Pandot Ocampo or Pablo Antonio designed North Syquia, but passersby strolling along Roxas Boulevard in the afternoons admired a streamlined deco façade that asserted modernity where buildings in Intramuros were medieval.

Though war hadn’t devastated North Syquia, it had wiped out surrounding Malate and the cachet of living in it. Squalor replaced the wealthy Chinese and Spanish families who moved to far-flung but promising areas like New Manila. Soon, the red light beamed bright upon the area with its pimps and prostitutes, but also signaled the entry of artists and hell-raisers chasing high times and low rents.

The late 60s, Apa Ongpin says, is supposedly when the “fun” at Syquia started. Ongpin, in later years, became the apartments’ spokesman—the man trusted enough by residents so that should he

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WILD THINGS

Vicente Manansala’s 1974 painting of prominent Malate characters in an orgy, which was once displayed in the apartment of Louie Cruz.

MANANSALA WOULD SIT INCONSPICUOUSLY AT PARTIES

AND PAINT, THE CULMINATION BEING A MURAL OF MALATE CHARACTERS IN AN ORGY. “YOU CAN IDENTIFY THE PEOPLE IN IT,” SAID BART GUINGONA, GRINNING. “THAT PAINTING IS ONE DAY GOING INTO LEGEND.”

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survive an apocalypse, he could write biblical epistles on the building.

“I moved in 1991, many years after, but it already had a reputation as a bohemian kind of residence,” he says of the building, a stark contrast to Makati’s City Club, Alphaland’s outpost of refined recreation that he manages and where he’s asked to meet.

A ruddy-faced mestizo with graying temples and an executive’s bearing, Ongpin was once a gung-ho bachelor in North Syquia. The 20 years he spent in the building were “like living in a college dorm,” he says. Before a seasoned media career that included a stint as a wealthy mestizo stud on Palibhasa Lalake, he was a Manila Chronicle reporter in his early 20s, immediately enamored by cheap rent, an expansive space, and an offbeat community where filmmakers like Butch Perez and painters like Phyllis Zaballero soon moved in. “It was a great time,” he says of the early 90s,

when the “Nakpil-Adriatico-Orosa scene” ignited Manila and Ongpin had even named one of its performance hubs: the Kuh Ledesma-owned Republic of Malate. Streaming from the Syquia buildings were the likes of rising adman Jun Poblador, Budoy Sanchez, and designers Inno Sotto and Paolo Basa. “I woke up one day realizing, ‘Shit, most of my friends are gay!’ And then I realized that if you live in Malate and you don’t have gay friends, you don’t have friends,” he says, laughing.

Basa, who’d taken a Syquia apartment up as his atelier, had orchestrated one unforgettable party in 1992, Ongpin recalls. Male striptease stars The Chippendales were touring Manila and he had spotted one of its brawny, blonde performers at Rustan’s and invited him and his fellow dancers to a party he made up on the spot. Once they parted ways, Basa spent an afternoon rallying the who’s who from his telephone, demanding they show

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WorldMags.net ITS IMPRESSIVE HIGH CEILING, ORIGINAL

HARDWOOD FLOORS, AND SUNKEN, SPRAWLING LIVING AREA ARE SIMPLY AFTERTHOUGHTS WHEN CONSIDERING THE SUCCESSION OF TENANTS WHO’VE STOKED THE FLAMES OF LOCAL CULTURE AT ONE POINT OR OTHER.

up at Apartment 12 because the Chippendales would be there. “I went to this thing and he had over-invited. It was total chaos,” says Ongpin, reminded of an incident during the party where two bisexual women who had brawled in the bathroom over a lover—male or female, no one knows—caused quite a spill by managing to dislodge the toilet. “Those were the kinds of things that happened in Syquia. An instant party, just add water,” says Ongpin. “If anything crazy was gonna happen in Manila, there was a 50 percent chance it was gonna happen in Syquia. Not so much in the clubs, where people were paying to be there.”

More than a wild past that serves as delicious intrigue for those who weren’t present, it’s the heightened sense of commune that has endured in Syquia. Tenants frequently open their apartment up to their neighbors for cocktails, or meet at the terrace for barbecues. As the grandson of Gonzalo Syquia, Sr., Dixie Mabanta had long witnessed the building’s gregarious spirit and thought of opening its doors up like the old days.

In 2003, Ongpin’s girlfriend and now wife, Anna, persisted with the idea, whipping up a tight, well-curated guest list and organizing Syquia’s first open-house Christmas party.

Those parties had seen many queer extravaganzas erupt at the apartment of Firma owners Markus Schmidt and Richard Danao, gathering hordes of beautiful ladies and the straight guys who wanted to meet them. There was the electrical fire that led to Bart Guingona’s bloodied fist, the result of the theater veteran’s attempt at procuring a fire extinguisher from a case that could have been slid open. And of course, the year a rowdy bunch of Eurotrash backpackers infiltrated the building, either nicking or knocking tenants’ possessions in their own language, only to find out Syquia residents were multilingual; once tightly curated, security had been compromised.

The incident led the residents to conclude the parties after its six-year run.

A year after the final open house, Ongpin and his wife decided to leave the building. Though sizable for a bachelor, their apartment couldn’t contain their two kids and huddle of househelp. “But that’s life,” Ongpin says remorsefully. “Change comes with life. If I hadn’t met Anna, I’d probably still be living there today.”

ike the building she’s lived in for 38 years, what Sol Vanzi knows could fire up the presses and scorch history books.

Among all of North Syquia’s tenants, the “bluest of Imelda’s Blue Ladies,” as one resident described her, is its oldest resident. Not actually a member of the controversial first lady’s staff, Vanzi was the first journalist to interview the Marcoses in exile and had hit major payday selling the footage to foreign TV networks. Between Ninoy Aquino’s assassination and the first EDSA revolution, she had four Syquia units to her name, three of which served as studios where A/V equipment was rented out.

Since Vanzi’s husband died eight years ago, she’s gradually gotten to know her neighbors. There are occasional visits at the apartment of Dodo Lim and Bart Guingona. Partners for over two decades, they are Syquia’s token odd couple—Lim, the misanthropic theater maestro, and Guingona, the earnest actor-muse, younger and gentler. Cocktails are often in order at the couple’s apartment, as on this Saturday evening. Vanzi, 70 years old, staggered to a chair at Lim’s dining table, her silver-streaked hair tight in a bun and stern expression never wavering. Limjap warned me that Syquia’s most senior resident was its most resistant to publicity for the building. “‘We do not need it!’” Vanci had protested to Limjap in an attempt to preserve Syquia’s mystique.

With enough Tanduay and conversation flowing, however, Vanzi

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finally offered eye contact. A few residents recall the 70s to early 80s as a more sociable time in her life. To acquaint her reclusive husband with the contacts necessary for a journalist (he was then a writer for Reader’s Digest), Vanzi threw many mixers at their apartment. Vice-President Doy Laurel would show up. Media heavies like Max Soliven would gate crash New Year’s Eve parties that lasted “until Three Kings.” On many mornings after, she could hear guests searching for a bottle opener and exclaiming at the sight of leftovers. Vanzi would cook for a 200-strong guest list, packs of foreign press gathering around her living room pool table or spilling out into the hallway.

If she isn’t sharing the tidbits she’s gleaned maintaining a food column for the Manila Bulletin, she’s serving delicious information about boldfaced names on a wry platter. The latter always makes for enlivened conversation around Lim and Guingona’s table, if culture isn’t being discussed, spurred by surrounding paintings of naked male torsos or their theatric red walls.

Last night, public relations old-timer Bonjin Bolinao had come up for some scotch and nostalgia. For a good stretch, she was one of those responsible for the Halakhakan Parties of the 80s, each a gasp- and guffawinducing spectacle due to their boldness and immensity. As a rule, 50 hosts invited 50 guests, all asked to BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle). Venues like the Manila Film Center were aflood with fabulous queens battling it out in costume; record players spun disco through the night; and vats of lugaw were unleashed to sop up the alcohol before dawn. One particular Halakhakan was held at Syquia for the birthday of nightlife peacock Louie Cruz. “‘Louie, move na to Coco, I’m gonna sleep na,’” she would tell her former flatmate when the gay festivities persisted through the morning.

“We were all gonna live life to the fullest. We worked hard in the daytime and we played hard in the night,” Bolinao says in her effusive manner, a bright-eyed beauty at 63, though recently prone to fits of forgetting.

Unforgettable in those days was “Mother” Ernest Santiago, who Lim fondly remembers standing at the gates of Cocobanana, puffing on a cigarette and blowing off anyone underdressed or unattractive with the assistance of a lesbian security guard named Rose. Besides Velvet Slum and Rene Knecht’s nightspot Deity, Cocobanana wrangled what Bolinao classifies as the “Hahaha” crowd. They were Manila’s cheekiest, most intriguing set, many of which often wobbled to Syquia as the sun crept up, casting its first smirk at the night’s tryst with debauchery.

“The nice part about the intimate parties here is we never had a camera around or posed for photos,” says Bolinao.

Instead, the spirit of the period seems to be documented in a painting.

In his twilight years, Manansala would sit inconspicuously at Malate parties and paint, the culmination of these sessions being a mural depicting a group of Malate characters in an orgy; what once hung in Bolinao and Cruz’s apartment. “It’s a huge painting and you can identify the people in it, and it’s beautifully done,” said Guingona, grinning as he sized up the ice in his scotch. “And that painting is one day going into legend.”

The Manansala is in storage somewhere, retrieved by Cruz a few years after he moved out during the chaos of EDSA I. Those present at Lim’s table—Bolinao, Guingona, and Dennis Mabanta, in his 40s, the youngest of Gonzalo Syquia, Jr.’s children and a resident following his three siblings’ successive stays in the building—were tight-lipped about who was in the painting. What they offered was that some are either abroad or deceased.

As dance remixes of new wave classics played from speakers, I thought about who must have been there. Especially as a second bottle of Johnnie was opened and stories of Syquia and beyond endured through the night:

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IF YOU BUILD IT

When North Syquia was built in 1936, it was Manila’s tallest building and boasted the city’s first passenger elevator—but it’s unknown whether architects Pandot Ocampo or Pablo Antonio designed the building.

the scandalous South Syquia murders, numerous gay luminaries dying at their callboys’ hands; North Syquia’s impermeability to artistas like Judy Ann Santos, withheld a lease several years back; stories of Helena Guerrero arriving at the CCP Artists Ball with a gown so grand, its skirt had to be transported via truck; of the Village People’s Indian who often visited Cocobanana; of the delicious breakfasts “Mother” Ernest cooked for the daybreakers that ended up at his apartment after another riotous night.

Cutting through stories of the good ol’ days are ones of better things to come: about the events that Limjap and Celdran’s Viva Manila hold to draw people to the old capital; how Guingona is pushing to turn Roxas Boulevard into a “belt of culture,” closed to vehicles in the evenings to become a walking street of galleries, shops, and entertainment hubs; a broached revival of those beloved Christmas parties, even.

When the stories dwindled, one of us suggested a change of scenery and nights I spent at Syquia would end up nights coursing through Manila. There had been classics sung live at The Other Office, where Bong the pianist expertly covered one’s faulty pitch. Then onwards to Oarhouse, its second life on Bocobo a pale comparison to the original pub on, I was told.

The last of us standing one evening were ever-dandy Poblador, his

Ilonggo roots never slowing him down in drink (and drink never slowing him down in quips), and one of North Syquia’s newer residents, Marta Lovina, an heiress known for casually donating SLIMS pieces to the National Museum; mischievous and elegant, even with a shot glass in hand, she reminded me of a girl right out of Gatsby. We had seen our buzz through to drunkenness when Lovina urged a trip to Music 21 on Mabini.

Blissfully drunk and scanning the rot and luridness of our KTV room, I thought of North Syquia and the downcast beauty it shared with Malate. Its streets, full of sullied buildings and girly bars with neon lights glowing feebly, reminded me of an old drag queen retiring for the night, makeup smeared before a mirror. Or a worn-out performer due for a costume change.

No matter the subtle remorse I felt, there was an inexplicable anticipation in the air. A sign of Malate’s restless spirit, unable to stay put for long. A reminder that for all the people who created it, Malate itself could create—especially in the dark, when no one was looking.

It wasn’t long before my second wind came to me, as a server entered to announce a last call for drinks.

Then, because there was a lot of Malate I still had not seen, I asked no one in particular: “Where are we going next?”

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LIVED

EHT

IN THE

DETAILS They have cultivated the identities of some of the most well established local brands and played a hand in the breakout success of countless startups—but you probably don’t know who they are.

Despite operating in the background, design studios have proven themselves invaluable at a time when aesthetic identity holds immeasurable sway over a company’s staying power. For Rogue’s design portfolio, five select branding teams take their due turn in the spotlight WorldMags.net

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THE

DEVIL EHT NI

SLIATED A ROGUE DESIGN PORTFOLIO F E A T U R I N G : I N K S U R G E ,

A N D P L U S

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PHOTOGRAPHED BY PATRICK DIOKNO

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B + C

D E S I G N ,

S E R I O U S

S T U D I O

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THE COLLABORATORS

AND A HALF A N D-A-H A L F.P H

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1 Client: Manila Pop Up Material Used: 5 x 7.5 prestige paper, Stucco Old Mill 200 gsm Offset Printing Type of collateral: Event invite

4 Client: Press Café, Fully Booked Material Used: 30cm x 22.2 cm Fedrigoni Imaginative Papers, Sirio Embossed Tela Bruno 290 gsm Type of Collateral: Business cards and menu

2 Client: Las Flores Material Used: 8 x 14 x 18 Sack kraft paper 80 gsm Offset Printing Type of collateral: Take-out bag

5 Client: Manila Pop Up Material Used: 3 x 5 Prestige Paper, Stucco Old Mill 200 gsm Offset Printing with Foil Stamping Type of collateral: Invite

3 Client: Las Flores Material Used: 0.625 x 1 x 2.5 matchbox Offset Printing Type of collateral: Matchboxes and business cards

6 Client: Manila Pop Up Material Used: 11 x 17 Prestige Paper, Stucco Old Mill 200 gsm Offset Printing with Foil Stamping Type of collateral: Poster

here are many creative types who are only too eager to pass on the business end of their work to somebody else, but at And A Half, nobody wears just one hat. “Everything about running a studio is alternately done by the three of us, from accounting to designing and talking to clients,” writes one of their founders, Michael Parker.

The amount of trust that this must require is supplied by the fact that co-founders Corinne Serrano and Benjamin Abesamis were college blockmates and Parker was their professor. The name And A Half was thus born from their decision to collectively shoulder both client relations and design output, a setup that makes them different from many other

creative firms, perhaps for the better. “We don’t hire account managers when speaking to clients. In being hands-on with them, we find that there’s greater understanding on both sides. We both learn to follow and respect each other’s thought processes,” says Abesamis. The team is guarded when describing their design aesthetic, opting to fall back on a stock answer of “form and function over our own aesthetic satisfaction.” While it’s true that their work is telling of a spot-on understanding of each of their client’s individual identities, And A Half ’s portfolio is also charged with an energy and vivacity that has become their consistent signature. —ARIANNA LIM

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THE CLASSICISTS

B+C DESIGN BC-DSGN.COM / 813-4611

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1 Client: Slims Material Used: Combination of specialty and uncoated paper, Chipboard covered with book cloth for the sleeve off-set printing cmyk + metallic color, 14 X 10 x 1 in Type of collateral: Book

4 Client: Make It Makati Material Used: Notebook, Off-set printing, Matte lamination, spot UV, book paper 140 gsm, spiral bound, 5.5 In X 8.5In Keychain, Plastic acrylic, 1.75 In X 2 In Type of Collateral: Notebook and keychain

2 Client: Ayala Land Premier Material Used: Laser engraved, Jungle brown micro fiber, 37 X 23 cm Type of collateral: For Keeps campaign, notebook cover and notebook

5 Client: Ayala Land Premier Luscara Nuvali Material Used: Etched with black fill, brass-plated aluminum concrete filled, patina finish, 9in diameter 1/4in thickness Type of collateral: Client token sundial

3 Client: Cultural Center of the Philippines / Cinemalaya Material Used: Coated paper, Offset printing cmyk, 8 x 8 x .25 In Type of collateral: Brochure/catalogue

B

+C is Baby and Coco, two art directors who met in Paris and combined their backgrounds—fine art, interiors, and furniture design—to produce almost 25 years of collaboration. The phonetic anagram “be and see” lies at the core of their philosophy, a dual approach of observation and expression, even as Baby demurs, “We feel our work speaks for itself so we didn’t have to get overly creative about our name.

Though we are in the business of branding, it’s the expression [of the work] that builds a brand.” B+C is keenly aware of the value of well-designed public spaces, and has produced work with great social responsibility, such

6 Client: Blackbird Material Used: Paper Skin Black 380Gsm, off-set printing, Foil Stamping, Pantone Colour, 3.5 X 2 In Type of collateral: Business card

as environmental signage and the playful Boysen KNOxOUT project that runs along EDSA. With this social responsibility as the essence of their work, B+C’s ideas are expressive “concepts for people in the context of their environment,” promising “that whatever you put out for an audience is creative, has substance, is intelligent, and impeccably implemented.”

With an eye on the environment and a hands-on approach to improving it within the constraints of design, B+C is blazing a bright trail toward the future. —PETRA MAGNO

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THE CONCEPT ARTISTS

INKSURGE INKSURGE.COM / BROADCAST@INKSURGE.COM

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1 Client: Ateneo Art Gallery Material Used: 5 x 7 foldcoate 15 with curious translucent steel iridescent 100 gsm, offset printing with foil stamping Type of collateral: AAA 2013 invitation

4 Client: Inksurge (self-promo) Material Used: Bianco Old Mill 350 GSM / Letterpress (3-Color) Type of Collateral: Calling cards

2 Client: Polyeast Records / Sandwich Material Used: Digipack envelope with emboss Type of collateral: Album packaging for Fat, Salt & Flame

5 Client: Polyeast Records / Sandwich Material Used: Glossy gatefold Type of collateral: Album packaging infographic insert

3 Client: J.Makitalo Material Used: Hinge type boxes with black satin inner lining / gold logo stamping Type of collateral: Ring, necklace, and cuff boxes

6 Client: Inksurge (self-promo) Material Used: Bag – nylon/silkscreen + Medal in brass etching Type of collateral: Ecobag giveaways

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espite being founded 12 years ago, and despite being a design and branding company, Inksurge still hasn’t decided on a hard and fast label for themselves. “We don’t have an official designation for ourselves since we love multitasking,” writes one of their founders, Joyce Tai. Having worked in the same IT firm before Inksurge came alive, Tai and co-founder Rex Advincula were familiar with the dos and do nots of running a company, which is why Inksurge in its early years was handled less like a business and more like a thoughtful playground: “We both dropped our own style in designing and collaborated on what we can do as a duo. We constrained ourselves to a selection of color palettes, font usage, our common inspirations, even subject matter such as hairstyles, coffee,

Chinese medicine packaging, and propaganda posters. It was almost like a subliminal effort for us when we secured an identity—everything came together with our common interests,” shares Tai. Inksurge’s aesthetic is founded on the ability to cast their gaze wide, beyond palettes and fonts right up to inspiration and pleasures. Having recently created branding for the Manila branch of Toby’s Estate—an Australian third-wave coffee roaster—is a particular point of pride for Inksurge, who cites the philosophy of enjoying a concept and executing design accordingly as Advincula puts it: “Because of our love for it, our name was derived from coffee.” —PETRA MAGNO

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THE FUN HOUSE

PLUS 63 PLUS63.COM / HI@PLUS63.COM / 436-8864

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1 Client: Studio initiative for Design Co.Mission Material Used: Craft paper Type of collateral: Direct mailer

4 Client: Your Local Material Used: Board, Digital print Type of Collateral: Business card

2 Client: Heim Interiors Material Used: Paper, Board, Offset printing Type of collateral: Various brand identity materials

5 Client: Back Alley Barbershop Material Used: 700gsm black card with gold foil & black foil stamping Type of collateral: Gift coin (Back Alley’s own version of a gift cheque)

3 Client: Graphika Manila Material Used: Versa board, Wood, Acrylic sheets Type of collateral: Props for the Graphika Manila

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he word “fun” may sound a bit trite to describe Plus 63’s aesthetic; a disservice to their body of work that suggests the openness and meticulousness of their design process. Plus 63’s distinctive mark— simple and understated—is reflective of the team’s playful approach to brand identity, a type of design thinking that provides room for a refreshing sense of adventure, as seen in Your Local’s innocuous but multi-functional “A”—which morphs into a logo, a legend, and the hands of a clock; Graphika Manila’s post-apocalyptic sculptures, or Back Alley Barbershop’s clean-cut approach to old school. This sense of ease can be easily gleaned in their portfolio, which includes upstarts such as Craft Coffee Revolution and Heim Interiors, to bigger and established names such as Revolver

6 Client: Craft Coffee Material Used: Paper, Offset printing+ copper stamping Type of collateral: Business card

Studios, Ito Kish, and Asia Europe Foundation. “Our project timelines are very reasonable; we don’t try to rush anything. We believe that we can make better work and experiment more on the execution this way. That being said we’re not lax and we do work on a number of projects at the same time.

We just want to give a good amount of time per project,” says co-founder and acclaimed graphic artist Dan Matutina. And though their name may ascribe a leaning towards the nationalistic, having the country code as their studio name, it might be their own little way to mount a design revolution; that homegrown creatives can fuel a discourse on ideas that can change the way we live, be it through the logo of the new restaurant around the block or the street signs that guide you home. —DON JAUCIAN

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THE STRATEGISTS

SERIOUS STUDIO SERIOUS-STUDIO.COM / HELLO@SERIOUS-STUDIO.COM

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1 Client: The Original Savory Material Used: Neon tubes for inline text, Backlit acrylic sign for accompanying brand elements Type of collateral: Store signage

4 Client: Perfect Pint Material Used: Ivory enamel painted on reclaimed lumber Type of Collateral: Wall mural & environment design

2 Client: EDSA Beverage Design Group Material Used: 3.5 x 2 Matte laminated board paper, 300gsm Type of collateral: Beverage design feedback form

5 Client: The Original Savory Material Used: 11 x 17 matte laminated board paper, Waterproof ink, 300gsm Type of collateral: Grand opening poster

3 Client: EDSA Beverage Design Group Material Used: 6 x 4 matte laminated board paper, waterproof ink, 300gsm Type of collateral: Brand postcard takeaways

6 Client: Satchmi Material Used: 12 x 18 matte laminated board paper, waterproof ink, 300gsm Type of collateral: Poster for press kit

I

n a show of career certainty enviable to many other fresh grads, Lester Cruz and Deane Miguel wrapped up their college degrees and promptly dove right into founding their own company. “The idea of starting our own design studio where we called the shots and did things our way just seemed like the thing to do. We wanted to create something that would allow us to grow as better designers and creative communicators. It could have gone really badly—we are so, so young, after all—but so far things have been seriously good,” they write. Thus was born Serious Studio, with Miguel handling accounts, Cruz as creative director, and a few more hands added into the mix as they went. Two years in, they have established

ALL TILES AVAILABLE AT WILCON. FOR CREDITS SEE SHOPLIST (PAGE 174)

themselves as a reputable creative consultancy that knows what it wants.

“We’re adamant about sticking to our principles, like putting the client’s audience at the core of everything we do. We put our foot down a lot, and many of our clients have appreciated that.” Serious Studio’s aesthetic is founded in equal parts on attentiveness to their client’s market and an aversion to cultivating a single, signature look. “A brand’s goals always come first. We’re communicators, not decorators. . . . Our style is that we’re into developing a strong personality for each brand and using that to generate great content. We think each brand deserves their own set of unique—but equally cool—threads.” –ARIANNA LIM

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A Home at the End of the World PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVE TIRONA

• ART DIRECT ION BY M IGUEL LUGT U

Drawing from wealth both boundless and inexplicable, the enigmatic James Goldstein has spent the last 30odd years assembling and amending his Beverly Hills home, a Los Angeles estate as renowned for its design as for its movie appearances. Patrick Green navigates the halls of the Sheats Goldstein Residence, the world’s most architecturally glorified bachelor pad

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FOR LOVE AND LEMONS PLAYSUIT, JENNIFER FISHER BRACELET, SCHUTZ SANDALS. OPPOSITE PAGE: ROBERTO CAVALLI JACKET, ROBERTO CAVALLI BIKINI, SCHUTZ SHOES

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WorldMags.net PRISM LONDON TWO PIECE SWIMSUIT, JENNIFER FISHER JEWELRY, GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI SANDALS. OPPOSITE PAGE: FOR LOVE AND LEMONS CABLE KNIT TURTLENECK, GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI SHOES

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GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI NECKLACE, ERES BODYSUIT, JEROME ROUSSEAU SHOES

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PRISM LONDON TWO PIECE SWIMSUIT, JENNIFER FISHER JEWELRY

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MODELED BY LAUREN YOUNG of VISION LOS ANGELES ST YLED BY KYLE EDWARD BL ACKMON / MAKE-UP BY AMY STROZZI / HAIR BY BOBBY ELIOT S P E C I A L T H A N K S T O R O B E R TA L E I G H T O N , H E N R Y N E L S O N , M I C H A E L C O U R T N E Y , K E L LY T O M L I N S O N , J U L I E K R A M E R a n d E M M A N M O N TA LVA N

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WorldMags.net GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI NECKLACE, ERES BODYSUIT, JEROME ROUSSEAU SHOES. OPPOSITE: ROBERTO CAVALLI JACKET, ROBERTO CAVALLI BIKINI, SCHUTZ SHOES

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FOR LOVE AND LEMONS PLAYSUIT, JENNIFER FISHER BRACELET, SCHUTZ SANDALS.. GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI NECKLACE, ERES BODYSUIT, JEROME ROUSSEAU SHOES. OPPOSITE: ROBERTO CAVALLI JACKET, ROBERTO CAVALLI BIKINI, SCHUTZ SHOES

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JAM ES G OLDST EIN a n d L AU R EN YOU N G LAUREN WEARS A FOR LOVE AND LEMONS PLAYSUIT, A JENNIFER FISHER BRACELET, AND SCHUTZ SANDALS. JAMES WEARS JAMES GOLDSTEIN COUTURE (JAMESGOLDSTEINCOUTURE.COM)

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igh atop the rarified air of Beverly Hills, surrounded by a sub-tropical jungle, the Sheats Goldstein Residence sits in idyllic isolation, hidden in plain sight like a Bond villain lair. The three-acre property is a house you may recognize from countless Hollywood movies, music videos, and magazine spreads, but is off the Google Maps grid. As I descend down a private driveway, its namesake owner, James Goldstein, looks straight out of central casting: flowing grey hair and impeccably tanned, dressed in Wimbledon whites, and playing tennis on a rooftop court overlooking the LA skyline with a Maria Sharapova-lookalike complete with R-rated grunts. The image is surreal, like every male fantasy fulfilled. But for Goldstein it’s a Tuesday.

Goldstein is pop culture’s man of mystery with a business card that reads: fashion, architecture, basketball. Goldstein shows up on Instagram feeds like an exotic animal print-wearing, wide-brim leather hat donning Where’s Waldo. Who is that post-apocalyptic Tom Petty from the “You Got Lucky” video sitting next to Kanye West at a Paris runaway show? How is that crinkly cad sitting courtside at the NBA finals with a European super model? A Wikipedia search leads to clues that Goldstein is the real Most Interesting Man in the World: a trailer park scion, who had a fling with Jayne Mansfield, dabbled in porn directing and is the largest buyer of NBA tickets.

I learn early on in our interview, after I boldly flash my purple and gold Los Angeles Lakers socks, that with Goldstein, one can never assume anything. “I love basketball, but I hate the Lakers,” hisses Goldstein despite being a Lakers season ticket holder since he moved to LA in the early 1960s. “I grew up watching the Milwaukee Hawks, but I’ll root for anyone who is playing against the Lakers.”

Like many Los Angeles transplants, Goldstein came out west for college and stayed for the sunny skies. “Growing up in the Midwest, I had always wanted a house with a pool and an amazing view,” remembers Goldstein, a twinkle in his blue eyes as he proudly looks out the floor-toceiling window panels to take in the panoramic view. “I like to feel outside when I’m inside.”

How Goldstein made his money might be vague, but where he spends it is obvious. If a man’s home is his castle, the Sheats Goldstein Residence has been his ever-evolving Lego play set. “There’s been work going on here non-stop since 1979,” says Goldstein, a loyalist, who has used multiple generations of the same construction company for the past 30-plus years.

Originally built in 1963 by brilliant architect John Lautner, the Sheats Goldstein Residence is a serpentine-shaped wonder of concrete and glass, virtually defining the organic architecture philosophy popularized

by Frank Lloyd Wright, a mentor of Lautner. This prophetic “form as function” approach promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world through design. Thus, this cliffside cave-like hideaway was conceived from the inside out, unfolding from the sandstone ledge like a living organism from a seed within.

In Goldstein’s opinion, the seminal, yet enigmatic Lloyd Wright may have invented the organic style form, but it was his humble protégé that perfected it. “John had an uncanny gift to blend angles into a hillside, but unlike most famous architects, he had no ego,” explains Goldstein, who persuaded Lautner to help him remodel the home after he bought it in 1973. “It was a mess,” he remembers with a shake of the head. “The previous owners had painted the concrete ceilings green and yellow, installed shag carpeting! John couldn’t believe it. So we spent the next 15 years bringing it back to life.”

Goldstein has no architectural background, but insisted on the house’s

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signature frameless glass windows. “John thought I was the perfect client because there were no budgetary constraints,” says Goldstein. “It was all about achieving the utmost perfection.” Given free reign and a blank check, Lautner re-mastered one of his greatest hits, customizing everything from the “home as art” furnishings to the motorized skylights.

“It’s the only Lautner house where he designed the inside as well as the outside,” Goldstein shares, motioning towards a rhombus-shaped lounge chair in the A Clockwork Orange-flavored living room.

They worked together until the architect’s death in 1994, just as they were about to embark on their most ambitious project yet. “I was enamored with James Turrell after seeing his exhibits in Europe,” says Goldstein. “I came back with an idea for a collaboration between the best in art and architecture, but unfortunately John got too sick to participate.”

Goldstein forged on, recruiting Lautner’s protégé, Duncan Nicholson, to team up with Turrell, who worked on the art installation for years before unveiling it in 2004.

A descending concrete path leads you from the house through a lush landscape designed by Eric Nagelmann that could stand in for a Philippine rainforest. After ducking through arching bamboo trees you end up at a bomb shelter-like mystery box straight out of Lost. A giant metallic door opens up to an ethereal sky space dubbed “Above Horizon.” At dawn and dusk, a carefully choreographed light show plays out as multicolored LEDs built inside the walls play off natural light creeping in through hidden openings to illuminate the room in slowchanging, mutable colors that manipulate mood and disposition with a touch of a wireless control. It’s classic Turrell, save for the leather viewing cushion embedded in the floor and a wet bar outside, which are signature Goldstein.

Although Lautner had passed, he had left behind one last plan for Goldstein to perfect his vision. “John hated the house that he had designed next door,” Goldstein says. He eventually bought and leveled the adjacent Concannon Residence to make way for a Lautner-designed tennis court and guesthouse, which was years in the making. Goldstein again enlisted Nicholson to execute the formidable expansion, reimagined to include what has to be the first ever nightclub with a tennis court above it. “Club James” will open by the end of 2014, while other projects like an open-air terrace, 70-foot-long lap pool, 120-foot-long lawn, and home theater will be complete in the next five or six years.

These are by far the biggest and boldest additions to the property, which makes one wonder if they will be the 70-something Goldstein’s closing act.

“I’ll never sell the house,” admits Goldstein, who has no next of kin, but plans to pass it along to the next generation. “I want to keep it open to architectural students from around the world so that it can be preserved as a model for future designers, architects, and artists.”

These are the words of a man at peace, who has lived the American dream and sleeps very well at night. There is no hint of sadness or nostalgia from the lifelong Lothario as he gives me a tour of his bedroom lined with pictures of him posing with famous female faces, shows a closet full of couture, and points at windows looking into the swimming pool. He taps his foot down on a weight scale built into the wood floor. “That’s where the models weigh themselves,” he jokes . . . I think.

It is all charming, a bit sad, and definitely cliché, filling in the blanks to a caricature of an aging playboy. I ask Goldstein if he resents critics dismissing his life-long passion project as being nothing more than the “ultimate bachelor pad.”

Goldstein pauses, before hitting a button unveiling a hot tub just outside his bedroom door, “Well, it is.”

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WorldMags.net How Goldstein made his money might be vague, but where he spends it is obvious. If a man’s home is his castle, the Sheats Goldstein Residence has been his ever-evolving Lego play set.

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In the tug-of-war between development and conservation, the heritage sites of our metropolis have long been on the losing team. Their deep entanglement in a web of red tape, politicking, and ďŹ nancial motive often bests their clout as invaluable witnesses to the culture and history they have withstood. Julia Nebrija delves into the measures we should be taking before time runs out P H O T O G R A P H S

B Y

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capitol THEATER Architect: Juan Nakpil Year Established: 1935 Location: Calle Escolta, Binondo Coordinates: 14°35’50.4”N 120°58’39.3”E Notable Features: P Double balconies, which were a rare architectural choice of the time.

P Bas-relief sculptures on the building depicting women dressed in traditional Filipino terno dresses, by Italian sculptor Francesco Riccardo Monti.

P Lobby murals by modernist painters Victorio Edades, Botong Francisco, and Galo Ocampo.

Original Use: The theater screened movies and staged theater productions during the Japanese Occupation.

Current Status: Closed, though under watch by the Escolta Commercial Association Inc., a group of property owners involved in the revitalization of the Escolta area.

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assing from Carriedo to Central Station on the LRT, I strain past the other passengers for a view of the Metropolitan Theater of Manila. Like a castle reduced to ruins, it begs to be noticed. It is the most visually exciting frame of the scenes unfolding from the train window: the all-encompassing faded pink; the magnificent façade; the female statues by Francesco Riccardo standing guard over a Manila landscape that has changed drastically since their installation in 1931. Each time I see the Theater, I imagine what Manila was like back then, and I struggle to imagine what life the Theater would take in the Manila of today.

These buildings are our windows to a shared history that will be forgotten when they no longer stand and the people who remember what they mean are gone. For the same reasons monuments are erected to commemorate important events or persons, architecture embodies the influences and narratives that shape the way we live today.

Manila has already lost an overwhelming majority of its historical buildings, first to warfare, then to the lack of appreciation by the public and government alike. The Jai Alai building was leveled in 2000 for a City of Manila Hall of Justice that was never built. In 2012, there was a public outcry over SM’s acquisition of the PhilAm Theater as rumors spread that it would be leveled or adulterated through excessive commercialization, although no such evils have come to pass yet. We lost the Meralco headquarters in 2012, a demolition deemed artistic murder. Recent photos of a gutted Army Navy Club and a partially demolished Admiral Hotel, both along Roxas Boulevard, raised renewed alarm among citizens. And these are just the ones we hear about; there are countless others being sacrificed before their significance can even be determined.

When we see the photos of bulldozers and gutted ruins on 160 O C T O B E R 2014

U.N AVENUE, MANILA

PHILAM LIFE Architect: Carlos Arguelles Year Established: 1961 Coordinates: 14°34’51.2”N 120°58’58.1”E Notable Features: P Its stout figure was designed to grow in line with Manila’s design context at the time, which was a mass of low-rise structures.

P Most noted is the building’s auditorium, with its acoustics developed by Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, who are credited for developing the acoustics of places like Lincoln Center’s

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Avery Fischer Hall and the Sydney Opera House.

Original Use: Office spaces for the Philippine American Life and General Insurance Company.

Current Status: Purchased by the SM Development Corporation (SMDC), for a supposed residential complex. SMDC, however, released a statement saying they will “save and preserve the culturally historic Philam Life Theater.”

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ARCHIVE PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOHN TEWELL

TIMES theater

QUEZON BOULEVARD

Architect: Luis Z. Araneta Year Established: 1939 Coordinates: 14°36’01.2”N 120°59’02.8”E Notable Features: P Interiors marked by Art Moderne relief panes.

P The staircase leading up to the theater balcony is cantilevered and is made of veneered black marble steps.

Original Use: A stand-alone movie theater that could seat 800 people for a single screen viewing.

Current Status: Operational though dilapidated, the theater still runs local action films.

Facebook, our heartstrings tremble and while we wonder how it’s possible that this keeps happening, I’m surprised, given the circumstances that the situation isn’t worse. The Heritage Law of 2009 exists but is repeatedly, blatantly disregarded. The cultural agencies in charge, the National Museum, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts have vague mandates that allow them to wait and respond, rather than proactively enforce the law, rules, or regulations. The main system of checks and balances is the City of Manila itself, since it receives construction permits, but the gaping hole at the front of the Admiral Hotel shows that local government is rarely a reliable heritage partner. In the end, citizens are the only vigilant eyes on the street, yet there are not enough Ivan Henareses, Paulo Alcazarens, and Carlos Celdrans to keep watch on every building constructed before 1962.

We are lucky to still have the Manila Metropolitan Theater, the country’s crowning Art Deco work and the career masterpiece of Juan Arellano. In our midst we also still have the Capitol Theater ( Juan Napkil, 1935) one of the city’s first “popcorn palaces,” the Times Theater (Luis Araneta, 1939) and the GSIS building (Federico Ilustre, 1954) all belonging to the Art Deco period in Manila.

Art Deco emerged as the country came into its own in the 20th century, when the Filipino people held hope of independence from America and looked excitedly towards a new chapter in the nation’s history. Art Deco became a vehicle for this expression: clean lines, industrial influences, anything that signified machinery or speed and thus the desire for an accelerated move forward.

In the moldings, staircases, sconces, and tiles are clues to the past that inform us of our urban history. The mural of Philippine history by Juan Nakpil, Carlos Francisco, and Victorio Edades in the Capitol Theater is as valuable an artifact as the structure itself.

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gsis building Architect: Federico Ilustre Year Established: 1954 Coordinates: 14°35’26.6”N 120°58’56.2”E Notable Features: P The curved corner of the building embodied the streamlined architectural style of the decade.

P Other exterior features such as the geometrically ornamented iron wrought

doors and large pillars are art deco staples.

Original Use: Office spaces for the Government Service Insurance System after the Second World War. Current Status: Functions at present as a parking lot. However, if all goes as planned, it may be used in the far future as the City of Manila Hall of Justice.

ARROCEROS ST.

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The details are also a memorial to Filipino ingenuity in architecture. The notable architects of this period, including Juan Arellano, Juan Nakpil and Tomas Mapua adapted Art Deco forms from abroad to the national context and created a unique vocabulary through their designs. If we could go inside the Metropolitan Theater, we could witness the natural cooling principles and sense of openness at the core of the bahay na bato which were manifested in new ways, drawing air through detailed wrought iron grills and feeding light through rooms with high ceilings and large windows. There is evidence of how indigenous materials like bamboo and capiz accompanied cement and steel and native ornamentation including stylized flora and fauna and folk art patterns can come to life in stained glass windows, paintings, and wall coverings.

While they may seem decrepit and useless today, these buildings actually memorialize a city that was forward thinking, inclusive, and connected to the world but kept true to itself. These are characteristics the city should be proud to remember. They are characteristics which are rarely reflected in architecture today.

This uniqueness helped define the city then and it can lend definition to Manila today. However, finding ways to make the old fabric relevant with the new urban landscape is trying.

Preservation has to find a place within the wider context of urban development.

Manila as a city remains a hard sell. When heritage buildings were designed they stood at the center of urban life in a city that was clean, accessible, and prosperous. Who wants to stay at a luxury boutique hotel on a dark street that’s difficult to get to and simultaneously functions as a homeless shelter, toilet, and trash dump? No one. Patrons would rather go to the central business districts of Makati or Fort Bonifacio.

A city development strategy is needed, in general, but also to spur the systematic revival of heritage infrastructure. There is strength in numbers and individual buildings would excel if

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PADRE BURGOS AVE.

METROPOLITAN theater Architect: Juan M. Arellano Year Established: 1931 Coordinates: 14°35’38.2”N 120°58’49.9”E Notable Features: P Lobby paintings by Fernando Amorsolo.

P Sculptures by Francesco Riccardo Monti.

P Filipino-inspired art deco features (local

flora in bas-relief on the ceilings and Malay batik motifs) by Arcadio Arellano.

Original Use: Hosted operas, Broadway reproductions, Filipino plays, and housed the Manila Symphony Orchestra.

Current Status: Closed.

pitched within a wider vision that encompassed the heritage districts of Binondo, Intramuros, Rizal Park, and Santa Ana and neighborhoods like Ermita, Malate, and Paco. Cultural assets need to be identified, mapped, and linked throughout Manila to produce a fabric that can sustain individual structures. The GSIS building is a relatively unknown structure and today sits like an afterthought on Arroceros street. If all the assets in proximity to the building like Arroceros Park, the Post Office, and the Metropolitan Theater are revived and linked, it would be given a stronger context. Cities like Vigan and Iloilo are leading the way in this regard and guidelines do exist to aid interested localities in developing heritage zones.

In the end, short-term profits are more easily realized when buildings are leveled to make way for new developments. Real solutions require tedious, long-term processes which will only be stomached by visionary exponents of urban planning who also have the power to make change. Metro Manila has yet to be blessed with one.

To revive these buildings we also need to give these buildings new meaning. Adaptive reuse is the mantra for urban designers, but in Manila it has yet to be developed as a viable method.

If all goes as planned, the GSIS building could be one of the heritage success stories. Originally built for the Government Service Insurance System offices, it will reclaim this use in the future as the City Manila Hall of Justice. This means there is likely to be little change to the original layout. Located on Arroceros Street, the old GSIS building was designed by architect Federico Ilustre and constructed in 1954 for the agency after its previous property was destroyed in World War II. It would be refreshing if the Supreme Court sees this as an opportunity. The GSIS building could be like the United States Capital Building and provide public tours that allow visitors to experience the architecture while learning about how the administration is bringing justice to the streets of Manila and providing better public services through her courts.

ARCHIVE PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOHN TEWELL

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MUELLE DELA INDUSTRIA

el hogar Architect: Ramon Jose De Irureta Goyena Rodriguez & Francisco Perez-Muñoz Year Established: 1914 Coordinates: 14°35’46.2”N 120°58’32.5”E Notable Features: P Its Classical Revival style is apparent through the symmetrical patterns of its windows and balustrade roof.

P Renaissance influences are also seen through the arched shape of the windows, high ceilings, and the ironwork details on the staircase.

Original Use: El Hogar, or “home,” was created to celebrate the marriage of Doña Margarita Zobel y de Ayala to Spanish businessman Don Antonio Melian y Pavia. It was used by financing cooperative Sociedad El Hogar Filipino, and Smith Bell and Company.

Current Status: The building now has a new owner that has yet to be identified. No news has been released on whether the structure will be refurbished or demolished.

The El Hogar building in Escolta is a desirable movie set for period films. Built in 1914, it was designed by Spanish-Filipino architects Ramon Jose de Irureta-Goyena Rodriquez and Francisco Perez-Muñoz. True to its Spanish meaning, El Hogar, or “home,” became the house of business for all the companies under the Don’s empire and other Spanish businessmen to come and go throughout its history. Its gallery hallways, ironwork detailed staircase, and high ceilings commemorate a time when business was promising and deserved to be celebrated with great views, lots of light, and the romantic details lent by beaux arts, neo-classical, and renaissance influences.

Escolta is still a bustling commercial hub and with the halfbaked revival of the Pasig River Ferry and active neighborhood heritage partners, El Hogar may yet find an entrepreneurial spirit with Don-like savvy to give us reason to celebrate again. Who wouldn’t want an office with a view of the Old City, garden courtyards, and sculpted griffins greeting you on your way to work?

Finding new uses for the stand alone theaters like Capitol Theater and Times Theater in Manila are particularly challenging. The city’s first cinemas were not just movie houses but highly ornamented temples. Art deco captured the Hollywood glamour mesmerizing audiences and made it available to the masses. This coincided with the Golden Age of Film in the Philippines when filmmaking was an emerging art form. Cinemas were treated like museums. Today it is a matter of location, bottomless popcorn, and degree of lazy boy recline which attract people to one mall cineplex over another to see the latest blockbuster.

The Times Theater has reverted to showing old action films and it is unlikely that the Capitol Theater can survive if renovated

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for this use only. After supposedly allocating between 50-100 million pesos to restore the Metropolitan Theater, performances alone could not sustain a building of its magnitude.

Rather than compete for audiences with neighboring institutions, these theaters have to find an advantage or be redesigned to accommodate a variety of other uses. Their configuration is limiting since they were designed specifically for audiences, so designers and business owners will have to get creative. The Metropolitan Theater in Winnepeg, Canada reinvented itself as the Metropolitan Entertainment Centre, marrying dinner theater and the national love of sports. During season, patrons enjoy local dishes while watching live broadcast of the Winnipeg Jets on the big screen.

Independent Filipino filmmaking offers a potential niche market for these theaters. The rising popularity of this industry means you have to buy Cinemalaya Film Festival tickets in advance, but it might not be mainstream enough to support a standalone independent film theater.

Heritage buildings in cities around the world are being repurposed as studio, gallery, cafe, and performance spaces. To support the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings as centers for art and culture, the community in Manila has to also be strengthened and supported. If the government put a percentage of reconstruction costs to support Filipino artists and build public awareness about art and culture there will be a proliferation of art to show and people interested to see it. As it is now, existing institutions are struggling to keep afloat.

New York City has repurposed its standalone theaters through commercial zoning—American Apparel, Modell Sports, Hard

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ARCHIVE PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOHN TEWELL

pako BUILDING Architect: Information Unavailable Year Established: 1939 Location: Pedro Gil Street, Paco Coordinates: 14°34’41.9”N 120°59’35.4”E Notable Features: P Its trapezoidal shape marks the corners of three streets, namely Pedro Gil, Angel Linao, and General Luna.

P Little is known about the building, except for the two markers brandished at the top

PEDRO GIL

depicting the structure’s name and the year it was built.

Original Use: The land on which the building is built on was the original site of De La Salle College, before the school moved to its permanent Taft Avenue home in 1921. The property was sold to Don Vicente Madrigal.

Current Status: Unkempt, though some commercial establishments have made use of the building’s ground floor.

Rock Cafe are few tenants of the city’s former cinemas. Heritage purists might consider this an adulteration, but the Long Island University turned the Paramount Theater into a collegiate gym; at least the original organ is still played, even if it’s at the half time of a basketball game.

There is a chance for entrepreneurs and designers to get creative and look towards current cultural influences to determine what uses these buildings can accommodate or foster. Gaming for instance is a huge industry. The Metropolitan Theater could be converted into a gaming center, with consoles, a stage for live or televised competitions, and studios for game development.

In re-imagining these buildings, we have to look within ourselves and decide what we as a society consider to be an appropriate, culturally relevant use of our heritage. Will we be comfortable turning the Metropolitan Theater of Manila into gaming hub or the Gilas headquarters?

The public became wary upon learning SM acquired the Philam Life Theater in 2012. Even though the developer has publicly promised to preserve the theater in full, critics reacted negatively to it becoming part of a monolithic real estate regime.

In 2012, concerned citizens worried the GSIS building would be demolished to make way for SM Manila’s Annex Building. Turns out it will become part of the new Manila City Hall of Justice for its property owners the Supreme Court, but the apprehension shows that in their reinvention, people are searching for something more meaningful than architectural facelifts. Exactly what though, we have yet to verbalize.

We, as a city, have a lot of soul searching to do.

The Metropolitan Theater of Manila is our last hope. It is reflective of the urban forces in which it exists and its reinvention will therefore be representative of another chapter in the city’s history. Hopefully it is one worthy of her grandeur so that when other women in the future are greeted by the female statues during their commute, they will know they are somewhere unique, somewhere with a story that started long before them and is still being written.

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THE ROGUE ARENA Promotions and relevant items, direct from our partners

World Car of the Year With the arrival of the new Audi A3 sedan, Audi’s (11th Avenue cor. 28th St., Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; 727-0381) competitors have good reason to be nervous.

Earlier this year, the A3 range won the 2014 World Car of the Year title, granted by the World Car Awards, which is annually initiated, organized, and conducted by automotive journalists the world over. Audi recently introduced the all-new, third-generation A3 sedan to the Philippine market in an exclusive event held at the Audi showroom in Bonifacio Global City. The event was hosted

by Audi Philippines brand ambassadress Anne Curtis along with Audi Philippines head Benedicto Coyiuto.

The latter was clearly ecstatic about bringing the sedan to Manila, boasting, “This is a car that changes everything.

The A3 has an efficient turbocharged engine, a luxurious interior, and a beautiful look that all helped it earn the World Car of the Year.” He added, “The prestigious award was simply a confirmation of what we already knew: that Audi has scored a definite homerun with the all-new A3 sedan.”

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THE ROGUE ARENA Promotions and relevant items, direct from our partners

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Rally Martinez Chariman and CEO of Casa Europa, Denise Miñana, Inno Sotto, Arch Manny Miñana, Arch. Milo Vasquez, Arch. Ed Calma, Felipe Carceller of Porcelanosa Spain, and Arch Gelo Mañosa

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The Architecture of Happiness Counted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and The Financial Times as one of the most prestigious companies in the global market, the Porcelanosa Group has over 40 years of experience in building stunning structures around the world. Innocuous as it may seem, Porcelanosa’s crowning produce has made it as one of Spain’s most reputable companies, manufacturing products that are stunning and innovative. Among its prestigious roster of projects include the Radisson Blu Mall of America Hotel, Le Felicien Hotel in Paris, Zara stores in Spain, BCBG and Herve Leger stores in California, and the Barcelona Underground Station. Porcelanosa (Mezzanine, The Infinity Tower 26th Street, Bonifacio Global City; 519-3515) opened its doors in the Philippines only two years ago, brought in by Casa Europa Inc., to bring the acclaimed Spanish manufacturer’s world class product lines in our local shores. The group recently held an intimate dinner for its loyal architects, interior designers, and other customers at Vask’s champagne room, with the Porcelanosa family celebrating with their three principals from Spain.

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Think Tank The trick to innovation in any field is understanding the rules and conventions, then having the courage to break them. This is the mentality that Ayala Malls is advocating with IDEA’YALA (ideayala. ayalamalls.com.ph), a new competition that helps young Filipinos advance their out-of-the-box business ideas. The participating teams take part in workshops and mentoring sessions that enable them to come up with and flesh out innovative experiences for the Ayala Malls. The winning team will see their idea come to life care of Ayala Malls, in addition to receiving a trip to Palawan and internships with the company.

On The Money Money is a subject constantly contemplated by many but thoroughly understood by few. With that in mind, HSBC (hsbc.com.ph) recently hosted two successful events as part of a global campaign for HSBC Premier that offered insight into how the wealthy view their personal economies. First, the media were invited to a Personal Economy forum in the Raffles Hotel, where HSBC put together a line up of select personalities who are influential in their respective fields. This was followed by an Economic Briefing held in the Fairmont Hotel ballroom, where HSBC Premier customers were updated by HSBC economist Trinh Nguyen on the latest outlook from different markets in the world.

The Great Escape The city has long been synonymous with smog and endless commotion.

At Azumi Boutique Hotel (2205 Market Street, Madrigal Business Park Phase III Alabang, Muntinlupa; azumi.ph), it’s now possible to escape the city without actually leaving it. Designed not only for vacationers but for business meetings and social gatherings as well, the hotel is committed to both green living and superior hospitality. It utilizes ceilings specially designed to absorb sound, heat, and moisture, as well as “breathing tiles” that absorb humidity and foul odors. It’s also equipped with a top-of-the-line infinity pool found on the roof deck that gives visitors a 360-degree view of the city.

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Beer Necessities When the last few months of the year roll around, celebration is everyone’s sole focus. Before the holiday heavyweights of Halloween and Christmas, however, there is Oktoberfest. This year, the grand event falls on 17th and 18th of October at the Harbor Garden Tent of Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila (sofi elmanila.com; 832-69888). Touted as the most authentic German beer festival in the Philippines, it features traditional Bavarian Oktoberfest music and an assortment of German food prepared by the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Master Chefs, while freeflowing beer and ladies in dirndl and gentlemen in their Lederhosen complete the Oktoberfest spirit.

Out Of Thin Air Five years ago, Dyson (3rd Level, Century City Mall, Kalayaan Ave, Makati; dyson.ph) accomplished an engineering feat with the world’s first bladeless fan—but it was far from perfect. While safer and more consistent than regular fans, the high-speed airflow of the bladeless model was quite noisy. Dyson thus spent the last three years at the drawing board, and the result is the Dyson Cool, a model that’s 75% quieter—but just as powerful—than its predecessor. The product of a £40 million investment in research and development, the Dyson Cool also comes equipped with a remote control, a sleep timer, and 10 airflow settings.

Rest Stop Luxury travel doesn’t necessarily have to involve flying off ff to far-flung destinations. From November 7 to 9, Shangri-La’s Boracay Resort and Spa (shangri-la.com/boracay), in partnership with Bacchus International Inc., will be hosting Reservations in Paradise right on one of the Philippines’ finest beaches. Now on its fourth cycle, the three-day event is an off ff ring of top-notch food, wine, and music. On the first night, guests will be treated to a musical performance by the internationally renowned Croatian duo, 2CELLOS. The rest of the weekend only picks up from there, with a series of sunset cocktails and dinner festivities held in surprise venues across the resort.

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THE ROGUE ARENA Promotions and relevant items, direct from our partners

Eat It Up To be able to eat one’s way around the world is a luxury dreamed of by many but afforded by few. Thankfully, Greenbelt’s concept restaurants provide a global culinary adventure sans the jet fuel. Lusso (G/F, Greenbelt 5) supplies an unadulterated Italian experience and the ideal location for a romantic date. The intimate 54-seater is fitted with sophisticated interiors, and must tries include Spinach Taglierini, Shepherd’s Pie, Deviled Eggs, Cannelloni, and the Lusso Demi-pound burger. Italian meets the Big Apple in Motorino Pizza (3/F Greenbelt), hailed as New York’s Best Pizza in 2009 by the New York Times. Go classic with the Margherita or be adventurous with Brussels Sprout and prosciutto di Parma, all made using premium fresh ingredients cooked in a wood-fire over shipped in from Napoli. Pro-tip: order their Meatball Pizza, which is off the menu. For a slice of the East, try the Uni Sashimi, Wagyu Ishiyaki Steak, and Ai Uzusukuri from Sugi (G/F Greenbelt 2).

Its cozy private rooms make is suitable for all occasions, from business meetings to family get-togethers. There’s also People’s Palace (G/F Greenbelt 3), which serves Thai with a modern twist. Conceptualized by Chef Colin Mackay, menu must-haves include the Chicken in Pandan Leaves, Crispy Catfish with Green Mango Salad, Tod Man Goong, Mussaman Curry of Lamb, and Pomelo & Coconut Salad. An ideal place for big celebrations, the restaurant seats over 80 guests and has an al fresco area with large lounge beds for cocktails and casual dining.

Those looking for a little bit of everything should head to Felix (G/F Greenbelt 5), named after the father of Chef Florable Co-Yatco. Start off with the devilishly spicy tuna salad, Gen San, then the famous grilled tenderloin with foie gras, Clara & Ibarra or the crispy dory, St. Pierre.

Travel from east to west at the heart of Makati with the wide array of restaurants at Manila’s premier lifestyle enclave, Greenbelt.

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THE ROGUE INDEX A scan of movers and shakers, in and about town

LOOK ALIVE As the Business Unit Manager of Scent & Beauté Concepts, Emily SiaKoa proves that there’s much more to success than just sales figures Since leaving college, Emily Sia-Koa has immersed herself in beauty brands. “Beauty is part of a woman’s DNA, and there is no reason not to love it,” she says.

She began her career in 2004 with L’Oreal before taking her professional skills to The Spa. Today, she is going on her fourth year as the Business Unit Manager of Scent & Beauté Concepts, a local company that specializes in the distribution and the retail and marketing management of international beauty brands.

They handle a number of well-respected labels, from Oscar dela Renta and Perry Ellis to Jack Black and Ciate London. Sia-Koa’s responsibilities involve caring for each of the brands that Scent & Beauté Concepts carries, from working with advertisers and retailers and making sure that the brands get the exposure they deserve, to preparing the presentations and plans needed when the company is making a move to acquire another label. While the actual sale of the products may be the first and most obvious indicator of market success, Kia-Soa’s role in ensuring that the brands get the attention they’re worthy of is equally important.

She says, “Sales figures play a part in ensuring brand success, but the most important part of it all is that you respect the brands and ensure that they are in the right place at all times. You can’t sell a premium luxury brand in a non-premium door at the end of the day, right?” As dedicated to her work as she is, Sia-Koa admits that her work is a constant test of commitment and diligence. “People may notice that it’s a lucrative job being in the beauty business, but it has its ups and downs,” she says. “There are times wherein you have to work out of your preferred work schedule, answering calls at weird hours simply because the principal is from a different time zone.” But every profession has its occupational hazards, and Sia-Koa is not one to let her challenges obscure her view of the finish line. “I have only one goal,” she says. “And that is to make each and every brand under my care successful.”

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SHOP LIST Where to buy the products featured in this issue

PAGE 149 Prism London Two-piece Swimsuit; prismlondon.com. Jennifer Fisher Jewelry; jenniferfisherjewelry.com.

PAGE 150 Roberto Cavalli Jacket and Bikini; robertocavalli.com. Schutz Shoes; schutz-shoes. com. All prices upon request.

PAGE 151 Giuseppe Zanotti Necklace; L/1, East Wing, Shangri-la Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard. Eres Bodysuit; eresparis.com. Jerome Rousseau Shoes; jeromecrousseau.com. All prices upon request.

PAGE 152 Roberto Cavalli Jacket and Bikini; robertocavalli.com. Schutz Shoes; schutz-shoes. com. All prices upon request.

PAGE 153 Giuseppe Zanotti Necklace; L/1, East Wing, Shangri-la Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard. Eres Bodysuit; eresparis.com. Jerome Rousseau Shoes; jeromecrousseau.com. All prices upon request.

PAGE 154 For Love And Lemons Playsuit; forloveandlemons.com. Jennifer Fisher Bracelet; jenniferfisherjewelry.com. Schutz Sandals; schutz-shoes.com. James Goldstein Couture; jamesgoldsteincouture.com. All prices upon request.

ATTACK THE BLOCK! PAGE 57 Page 57 Muji Sumo Skittles (P1,750); Bonifacio High Street, Greenbelt 3, SM Mall of Asia, Power Plant Mall, Robinsons Magnolia, Ayala Center Cebu, Shangri-La Plaza Mall.

HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD, PAGE 140

Shoes; L/1, East Wing, Shangri-la Plaza, EDSA cor.

Shaw Boulevard. All prices upon request.

PAGE 140 Giuseppe Zanotti Necklace; L/1, East Wing, Shangri-la Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard. Eres Bodysuit; eresparis.com. Jerome Rousseau Shoes; jeromecrousseau.com. All prices upon request.

PAGE 145 Prism London Two-piece Swimsuit; prismlondon.com. Jennifer Fisher Jewelry; jenniferfisherjewelry.com. Giuseppe Zanotti Sandals; L/1, East Wing, Shangri-la Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard. All prices upon request.

Roberto Cavalli Jacket and Bikini; robertocavalli.com. Schutz Shoes; schutzshoes.com. All prices upon request.

PAGE 146 Giuseppe Zanotti Necklace; L/1, East Wing, Shangri-la Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard. Eres Bodysuit; eresparis.com. Jerome Rousseau Shoes; jeromecrousseau.com. All prices upon request.

PAGE 143 For Love And Lemons Cable Knit Turtleneck; forloveandlemons.com. Giuseppe Zanotti Shoes; L/1, East Wing, Shangri-la Plaza, EDSA cor.

Shaw Boulevard. All prices upon request.

PAGE 144 For Love And Lemons Cable Knit Turtleneck; forloveandlemons.com. Giuseppe Zanotti

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PAGE 148 Prism London Two-piece Swimsuit; prismlondon.com. Jennifer Fisher Jewelry; jenniferfisherjewelry.com. Giuseppe Zanotti Sandals; L/1, East Wing, Shangri-la Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard. All prices upon request.

PAGE 58 Vitra Wooden Doll No.3 and Wooden Doll No.9 by Alexander Girard (Price available upon request); 3rd floor MOS Design Gallery, MOs Design, B2 Bonifacio High Street, Bonifacio Global City, Fort Taguig, Philippines; 403-6620; mosdesign.com.ph.

PAGE 59 Cube Bot (P750); Heima Brixton Unit 103, Three Brixton Bldg. #3 Brixton Street, Brgy. Kapitolyo, Pasig; MY APT. By Heima, Suite 225 LRI Design Plaza, 210 N. Garcia St. (Reposo) Bel-Air Ii, Makati; heimastore.com.

PAGE 60 Bo Concept Clay Candle Holders (Price available upon request); Bonifacio High Street, G/F Mos Design Building, B2 Bonifacio High Street, Bonifacio Global City, Fort Taguig; 856-2745 or 856-2748 extn 1.

PAGE 61 Muji Penguin Balancing Game (P995); Bonifacio High Street, Greenbelt 3, SM Mall of Asia, Power Plant Mall, Robinsons Magnolia, Ayala Center Cebu, Shangri-La Plaza Mall.

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TALKING HEADS, PAGE 87 PAGE 88 AMI Camouflage Blouson (P33,798); Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; Fred Perry Neon Green Pullover (P9,598); G/F, Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; A.P.C. Woodland Print Tee (P6,498); Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; Oliver Spencer Bleached Denim Pants (P12,598); Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; Asics Gel Kayano (P9,000); Planet Sports, 2/F Power Plant Mall, Makati.

PAGE 89 Fred Perry Burgundy Harrington (P13,098); G/F, Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; YMC Floral Printed Shirt (P10,498); Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; Fred Perry x Jamie Reid Shirt (P7,298); G/F, Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; A.P.C. Washed Denim Jeans (P12,398); Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; New Balance 860v4 Trainers (P5,395); Planet Sports, 2/F Power Plant Mall, Makati.

PAGE 90 Maison Martin Margiela Woven Graphic Tee (P24,998); Univers, G/F One Rockwell East Tower, Makati; Rick Owens Bone Jeans (P24,590); Homme et Femme, 3/F Shangri-La Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard; VOLTA Strada (P7,998); Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

PAGE 91 Oliver Spencer Olive Jacket (P23,398); Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; Fred Perry Blue Plaid Shirt (p9,398); G/F, Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; Saint Laurent Paris Graphic Tee (p20,498); Univers, G/F One Rockwell East Tower, Makati; A.P.C. Washed New Standards (P11,198); Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; Asics Gel Kayano (P9,000); Planet Sports, 2/F Power Plant Mall, Makati.

PAGE 92 Y-3 Printed Black Tee; G/F Power Plant Mall, Makati; y-3.com/ph; OAMC Navy Camouflage Shirt; Hoodwink, UG/F SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; Christopher Raeburn Grey Printed Sweatpants; Homme et Femme, 3/F ShangriLa Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard; Comme des Garcons Ganryu Grey Fleece Jacket; G/F, East Tower, One Rockwell, Makati. All prices upon request.

THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS, PAGE 128 Wilcon Tiles (Used as texture backgrounds) Roman / POR 60x60cm Metropolitan Grigio Rectified (P316); Keros Ceramica 41x41cm Blue Moon Marengo (P150.50); Roman/POR 60x60cm Metropolitan Noir Rectified (P316); Rocerosa 47.2x8.0cm Mesalina ATR 1A (P518); Tesany2.5x61.5cm G. Sande Natural 1A (P136); all available at Wilcon Builder’s Depot (visit wilcon.com.ph for store locations).

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FAMOUS ROGUE TIBOR KALMAN, graphic designer

THAT TIBOR KALMAN is remembered as the self-styled “bad boy” of graphic design is somewhat ironic. While his title as provocateur was well deserved, Kalman’s misbehavior was, at the heart of it, fueled by a fervent but arguably self-righteous dedication to social responsibility. Throughout his career as the founder of the design firm M&Co and editor-in-chief of the controversial Colors magazine, he was the industry’s foremost moral compass. His design inextricably linked to his politics, he held fast to the belief that design amounted to nothing unless it advanced the needs of both the client and society at large. His artistic and social mission peaked at Colors, where his unshackled editorial control let him tackle sensitive topics with unapologetic

visual wit. A memorable issue on racism featured manipulated photos of powerful personalities, including an Asian Pope John Paul II. But coupling his optimism with his critical constitution also meant he had no problem ruffling feathers. He famously passed out leaflets protesting Esprit’s exploitation of Asian laborers when they won the prestigious AlGA Design Leadership award, and more than once he publicly shamed peers for what he considered morally stunted behavior. While it’s true that he amassed countless adversaries along the way, by the time he succumbed to cancer 15 years ago, he had revolutionized the role of designers in society—evidence that instilling change always requires a little bad behavior.

“When you make something no one hates, no one loves it.”

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