Critiquing Magallanes Church

Magallanes church is located in one of Metro-Manila’s financial capitals, Makati city. The structure that stands today is designed by Dominic Galicia Architects, and was completed in October 2009.

    The Parish Church of St. Alphonsus was originally conceptualized and built in 1965 and 1968 respectively, designed by Architect Leandro Locsin. The structure was 800 square meters in total, and was a perfect square of 28 meters on each side of the room. It was designed to be intimate and low, with flat roof of 4 meters in height. The dark interiors were meant to signify mortality, suffering, and death.

     Tragically, on the 9^th of September 2002, disaster struck the church, burning almost the entire structure to the ground. Exactly three years later, the groundbreaking ceremony was held on the same site and was held by His Eminence, Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales. Construction of the new church began in 2008.

     Dominic Galicia Architects released the design statement on April 16, 2005. In it, the firm proposed that they keep the remaining concrete structure and buttresses that survived the fire. Furthermore, the ceiling is going to be raised from four meters to 28 meters, a new mezzanine level will increase the number of seats from 300 to 900, and that they also stated that the new structure will symbolize the transformation of tragedy into grace.

     The design was mainly based on two goals: to sustain memory and faith. In order to serve memory, the architects used the remaining’s of the old structure as a ‘springboard’ for the soaring roof. The concept of sustaining the leftover structures is an ‘agent of memory’, reminding us of all the events that occurred as a community, and also the survival of such a tragedy as a community.  Moreover, the ‘soaring roof’ design represents a ‘phoenix rising’, and is used to symbolize an agent of faith. These symbols suggest that there is a more profound message portrayed through the design, as well as making an aesthetically pleasing structure.

   From my point of view, the structure stimulates a lot of different feelings. The largely scaled façade may make people feel overpowered and small. There is also a balance of symmetry, and the entrance emits a welcoming aura, because of the large, recessed doors.

     Once I entered the church, it was a spacious environment, and was left in awe by the scale of the structure. The white surroundings and high ceilings stimulated feelings of serenity and freedom. Clerestory windows built on the rising roof levels allowed an excessive amount of light into the interiors, which is supposedly meant to represent a rising phoenix. It was truly an uplifting experience.