PROPERTY FROM THE DON EUGENIO “GENY” M. LOPEZ JR. COLLECTION

ABOUT THE WORK

"THE LOPEZ LEGACY COLLECTION : A MICROCOSM OF GREAT PHILIPPINE ART An Architect’s Home The Art of Livin by LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL Juan Marcos Arellano was one of the most influential architects of the American Commonwealth, creating a series of buildings that would define that golden age: From the Philippine Senate (which now houses the National Museum), the Manila Post Office, Rizal Memorial Coliseum, Jones Bridge, and the jewel in the crown of all of them, the art-deco palace still known today as the Metropolitan Theater. He was, after all, one of the first pensionados, sent by the American regime to absorb the new-fangled ways of the United States. He trained and worked as an architect in New York. Arellano’s home was in San Juan, a prosperous suburb then as now of Old Manila, favored by American millionaires and Filipino ‘de buena familia’ as well as its artists and writers. His mansion rose behind elaborate wrought-iron gates as grand as those of Versailles and sat on top of one of San Juan’s hills with a commanding view of the capital city below. In this painting, we catch a glimpse of its grandeur : a peristyle — or courtyard surrounded by columns looks out on a hillside view covered by a thick grove of fruit trees. The plump white clouds of a bright summer sky can be seen through the leaves. The columns are particularly interesting: they are ‘Solomonic’ columns of biblical fame, suggesting not just the Temple of Solomon but also its beginnings as the Ark of the Covenant. (Tourists to Saint Peter’s Basilica will recognize the helical shapes that suggest climbing vines.) A pair of ceramic elephants perch at the top of the front steps in elegant but friendly greeting to guests. These were favorite decorative touches of 19th-century homes and are a highly personal memento of the private home of a celebrated architect who had perfected the art of living. View of the San Juan Courtyard is an important touchstone representing those golden days of the 1920s and 30s of Manila art and architecture. "