Arts and Culture

WATCH: Manila Metropolitan Theater tour

March 28, 2025 | 3:03pm

MANILA, Philippines — The Manila Metropolitan Theater is the oldest existing theater in the Philippines, and over the years, it has gone through several restorations.

Since its inauguration in 1931, the theater, better known as the MET, went through a number of renovations following the 1945 Bombing of Manila and years-long abandonment during the '50s and '60s.

The MET officially re-opened in 2021 to mark its 90th anniversary. It now supervised and owned by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and is now a National Historical Landmark as well as a National Cultural Treasure.

The current structure bears most of the original ArtDeco style vision by original architect Juan Arellano, also of his nephews Otillo and Alejandro who supervised the 1978 restoration.

The lobby is decorated by two large replicas of Fernando Amorsolo's "The Dance" and "The History of Music," as well as bronze sculptures of Adam and Eve by Italian artist Franceso Riccardo Monti.

The lobby also still has the same flooring from 1931 and an "anay finish" for the walls for better acoustics.

The second floor of the lobby is also called the Gallery of the Stars as it offers guests a better look of the Amorsolo copies, the originals of which are in the Government Service Insurance System Museum.

The main theater ceiling has installed mango, banana, and tropical leaf designs to replicate what it had looked like before, however, the seating capacity was brought down from 1,600 to just over 900 for safety reasons.

Either side of the theater open to two courtyards, the West Courtyard or Hardin ng Ekspresyon, and the East Courtyard or Hardin ng Inspirasyon, both as safety measures and as optional outdoor areas to hold events.

The ballroom, located on the second floor above the West Courtyard, was patterened after its design from the 1970s as there was no documentation of what the room looked like when it was first built.