Passing the torch

The good old days. People love talking about the good old days. I remember how my father, eyes glistening, would talk about his youth during the golden pre-war days. He would describe the old Binondo, Escolta, and tell me that with half a centavo, he would have his hands full with goodies.

Back then, I was in high school at La Salle Taft with a meager baon of P3. Certainly, the good old days mean a lot to me now, especially when you consider how little you can buy with today’s peso. Having just turned half-a-century and a year, I now reflect on the past and realize how the city where I was born has metamorphosed into the city where I now live.

The other week, I was with Luigi Antonio and his wife Vickie, and Malu and J Gamboa, who by coincidence are third-generation practitioners of their parents’ professions. They are continuing their families’ legacies, if you will. Luigi is Pablo Antonio III, son of Pablo Antonio Jr., son of National Artist for Architecture Pablo Antonio. All three are architects, with the young Luigi involved in his father’s office. Luigi’s wife Vickie, also an architect and urban planner, also works with him. Malu and J are co-owners of Cirkulo, whose family runs the Japanese restaurants Azumaya and Tsukiji, and the very famous Milky Way, which goes back to their grandmother, and is now run by sisters Popsie and Malu.

It dawned on me how stories are continued by the next generation and the next. While it may be more common to find generations of families holding public office one after the other (if not simultaneously), in architecture and other fields, succession is less predictable. There are two reasons for this: One is talent and the other one is inclination. The talent of a child may not lie in the same field as his parents’ and his inclination – whether or not the talent is there – may not be for the same profession.

In each generation that passes, there are "deviations" that occur. Villains and heroes are born, neither making an impact in the absence of the other. Seeing the movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s classic The Fountainhead for the first time at Pratt, it took me days to get over my fixation on the leading character, Howard Roarke (Gary Cooper), an architect who stood for his ideals. In fact, to this day, I keep referring to this character whenever the chips are down in my career.

I remember distinctly the part when he blows up the building his friend Peter had built because the latter had allowed the developer to run over the design. Peter, a proverbial parasite, is a jellyfish, propped only by media. Peter had asked Howard to design the project and Howard agreed to let Peter take the credit while he remained a ghost, a silent designer – only on the condition that the building’s design integrity would never be compromised. As the story unfolds, Peter even at the crest of a brief triumph, is not able to hold his own against the developers who undo Howard’s plans.

In this world we live in, there are many Howards as there are many Peters. The latter living under the bravura of pretense, often even in glitz surrounded by cohorts of the same feather, taking prey the way heartbreakers do.

ASpanish "doña" by the name of Maria Cartagena de Tomas who lived on Aguado St. across Malacañang Palace had a thriving soda fountain in the late 1940s. When she decided to migrate to the United States in the early ‘50s, she put her place up for sale. A soda fountain was yesteryear’s café. It was also a scooping station, a meeting point for brief snacks or passing time with friends.

Lola Inding, from the Araullo clan of Guagua, took her siblings with her to make the purchase. In no time, the six sisters (Cora, Julie, Nena, Frannie, Yeng and Vicky) began a blazing new career of expanding Milky Way into a larger enterprise. They mixed Pampango delicacies with soda fountain delights. Call it fusion, but at the time, Filipinos were already at home with cross-fare, having come from the Japanese occupation, a strong American presence and Hispanic colonial influence.

The Araullo sisters did better than just to integrate country fare with western food tray. They likewise introduced home cooking as a public entity, revealed through the presence of an urban setting such as a soda fountain.

In the ‘70s, while the other siblings turned to other forms of interest, Julie Araullo Gamboa continued with Milky Way. The direction was to create a widespread landscape of food service that ranged from fast food centers to one-stop restaurants, office cafeterias to executive dining outlets and banquets. With over 350 entrees, 220 soups/salads, 180 desserts and 72 sandwiches, Milky Way became one of the most comprehensive food operations in the country.

I remember how my father would drive the family to Aguado Street near Malacañang on a Sunday afternoon to have buko sherbet with lychees. It was those sudden sweet sprees that we lived for. There were other special places, too, like the La Cibeles, the Magnolia Parlor at Echague, Vienna Bakery, La Suiza and Hizons but, for the simple Filipino home touch, it was Milky Way.

I would come and stay with my parents during the weekends in our music store on Palma Street in Quiapo. Our family at the time was engaged in the production of musical instruments such as pianos. Our house on California (that’s how the city streets in Manila were called then) was full of those musical boxes. On weekends, I would walk around the Quiapo district, fascinated by the amazing landscape of that long stretch called Quezon Boulevard, where among other things they sold Boy Scout materials like the Indian kerchief ring and my favorite hunting knives.

Aside from what the stores offered, there was something else for me: fascinating buildings. There was the Far Eastern University Building  designed by Pablo Antonio. I was taken by its façade details, which I would later relate to the works of Frank Lloyd Wright.

There was another building that fascinated me, not because it stood high and mighty from the ground, but because there was a huge airplane nose that tucked out of its window. That was Feati University, which was near the foot of the MacArthur Bridge. Close by was the Ideal Theater, a cinema house built by Pablo Antonio.

Meeting with Luigi Antonio at dinner that evening brought back some childhood memories. Vicky and Luigi fit each other to a T. Their practice as a team has only started, but there are succession works to do. Luigi is likewise busy with architectural work in his father’s studio. This practice includes the Essensa twin towers in Fort Bonifacio, the new Asian Hospital and Medical Center in Alabang, the Phinma and Nestle buildings in Rockwell Center.

Asked how he manages to fit both in his career, Luigi says it’s all through time management. I like Luigi’s humility. I think that the sign of a good architect is that he makes a distinction between his work and himself. The greatness of one’s work does not rub onto one’s ego. Architecture is a very powerful medium, and with its potency, control can either make or break you as a person. There are many that turn their mastery into commercial follies, making waste of that control. Others choose to take the role of provocateur, questioning the blandness amid our landscape, pushing levels of sly craft to open up new ways of living. Still others are content to stay in the middle, unwilling to shake off mediocrity in order to survive in the concrete jungle. One of my hero architects is Michele de Lucchi, who is always soft-spoken and unattached to his fame.

The third-generation practitioners trace their own attitudes to the legacy of the past. I asked J Gamboa what he thought were old habits still present in him, and his answer was the tender loving care of "attention." His mother paid attention to the minute detail of food service. Malu stays close to her mother even now, taking technology to her side. "I am more modern in my manner of implementation but I also like to interact more with my clients than she does," Malu says. She goes as far as attending catering services in order to oversee that everything goes well. She enjoys seeing her clients’ homes as well.

Another old-world trait is their confidence to share their knowledge. Whenever asked how he does a dish, J would generously give the ingredients and instructions. In the end, what really matters is that the palate decides the final outcome.

"You can say that I’m back to simple food, none of this combination stuff," says J. "There’s nothing like good ingredients cooked properly to get the food fit to be savored." Asked about the restaurant business, J says that while there are enough restaurants in the Philippines, what we need are more people dining out. "And I mean real dining, not walking through the mall with a burger in one hand and a sago shake in the other." He alludes to the diners in Madrid, where most of the restaurants – except the fast foods – are full during mealtime. "People there really take time to eat with friends, colleagues, and family. You’ll hardly see anyone walking down the street and eating at the same time." And if I may add, I would like to see a more creative variety of restaurants that feature ingenious cooking rather than mimicking what they see elsewhere. We have exceptional talents here and that is a beginning.

J’s foray into Spanish cuisine was never intentional. In fact, it was the Italian regional cuisine that interested him. It was sister Malu’s idea that they go Spanish with Cirkulo, and he was to learn it fast!

Milky Way offers home-cooked meals that are frozen and packaged in microwaveable containers. They are ideal for those who do not have the time or the skill to prepare them. In a way, they are gourmet substitutes to prepared supermarket fare.

In the case of Cirkulo, opened in bold red torero color in 1995, a change was deemed appropriate in 2001. It moved from the tapas bar/restaurant that it was to a Mediterranean one it is today. They are now able to offer a wider range of Latin fare. By the way, they are soon opening a Café Milky Way above the Cirkulo.

Luigi and Vickie Antonio’s departure from the original bold design by Ramon Castellanos of the Cirkulo interiors in 1995 is marked by clean lines that orderly defines its programs. There is a semblance of retro ‘50s look that has somehow modernized into blocks of well-lit placements. There is the color red that suggests the flaming passion of the Latinos, and also a generous heaping of white strewn all over to keep the balance.

The open gesture into the street is an urbanized technique of overcoming the wall barriers. I would have preferred it if the street was wider and located in an old walkway like Malate. As it is, Pasay Road was not meant to be as busy a street as it is now because the old plan was that of a residential row, where huge streets beckoned the passers-by.

For Luigi and Vickie, architecture goes beyond the aesthetics of form and structure. It goes as well into the attached cultural values it imparts on the people occupying the spaces. Perhaps, by the legacy that continually shines in the Antonio family, the value of culture is rubbed deeply into Luigi’s perception. There is his grandfather Pablo, a National Artist; his grandma Marina and aunt Malu, both known for their contributions in Philippine fashion; his illustrious uncles, Chito for his lavish interiors and lifestyle, and Ramon, whose modern interpretation of Asian architecture can be turned into a book. Then there is his father, Pablo Jr., with whom he works side by side, and other members of the family who are architects and engineers.

Together, Luigi and Vickie now try to instill values in their work that reflect the Filipino character mixed with modernism. They lament the viewpoint of separating culture from architecture other than its function as a day-to-day building activity. To them, architecture should be a product of how people use and define an environment, which is a cultural reflection of themselves. They disapprove of the neglect on some of our historical buildings, the tearing down of the Jai Alai building, for example, and hope that history can still be kept in the form of buildings that were built in the eras that preceded us.

Rather than obliterating the historical artifacts of our architectural heritage, there must be a program that would make them a significant part of our continuing transformation into vertical living. For Vickie Antonio, the urban setup is even more pronounced. She is part of a World Bank project called City Developmental Strategies (CDS). It is a grant from the Cities Alliance and supported by the World Bank and UNCHS-Habitat. They perform technical assistance in preparing medium and long-term development strategies for cities around our archipelago. Their program is structured to ensure that identified projects and programs are properly linked up with city resources and long-term visions.

I see a strong sense of resolve in their projects. They see heritage as an important ingredient to nurture in the grass roots level. They consider the general public as very important recipients of their sensible planning and execution. There are many obvious remakes of images that are now readily available through the media, but it takes the understated, proficient tact that make it to the quality end of each design project.

Earlier, I mentioned the power of architecture. I reserved the merits of being subservient to the public needs, because the other side to defiance is that architecture, in the end, must be able to serve back.