A legacy crafted in water

MANILA, Philippines — As the Cultural Center of the Philippines spruces up for the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit next month, part of renovations of the 48-year-old structure is the fountain in front of the building. The iconic fountain’s water cycle came full circle when Industron Inc. won the bid to renovate the fountain. Industron owner William Schaare is the man behind the original CCP fountain. His daughter May, who now runs the company, oversaw the renovation.

A mechanical-electrical engineer graduate from the Mapua Institute of Technology (now Mapua University), Schaare started out as an inventor, doing research on a wide range of topics including electronics, instrumentation and control. “I was not doing fountains for many years. I was doing instrumentation and control for industry,” he says.

However, all of these figured into the demands of creating fountains. So, when the Ortigas Center in Greenhills was putting up a fountain, Schaare recalls, “Architect Antonio Heredia heard about my work and my experiments and asked me if I can do fountains for him… I said I could, although I had never built one.”

Two years later, Schaare had various experiments going on in his yard for colored and musical fountains. “It came out better than I expected. I had a musical dancing fountain,” he shares.

Though the Ortigas project was delayed for several years, Schaare had discovered a proficiency for manipulating water. He began making musical dancing fountains in 1968. 

Schaare recalls his very first project. “I went to see Teodoro Valencia in his office in the Quisumbing Building,” he recalls.

Valencia took one look at Schaare and said, “You seem to be a foreigner.”

Schaare confirmed that he was born in Cebu but of German heritage, to which Valencia said, “If that fountain is not nice, I’ll have you deported.”

Confident in his work, Schaare invited Valencia to his home to see his ongoing experiments. A few days later, he was asked to install his first fountain in Fort Santiago – and was asked to complete it in two weeks.

A year later, Schaare got the opportunity of a lifetime. “I was doing all the fountains for Rizal Park at that time – 1969. We had musical dancing fountains already… I would say we were probably number one in the world in fountains at the time,” he says, adding that representatives from all over the world would come to study the famed fountains.

Impressed by his work on the Rizal Park fountains, Valencia told Schaare to go and see architect Leandro Locsin about the new cultural center being built. “Lindy Locsin knew that I was working on the fountains in Rizal Park. He showed me the plan he had for the fountain and he described what he wanted,” Schaare recalls. “Whatever he wanted, I had to interpret it in water.”

The engineer thought Locsin – who was named National Artist for Architecture in 1990 and who passed away in 1994 – would want a multi-colored fountain. “He said ‘No!’” Locsin’s vision for the fountain was vastly different. “Being the cultural center, his term was he didn’t want it to be a ‘three-ring circus’,” Schaare says.

Locsin wanted an elegant, all-white fountain. “But then I still wanted to add something because the public would want something more dramatic,” says the fountain expert. The result is the CCP fountain we know today – all-white as Locsin envisioned, but with cool and warm tones, Schaare’s contribution to the design.

Once they had agreed on the fountain’s design, work flew by quickly. “The timeline, as far as Mrs. Marcos was concerned, was three weeks. At that time, I was always running at extremely record-breaking speed, so it was not unusual for me.”

There was not much discussion apart from their initial meeting, Schaare says – “Just work, work, work.” There were only sketches, not comprehensive plans submitted for approval, only the vision clear in the architect’s and fountain engineer’s heads. “I was 30 at the time. It was my first big fountain.”

Schaare has gone on to install fountains all over the Philippines. Name a fountain and Industron has most probably worked on it. They’ve installed fountains in Malacañang, various hotels, malls, city plazas, schools and more.

Industron uses technology not even the Dubai fountain has, boasts Schaare. While other fountain engineers would throw in thousands of pumps which are more difficult, not to mention more expensive, to maintain, Schaare, on the other hand, employs his skills as an engineer and inventor to do the same type of fountain with just 10 to 20 pumps, designing a system instead. “All the skill is applied to make it more affordable in the Philippines,” he says, crediting his experience working in the country as well as “the old German in me.”

Nowadays, Schaare is busy experimenting some more and funding research and development in different fields, including energy. “One of my most exciting fields now is the field of stirling engines – external combustion engines.” Just like with his fountains, Schaare is working to come up with a more affordable way to manufacture these expensive engines and make them more accessible in the country. “The challenge is to develop the engine at a low cost, to do it in the Philippines at a third of the cost.”

Industron continues to install fountains all over the country, with Schaare’s daughter May now taking over the design and production. The company was not chosen by the CCP because of their history with the fountain, but they succeeded in winning the bid for renovation.

Schaare explains that the fountain renovation involves applying the innovative techniques he has developed over the 48 years since the CCP fountain had been constructed.

“I want people to remember the legacy of Locsin,” he says on what he wants people to think of when they see the pure, all-white fountain in front of the Cultural Center. The design, Schaare stresses, remains true to the original vision that Locsin had and which he made a reality in 1969.

Today, the pumps have been refurbished, lights have been replaced with LED lights, nozzles and fixtures have been repaired to ensure that the fountain will be welcoming and enchanting guests and passersby for many, many more years.