Manila's "Chinatown": Globalization and Built Heritage

• Main Authors: Akpedonu, Erik, Saloma, Czarina
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2017
• Subjects: Glocalization; cultural refraction; Chinese diaspora; art and architecture; built heritage; Chinatown; Tsinoy
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/socialtransformations/vol5/iss2/2; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/socialtransformations/article/1126/viewcontent/5.2_20Article_20Akpedonu_20and_20Saloma._20Nov_202024.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Philippine society and culture are generally viewed as the convergence of indigenous Austronesian and Hispanic elements. Often overlooked, however, are the significant contributions of the Chinese. In this article, we trace Chinese contributions to the built heritage of Manila beginning in the sixteenth century and examine the process of globalization as “glocalization.” Our main proposition is that in Manila’s “Chinatown,” these contributions are a refraction of Chinese architectural and art styles through local architectural and art traditions. Such mixing, blending or adapting of two or more processes accompanied the evolving search of Chinese migrants (notably artisans) from (primarily) Fujian Province and the subsequent Tsinoy community for a local identity and localities. Necessarily, the material and temporal settings matter. Manila’s “Chinatown” developed in tandem with the Spanish city, Intramuros, further explaining why it is glocal in nature: its constituting elements are the very essence of the buildings, a design that contrasts with the “pastiche” architecture of many other “Chinatowns” elsewhere. With the global and the local constantly in a flux, the challenge is how to continue to sensibly blend and adapt the new and the global to local conditions, and vice versa.