Juan M. de Guzmán Arellano

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Juan Marcos de Guzmán Arellano was a Filipino architect, best known for Manila's Metropolitan Theater (1935), Executive House (1926) (now houses the National Museum of the Philippines), the Manila Post Office Building (1926), and Jones Bridge.

[edit] Life and works

Jones Bridge and a partial view of the Post Office Building

Juan Arellano was born on April 25, 1888 in Manila, the Philippines. He attended the Ateneo Municipal and graduated in 1908. His first passion was painting and he trained under Lorenzo Guerrero, Toribio Antillon, and Fabian de la Rosa. ^[1] He, however, pursued architecture and was sent to the United States as one of the first pensionados in architecture, after Carlos Barreto, who was sent to the Drexel Institute in 1908, Antonio Toledo, who went to Ohio State, and Tomas Mapua, who went to Cornell.

Arellano went to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1911 and subssequently transferred to Drexel to finish his bachelor's degree in Architecture. He was trained in the Beaux Arts and subsequently went to work for George B. Post & Sons in New York City, where he worked for Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.^[2]

He then went back to the Philippines to begin a practice with his brother, Arcadio. He later joined the Bureau of Public Works just as the last American architects, George Fenhagen and Ralph H. Doane, were leaving. He and Tomas Mapua were then named as supervising architects. In 1927, he took a study leave and went to the United States where he was greatly influenced by Art Deco architecture.

In 1930, he returned to Manila and designed the Manila Metropolitan Theater, which was then considered controversially moderne.^[3] He also continued to act as a consulting architect for the Bureau of Public Works where he oversaw the production of the Manila's first zoning plan. In 1940, he and Harry Frost created a design for Quezon City, which was to become the new capital of the Philippines.

It was during that time that he also designed the building that would house the United States High Commission to the Philippines, later the Embassy of the United States in Manila. He designed a demesne along the edge of Manila Bay, which featured a revival-style mansion that took advantage of the seaside vista.^[4] The Americans instead opted for a federal-style building that ended up overpriced and uncomfortable.

During World War II, the Executive House and Jones Bridge, were totally destroyed and the Post Office Building was severely damaged. While these structures were all reconstructed, his original designs were not followed and were considered poor replications.^[5]

Arellano retired in 1956 and went back to painting. In 1960, he exhibited his work at the Manila YMCA.