Exhibit Date: 04 May 2023 – 03 June 2023 / 3F South Gallery
Plazas in the Philippines have been central to communal celebrations and other social and political events in over 1,600 towns and cities for hundreds of years. However, they have fallen prey to the pressures of population and economic growth, as well as the attendant consequences of urban densification and commercial real-estate development. With this in mind, award-winning urban planner and landscape architect Paulo G. Alcazaren highlights this in the exhibit, “Places of Memory, Places of the Heart: Plazas in the Philippines.”
The exhibition narrates the Filipinos’ contemporary understanding of Urban Heritage in the Philippines harking to this year’s National Heritage Month theme: Heritage: Change and Continuity. Set in an installation that represents the modern-day equivalent of the plaza for many Filipino urban dwellers – the basketball court – the exhibition showcases a selection of 16 plazas from around the country, featured to show their contexts alongside archival images, interactive artworks, photo collages of Rizal Monuments that form part of the built environment of plazas, and a selection of artworks from The M’s own collection, highlighting the history and trajectory of town and city plazas in the Philippines.
Alcazaren completed his Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degrees from the University of the Philippines – Diliman, and a Master’s degree in Urban Design from the National University of Singapore. He has taught at the University of the Philippines as well as at the Ateneo de Manila University.
Alcazaren has been a practicing design consultant in planning, urban design and landscape architecture for the last 40 years, with twelve of those spent in Singapore as head of PDAA Design Pte Ltd. He has been principal planner, urban designer or landscape architect in charge of close to two hundred projects in fourteen countries and is currently head of PGAA Creative Design, Manila. PGAA’s portfolio of completed projects in the public realm include the Iloilo Esplanade, the renovation of eight plazas in Iloilo and Pasig City, as well as parks in Manila, Makati, Pasig, San Juan, Quezon City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Singapore.
Other Ongoing Exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila
Great Travel Philippines 
Exhibit Date: 04 May 2023 – 03 June 2023 / 3F South Gallery
Plazas in the Philippines have been central to communal celebrations and other social and political events in over 1,600 towns and cities for hundreds of years. However, they have fallen prey to the pressures of population and economic growth, as well as the attendant consequences of urban densification and commercial real-estate development. With this in mind, award-winning urban planner and landscape architect Paulo G. Alcazaren highlights this in the exhibit, “Places of Memory, Places of the Heart: Plazas in the Philippines.”
The exhibition narrates the Filipinos’ contemporary understanding of Urban Heritage in the Philippines harking to this year’s National Heritage Month theme: Heritage: Change and Continuity. Set in an installation that represents the modern-day equivalent of the plaza for many Filipino urban dwellers – the basketball court – the exhibition showcases a selection of 16 plazas from around the country, featured to show their contexts alongside archival images, interactive artworks, photo collages of Rizal Monuments that form part of the built environment of plazas, and a selection of artworks from The M’s own collection, highlighting the history and trajectory of town and city plazas in the Philippines.
Alcazaren completed his Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degrees from the University of the Philippines – Diliman, and a Master’s degree in Urban Design from the National University of Singapore. He has taught at the University of the Philippines as well as at the Ateneo de Manila University.
Alcazaren has been a practicing design consultant in planning, urban design and landscape architecture for the last 40 years, with twelve of those spent in Singapore as head of PDAA Design Pte Ltd. He has been principal planner, urban designer or landscape architect in charge of close to two hundred projects in fourteen countries and is currently head of PGAA Creative Design, Manila. PGAA’s portfolio of completed projects in the public realm include the Iloilo Esplanade, the renovation of eight plazas in Iloilo and Pasig City, as well as parks in Manila, Makati, Pasig, San Juan, Quezon City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Singapore.
Other Ongoing Exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila
Sounds of Blackness
2F South Gallery
JEFRË: Points of Origin
3F South Gallery
Ronald Ventura: Quick Turn on Hyper Highways
Groundspace and Art Alley
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