When 10-year-old Gerard Rey Lico visited the Metropolitan Theater in Manila, which opened in 1931, he didn’t know the ornate building was art deco and wasn’t aware of its historical significance.
But he liked the elaborate ceiling. “Why were there so many bananas and mangoes?” he looked up and wondered.
Decades later, Lico would learn that the fruits, along with the tilework and bamboo accents, were a way of “indigenizing the art deco language” to suit Filipino style at the time.
In 2016, about 30 years after that first encounter, Lico got the chance to return to the theater for work as a conservation architect. He was commissioned to oversee the restoration of the building, which had been abandoned for two decades. “It was magical for me because I was returning to my first encounter with beautiful architecture,” he said.
But the theater had lost much of its grandeur. The orchestra area had been flooded, and the structure had served as shelter for unhoused people. The bananas and mangoes that had once so impressed him were falling from the ceiling due to water damage.
The way he viewed the building had also changed because of the training he had received during the intervening years. He now understood its cultural significance, he said, as an expression of Filipino identity.
Because the theater had meant so much to him as a kid, Lico planned its restoration program with young people in mind. He organized a cleanup drive for the site and sought 50 young volunteers. It would have been more efficient to hire a contractor, but he knew that inviting the community to help would instill a “love and care for the building.”
More than 3,000 applications rolled in. “People, if given the chance to participate in a heritage project—they will come,” he said. The people who cleaned the building would know it, and “be part of its renaissance,” he said.
Modern Architecture in L.A.
Lico recently came to L.A. to learn more about early modern architecture as part of a Getty Conservation Institute course on the topic. Over two weeks he visited examples of modern architecture, participated in hands-on trainings, and spent lots of time with like-minded colleagues from around the world. These experiences have already begun to reframe his work as a conservator and as research director at his university, where he’s designing the Philippines’ first institute of conservation.
He was also able to explore the Getty Conservation Institute’s Concrete Conservation project, which was developed specifically to respond to the challenges of conserving reinforced concrete buildings and structures. This includes scientific research, field projects, training, and publications on the subject.
In the Philippines, by law, buildings 50 years old and older are considered important cultural property, and many in this age bracket are made of reinforced concrete. Local conservators haven’t been sure how to care for a number of these buildings, since they were erected during the American colonial period. “The Getty Conservation Institute was able to fill the vacuum in our knowledge,” Lico said.
About 60 percent of structures in the country meet or exceed this age minimum. But public recognition of the value of these buildings is lacking. “Modern heritage in the Philippines is underappreciated,” he said. Many Filipinos “don’t even consider it heritage because it’s not old enough.”
The institute Lico is creating will, apart from doing actual conservation, “try to educate the people on modernism and contemporary architecture” to convey the importance of conserving these structures.
A Field Trip Brings It All Home
In L.A., Lico and the 26 other participants got to visit modern heritage sites like the home of architect Richard Neutra, one of Lico’s idols. It was “like meeting the architect through his building,” he said.
Seeing some of Neutra’s work in L.A. amazed Lico since Filipino architects used Neutra’s ideas to create public housing in the 1950s and ’60s and solve the problems of mass homelessness in Manila after World War II. He got to see the “influence of Neutra in Philippine architecture up close.”
Visiting these everyday examples of modern heritage, and knowing about their impact on public projects in the Philippines, drove home for Lico the importance of preserving these structures—even the ones that aren’t visually impressive. “Now, when I go back to teaching, I will debunk that notion that significance is based singularly on aesthetics,” he said.
The course also cemented Lico’s belief that conservation should be participatory. Creating opportunities for the public to engage with heritage conservation—such as the experience he created for youth while restoring the theater—is an essential component of the work.
It should also be collaborative. “I realize now that conservation is not just the realm of architects, but also engineers, conservators, and even historians,” he said.
This course shaped his perspective and will influence the institute for conservation he’s developing as well as change his teaching. Back home, he’ll impart to his students this democratic, collaborative approach, with the hope that more modern buildings will be appreciated and can then be preserved for the future.
