The Old Senate Session Hall of the Philippines
The Old Session Hall of the Senate of the Philippines is a chamber like no other in the country. Soaring three stories to the top of the Old Legislative Building, the hall was clearly intended to be nothing less than a secular cathedral- a temple of wisdom for enlightened debate and making of laws. During the early 1920s in the American colonial period when the architect Juan Arellano was revising the plans of Ralph Harrington Doane in order to convert the building from the museum and library it was originally designed to be into the seat of the legislature, the Senate was led by Manuel L. Quezon, the leader of the movement for the Philippine Independence from the United States. With his strong personal aesthetic tastes and deep belief in the need to promote confidence and respect by the Americans in the nascent all-Filipino institutions, it is highly probable that Quezon worked with Arellano on the dimensions and decorations of the Section Hall.
The most impressive features of the hall, taking full advantage of the architectural space, are undoubtedly the series of Corinthian columns and plasters, the main wall above the rostrum with its fretwork and garlands, and most of all, the sculptural groupings surrounding the top of the hall. The ornamentation and all other decoration in the Hall was the work of the most celebrated Filipino sculptor of the time, Isabelo Tampinco, and his sons Angel and Vidal. Tampinco gave full rein to his deep knowledge of classical sculpture, as well as to his personal artistic mission of Filiponizing many of the traditionally Western elements and motifs of the neoclassical style. The result, an entablature of great lawmakers and moralists through history and allegorical groupings, was and remains to this day an outstanding and unique achievement in Philippine art.
Reference: National Museum of Fine Arts
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