Architecture Festival aims to make discipline more accessible

February 5, 2020 | By: The Manila Times (as published last February 4, 2020)

THE idea to make architecture more “digestible” is what started the Anthology Architecture and Design Festival in the country, WTA Architecture and Design Studio Principal Architect William Ti Jr. shared.

Dubbed as the largest architecture festival in Southeast Asia, it brings together architects and members of the design industry for a series of talks and workshops, with the aim to increase public awareness of the discipline and its implications to society.

“We always wanted Anthology to highlight and help create awareness about architecture and its importance in the building industry,” Ti said in his opening remarks during the launch of the event on Wednesday.

Furthermore, the festival aims to put the Philippines on the global architecture map and promote local architects and designers as thought leaders.

“It is imperative that we strive to discover and explore the architecture that forms a crucial part of the identity of Filipinos. We must continue to find ways to make this exploration and evolution relevant not just to our own society, but also as a vital contribution to the richness of humanity and its cultural growth,” Ti was quoted as saying in a statement.

For its fifth installment, the architecture festival would revolve around the theme “Think Architecture.”

Ti explained that they wanted to focus on the basics of architecture this year and what it means to all of them. He said that he wanted to bring everyone from the industry to collaborate and share ideas and make these ideas “digestible” to everyone.

“This idea that we have to do good architecture first for us to be able to build a better city and I think, at the end of the day, architecture is a basic building block on how our cities are going to turn out to be,” he added.

This year’s main event is the Anthology Talks, where 21 leaders of the community would share their ideas about architecture and design. This would be led by keynote speakers Wong Mun Sum of WOHA, Liu Xiaodu of Urbanus and Ricardo Bofill of Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura.

There would also be a series of panel discussions through Shelter Dialogues, socio-cultural debates through Anthology Raw, and workshops administered by industry leaders like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Arup, Skew, and PDP Architects.

A first for the festival, this year would also see installations from some of the country’s leading firms. There would also be a competition among schools, with competitors from both local and international institutions.

The country will be represented by students from the University of the Philippines and College of Saint Benilde.

The three-day festival would take place at the historic Fort Santiago in Intramuros, Manila from February 7 to 9. WTA Architecture expects this year’s festival to be attended by 6,000 participants.