The Philippine Guest of Honour Pavilion: Architectural Design

The architectural design and scenography of the Philippine Pavilion as Guest of Honour create a warm and fair space for introspection and wonder. As an honored guest, the Philippines cherishes this invitation and hospitality at the same time that it cohabits the site with its own historical experience and interests in a present riven by intense conflict and inhumanity. e Pavilion alludes to an archipelagic clearing, enlivened by books and moving images from contemporary artists responding to the literature of the country across the seasons. ere are four zones in the Pavilion, each dedicated to the oeuvre by and on the National Hero Jose Rizal; the work of National Artists and National Living Treasures; the history of books in the Philippines; and books on the Philippines published outside the country in the last five years.

The Philippine Pavilion, designed by Stanley Ruiz, integrates local materials with modular architecture that is also furniture. e presence of local form speaks to age-old and contemporary creative disciplines but also to emerging innovation, bringing together distinct sensibility and the talent in deconstruction and improvised assembly, viewed as an exploration rather than fixed and fixated final look of identity. e dominant materials involved in the construction include kapis (shells), bamboo, and pineapple fabric, alongside steel and fabrics. Central in his imagination are the integrity of Philippine materials and technologies as well as the intuition to repurpose and refunction. It includes elements like circular layouts suggestive of gathering and sharing across Philippine communities. Conjured like islands, the structures are dispersed and yet the pathways into each other are fluid, meandering like routes of water or trails of the hills. e skin of the structures are translucent membranes that recall the quality of kites or lamps, both referencing anecdotes around Jose Rizal. The said surfaces are also screens the moving-image project of Gary-Ross Pastrana and the drawings of David Medalla animated by Mervin Malonzo. e overall feeling in the Pavilion is one of airiness, lightness, generosity. It is an open situation for honoring the gifts of writing and reading in an unnerving but hopefully irrepressible world, conceived by a guest who peoples the imagination. Patrick Flores Curator, Philippine Guest of Honour Pavilion

Patrick Flores Curator 
Philippine Guest of Honour Pavilion