Edifice complex

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Not to be confused with Edible Complex.
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President of the Philippines
Courtyard of the Coconut Palace
The Coconut Palace is one of the buildiings commonly cited as an example of the Marcos dictatorship's edifice complex.

The term "edifice complex"

First Lady Imelda Marcos' practice of using publicly funded construction projects as political and election propaganda.[1][2][3]

Typically built with a Brutalist architectural style,[4] perhaps to emphasize their grandiose character,[5][6] these construction projects were funded by foreign loans,[2] allowing the incumbent Marcos administration to create an impression of progress.[2] The first of the crises occurred in 1970, which many economic historians consider to have triggered the socioeconomic unrest which later led Marcos to impose martial law in 1972.[7][8][9]

The expression has also been generalized outside of the context of Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos and the Philippines.

Etymology

The term is a play on the "Oedipus complex" of psychoanalytic theory.

While earlier use of the term elsewhere in the world has been suggested, the term was independently coined by Behn Cervantes[10] to criticise the construction of the Cultural Center of the Philippines during the buildup to the 1969 presidential election campaign, during which Imelda Marcos' husband Ferdinand Marcos was running for a then-unprecedented second term as President of the Philippines.[2]

Leandro V. Locsin.[12]

Commonly cited examples in the Philippines

Buildings cited as examples of the Marcos era edifice complex include the buildings of the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex (conceived in 1966), the San Juanico Bridge (conceived in 1969), the Philippine International Convention Center (conceived in 1974),[13] the Philippine Heart Center (conceived in 1975), the National Arts Center in Los Baños, Laguna (inaugurated in 1976), Coconut Palace (conceived in 1978), the Lung Center of the Philippines (conceived in 1981), the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (conceived in 1981), and Terminal 1 of Manila International Airport (completed in 1981).[2]

There were also twelve luxury hotels

First Lady Imelda Marcos,[15] with the intention of presenting an impression of luxury[15] to the 2,000 delegates who would attend the 1976 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which would be held in Manila that year,[14] This included: the Philippine Plaza Hotel, which would later be renamed the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila; the Admiral Hotel; the Century Park Sheraton; the Holiday Inn Manila; Hotel Mirador; Manila Garden Hotel; the Manila Mandarin; the Philippine Village Hotel, Manila Midtown Ramada; the Manila Peninsula; the Regent of Manila; and the Silahis Hotel.[14] The historic Manila Hotel was also renovated, and expanded to a 570 room capacity.[14]

The 1976 Tondo evictions which were part of the "Tondo Urban Renewal Project" and the deaths of construction workers at the Manila Film Center are also cited as signs of Imelda's having the complex.[16]

The "designer hospitals" were particularly criticized as wrongly prioritized healthcare projects, draining public funds for the benefit of only a handful of patients, while basic health institutions, such as the Quezon Institute for Tuberculosis Patients, were overcrowded and underfunded.[2]

Destruction of Mt. Sungay

One other example, which was never completed, was the

Palace in the Sky complex in Tagaytay, Cavite, which Imelda intended to host the visit of US President Ronald Reagan.[17] The construction of the palace, which was suddenly stopped when Reagan canceled his visit, drastically changed the landscape of the Cavite highland, because preparations for the construction meant leveling the geographically distinct Mount Sungay.[18]

When the

Marcoses, the new government renamed the palace as the People's Park in the Sky, opening it to the public to help demonstrate the excesses of the ousted regime.[18]

American humorist Jean Shepherd used the term in a short story, "Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb that Struck Back." Shepherd wrote: "All around me New York was busily, roaringly, endlessly rebuilding itself, like some giant phoenix rising from the red-hot ashes of its dead self. New York's incurable Edifice Complex blooms mightily in midsummer..." The story was first published in the July 1965 issue of Playboy and later appeared in Shepherd's 1966 book, In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash.[19]

The term was mentioned in the contemporary 1974 disaster film The Towering Inferno in which the developer of the ill-fated skyscraper was maneuvering with a U.S. Senator to secure federal funding for similar buildings around the United States.

In episode 39 of the 1990s

television sitcom Home Improvement, titled "Love is a Many Splintered Thing," main character Tim Taylor's next door neighbor, Wilson, jokes that Tim has "an edifice complex" due to the fact that he is a handyman who enjoys building things.[20]

The term is again mentioned in the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies when, after being captured by Stamper and taken to the CMGN tower in Saigon (from which Elliot Carver has hung a large banner featuring his face), James Bond remarks: "Another Carver Building. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he developed an edifice complex".[21][22][23]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Lico, Gerard (2003). Edifice Complex: Power, Myth, and Marcos State Architecture. University of Hawaii Press.
  2. ^
    OCLC 28428684
    .
  3. ^ de Villa, Kathleen (September 16, 2017). "Imelda Marcos and her 'edifice complex'". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Archived from the original on March 24, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2018.
  4. ^ "Leandro Locsin's Brutal Opera". Rogue. Rogue Media Inc. November 16, 2015. Archived from the original on January 25, 2017. Retrieved May 5, 2018.
  5. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived
    from the original on July 11, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2018.
  6. Philippine Star. Archived
    from the original on March 4, 2017. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
  7. ^ Balbosa, Joven Zamoras (1992). "IMF Stabilization Program and Economic Growth: The Case of the Philippines" (PDF). Journal of Philippine Development. XIX. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 16, 2022. Retrieved May 16, 2022.
  8. ^ Diola, Camille. "Debt, deprivation and spoils of dictatorship | 31 years of amnesia". The Philippine Star. Archived from the original on June 26, 2017. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
  9. ISBN 9780195158984. Archived
    from the original on May 4, 2022. Retrieved May 16, 2022.
  10. ^ "Martial law speak: Words that defined the anti-Marcos movement". Rappler. Archived from the original on May 5, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2018.
  11. ISBN 1-59420-068-8
  12. ISBN 1-59420-068-8
  13. ^ Marcelo, Sam (April 13, 2012). "Power structures". BusinessWorld. Archived from the original on May 5, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2018.
  14. ^ a b c d Alcazaren, Paulo (September 23, 2006). "Banking on hotels". Philstar.com.
  15. ^ a b c De Dios, E. S., Gochoco-Bautista, M. S., & Punongbayan, J. C. (2021). (DP 2021-07) Martial law and the Philippine economy. UPSE Discussion Papers.
  16. ^ "Edifice Complex: Building on the Backs of the Filipino People". Martial Law Museum. Archived from the original on May 1, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2018.
  17. ^ "Marcos' Mountain Palace Is The House That Arrogance Built". tribunedigital-chicagotribune. Archived from the original on March 27, 2018. Retrieved March 26, 2018.
  18. ^ a b Cruz, Sarah (June 3, 2011). "Palace in the Sky in Tagaytay" Archived January 3, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. Tagaytay Hotels. Retrieved on October 22, 2013.
  19. ^ Shepherd, Jean (1965). "Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb that Struck Back". www.flicklives.com. Retrieved January 1, 2025.
  20. ^ "Home Improvement Archive - Script for [2.15] Love is a Many Splintered Thing". Archived from the original on July 16, 2021. Retrieved May 16, 2022.
  21. ^ 'Another Carver building. If I didn't know better, I'd say he developed an edifice complex.' - Tomorrow Never Dies, April 2, 2022, retrieved August 15, 2023
  22. ^ Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) - IMDb, retrieved August 15, 2023
  23. ^ "Another Carver building. If I didn't know better, I'd say he developed an edifice complex". MagicalQuote. Retrieved August 15, 2023.


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