Manila Jai Alai Building

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Manila Jai Alai Building
Ermita, Manila
Coordinates14°35′5″N 120°59′3″E / 14.58472°N 120.98417°E / 14.58472; 120.98417
Construction started1939
Completed1940
DemolishedJuly 15, 2000
Technical details
Floor countfour
Design and construction
Architect(s)Welton Becket

The Manila Jai Alai Building was a building designed by American architects

Walter Wurdeman that functioned as a building for which jai alai games were held.[1] It was built in the Streamline Moderne style in 1940 and survived the Battle of Manila.[2] It was considered as the finest Art Deco building in Asia, until its demolition.[2] It was demolished in 2000 upon the orders of the Mayor of Manila Lito Atienza amidst protests, to make way for the Manila Hall of Justice, which was never built.[2]

Design

The building was located adjacent to the old Legislative Building now the National Museum of Fine Arts. Composed of four storeys, the building's Sky Room was "the place to be seen" in its day. The building's cylindrical glass facade was meant to evoke the velocity of the game, which was then a craze in the city.[3] The building was damaged during the Battle of Manila during World War II but was repaired.

Decline

While the Sky Room became a venue of meetings and receptions during the Commonwealth and early years after Independence, the building had degenerated into a place of game-rigging, syndication and other forms of cheating.[2] Several murders have been said to have occurred there, as disputes on gambling on the results of jai alai games were prevalent.[4] In 1986, the game per se was banned in the country due to allegations of game fixing.[5]

Demolition

When

neoclassical style.[4][6]

Post-demolition

The

ground-breaking" for a new House of Justice hall on the lot with the GSIS old building, the eighth such ceremony.[8] The "ground-breaking" was symbolic and did not signal the start of construction as bidding for the engineering, design and construction had not taken place yet.[8]

The demolition led to the passage of the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009 and other efforts to preserve historic buildings, which has had mixed results.[2]

The vacant lot behind the building became the site of the Torre de Manila, which was completed in 2019. It became controversial in itself because of the building being in the sightline of the Rizal Monument.[9]

References

  1. ^ "Jai Alai Auditorium Manila, Philippines". Ellerbe Becket. Archived from the original on March 13, 2012. Retrieved August 30, 2012. Page also has photos
  2. ^ a b c d e Villalon, Toti (July 15, 2012). "Remember jai alai: Stop making Manila heritage demolition victim". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  3. ^ Neumann, A. Lin. "Manila: Loving a City that Might Have Been" (PDF). Globalasia.org. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  4. ^ a b c Armand Nocum and Jerome Aning (July 25, 2010). "Palace, City Hall reject pleas for Jai alai building". Philippine Daily Inquirer. p. 5.
  5. ^ Villalon, Toti (July 15, 2012). "Remember jai alai: Stop making Manila heritage demolition victim". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
  6. ^ "Jose 'Lito' Livioko Atienza, Jr". July 31, 2007. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  7. ^ Araneta, Macon Ramos (July 5, 2010). "Jai-Alai edifice scuttled for justice hall elsewhere". Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  8. ^ a b Araneta, Sandy (August 23, 2012). "Manila to have own justice hall, finally". The Philippine Star. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  9. ^ "What Went Before: The saga of Torre de Manila". Philippine Daily Inquirer. June 17, 2015. Retrieved July 1, 2015.

External links

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