THE OLD PHILIPPINE LEGISLATIVE BUILDING BEFORE AND AFTER WWII

On 18 April 2018, I once again visited the old Legislative Building (now National Museum of the Philippines) designed by the renowned Philippine architect Juan M. Arellano, also the designer behind some elegant and surviving structures in Manila, like the Post Office and the Manila Metropolitan Theater.

In 1926, after the completion of the neoclassical legislative building, the Philippine Assembly moved and held its inauguration here during the opening of the Second Regular Session of the Seventh Philippine Legislature together with the newly formed National Library, which was under the former’s supervision at that time. The National Library shared the same building with the Philippine Legislature from 1928-1944.

However,  the magnificent and ornate legislative building was among the grand edifices in Manila extensively ravaged during the recapture of the City of Greater Manila in 1945. The grandiose structure was only rebuilt with lesser embellishments in 1950.