De-Crystallization
The other (ruling institution of pre-war downtown Escolta [one was the American-owned drugstore cum coffeeshop Botica Boie where the cognoscenti congregated]) was the grandmother of today’s (Philippine) malls, the Crystal Arcade. . . .The Crystal Arcade helped to prepare the way for the cultural practice of window-shopping. Window-shopping cultivates a consumerist ethos in advance of the conditions necessary to support it. These conditions—industrialized mass production and middle-class consumption habits—were not to arrive until after the war.
. . . the turbulent 1980s (began to build gigantic malls) combining shrewd management skills with (a) willingness to break up labor unions and keep workers in line.
. . . As quasi-public spaces, (today’s) mega malls . . . also conceal the mechanisms of extraction and exploitation that make their operations possible. They produce pleasures by repressing their sources, and encourage unrealized desires that find their expression in everyday acts of desperation, occasional crimes, and interminable boredom.
from "A Short History of the Mega-Mall" by Vicente L. Rafael, Flip Magazine, November 2002—
Patingin-tingin, di naman makabili.
Patingin-tingin, di makapanood ng sine.
Walang ibang pera kundi pamasahe;
Nakayanan ko lang, bumili ng dalawang yosi.
from "Esem" by Yano (1994, Alpha Records)—
Even then, before the Japs arrived, the Americanized
among us couldn’t help but ogle, though merely ogle,
awestruck by commodities and architecture—lambent
masses liberated from our extra-muroses* to participate
in what was to be the bourgeoisization of our tribes.We succumbed to displays behind glass, unbreakable
by virtue of that mall’s prototype security, or mighty
exclusivity and privilege. Sure, a world war’s shellings
cracked this pride/luxury. Shoulda forewarned us then
of a possible return, a much larger, angrier Architecture!
---*a pun on Intramuros, the Walled City of Manila built by the Spaniards.
Copyright © 2004 Vicente-Ignacio Soria de Veyra. All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file and print out single copies of this webpage for their personal use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy, transmission, or distribution of the work herein, or any excerpt, adaptation, abridgment or translation of same, may be made without written permission from the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this work will be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
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