The Co Ban Kiat Buiding, standing in a busy portion of Juan Luna Street in what was once called “Chinatown’s Wall Street,” was the former SJ Wilson Building, named after the American expatriate Samuel J. Wilson who was behind the printing business Carmelo and Bauermann before World War II.

Co Ban Kiat Building

Built in 1937, the SJ Wilson Building, in its heyday, also housed the Standard and Chartered Bank, the Manila Stock Exchange and even the Japanese Consulate General. In 2011, the building came under the ownership of Binondo-based Co Ban Kiat Inc. (CBCI), the biggest supplier of hardware in the Philippines for retail, commercial and industrial projects.

Our guide Mr. S.J. Go of Renacimiento Manila narrating the history of the building

Initially, company president Johnny O. Cobankiat, the third-generation scion, as well as his colleagues in the real-estate industry and immediate family members, had no inkling of the building’s architectural and heritage value. Not seeing any value in it, they saw demolition as the most convenient way to redevelop the property. Fortunately, the owner was convinced by Deogracias B. Degala, the in-house architect, and other conscientious minds to take the path of conservation.

During the two-year, trial-and-error restoration, a full diagnosis of the building’s structural integrity was undertaken.   Also, for the refurbishment of the façade, interiors and ceiling roof, the owner and architect were guided by the principle of keeping as much of the original details as possible. No details were removed, and ornaments, such as the cornices, moldings and the striped pilasters were restored.

In keeping with texture that followed the patina of the old building, the late 1930s period, Art Deco, boxy and geometric façade was painted with China white, an off-white/light-beige tone. Now, heritage-conservation advocates and concerned members of the Chinatown community are celebrating this building’s rebirth.

Viewing this building’s massive bulk from the street, the heavy façade of the Co Ban Kiat Building, looming like a behemoth, is somehow softened by its tall, rectangular, encased windows protected by original wrought-iron grillwork.

The main entrance, along obscure Nimfa Street, is located at the southern portion of the building’s façade. Its doorway, flanked by a pair of Ionic columns and topped with an escutcheon, opens up the ground floor and main office of the company. Welcoming customers at the main entrance are details from the original company address on Quintin Paredes Street (ironically torn down) such as the old glass panels, originally a form of street-level advertising, with the embellished gold-gilt company name.

The still original decorative window grilles

The design firm Atalyer, led by chief integrating officer León Araneta, created what is probably one of the most delightful commercial interiors in all Chinatown, with a high and airy ceiling evoking a Commonwealth-era downtown-Manila spirit. The white walls and massive support columns are softened by brown veneer wood cladding. Wood partitions, with fence-like railings acting as partitions, demarcate the spaces within, giving a nostalgic twist reminiscent of old banks from that era.

At the center of the hall hangs the Chinese characters zhit tiak ti giap, a visual link to the company’s ethnic Chinese origins, honors Mr. Co Ban Kiat, the current owner’s great-grandfather and the founder of the company. Traditional black signboards, with gold-leaf lettering, are widely used among old Tsinoy businesses in Binondo to indicate the business name and its purpose.

The fourth floor cafeteria, reached via the original hand-cranked elevator, combines modern edgy lines with nostalgic black-and-white photos of Manila. Miniature wooden signboards of past tenants, adorning the support columns, subtly integrates more of the building’s history. A lovely open deck has a front view of downtown Manila’s architectural symphony.

The eighth floor, the most striking feature of this building, has stylized buttresses and a mansard-like concrete roof.  Envisioned to be a museum of sorts, here you will still find remnants of the building’s past activities such as a gold-smelting facility.  The uneven framed outline of the exposed, largely deformed, web-like roof trusses, conserved as a vestige of the structure’s history, came when a major fire in 1969 resulted in the twisting of the cast-iron support.

Co Ban Kiat Building: 231 Juan Luna St, Binondo, Manila, 1006 Metro Manila.  Tel: (632) 843-1931, 843-2734 and 8243-5265.  E-mail: jao@cobankiat.com.ph.  Website: www.cobankiat.com and www.cbkhardware.com.

The magnificent, seven-storey China Banking Corporation (China Bank) Building in Binondo, originally designed by German architect Julius Arthur Niclaus Gabler Gumbert (also the designer of the Yutivo Hardware Building in Binondo and the San Miguel Brewery Building, now the New Executive Building of the Malacanang Complex) in the Neo-Classical fashion, utilizing a variation of the Beaux-Arts style.

China Banking Corporation Building

It was built from 1923 to 1924 as the head office of China Bank. Originally it had five storeys but it was later extended to seven. During the Japanese Occupation, it was used as a headquarters of the Japanese and, during the Battle for Manila in 1945, was burned by the Japanese and destroyed.

The restored building’s Neo-Classical facade

After the war, it repaired and again used as the office of the bank in July 1945. The building served as the bank’s head office until 1969, when China Bank moved its key operations to Makati. On March 14, 2018, to mark the 100th anniversary in 2020, China Bank decided to restore building and the Binondo Heritage Restoration Project team, led by SVP Alexander Escucha, was tasked with the job. For the restoration, they engaged the services of heritage architect and author Manuel Noche (Noche + Architects), former secretary of the Heritage Conservation Society which advocates for the restoration and renewal of the Binondo area.

A row of fluted Corinthian pilasters

Much of the construction work, to make the building LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the widely used green building rating system in the world) compliant, required extensive structural, architectural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and insulation work, aimed to strengthen the building, make it energy efficient, and bring it up to modern building codes and safety standards.

Reliefs of festoons in the shape of garlands and wreaths

On April 04, 2019, construction started. All the floors were retrofitted with a Japanese technology of rubber dampeners, the first of its kind in the country.  A commissioned hydrological study showed that the lobby was below the Pasig River’s level at high tide, so a modern pipe system and a cement barrier was installed in the ground floor.

The arched arcade

The original grills and arches, previously walled in for the last 70 years, were meticulously restored, giving the refreshed building an elegant and nostalgic vibe.  Inside, the high ceiling, beautiful granite floor, and natural light streaming in from the arches opened up the space and made it look grander.  Professionally designed exterior lights were installed to light up the building at night.

National Historical Commission of the Philippines plaque

On August 14, 2020, the restored façade and ground floor were unveiled, just in time for China Bank’s centennial anniversary and, on December 17, 2020, was declared by the National Museum of the Philippines as an Important Cultural Property.  On January 31, 2021, the Binondo Business Center (BBC) Cash Department was officially opened at the lobby and, on December 22, 2021, a historical marker from the National Historical Commission of the Philippines was unveiled.

National Museum of the Philippines plaque designating the building as an “Important Cultural Property”

The China Bank Museum, curated by Marian Pastor Roces, was also built at the fourth floor (which formerly housed the executive offices) for the public to appreciate the business and culture of banking through memorabilia, art, and mementoes.

AUTHOR’S NOTES:

The corner facing façade of the building has an arcade lined with semicircular arches, reaching up to the mezzanine level, with corbel keystones.  Above the cornice are rows of fluted Corinthian pilasters up to the fifth level and flanking rectangular windows topped by triangular pediments. Below some of the windows are reliefs of festoons in the form of garlands and wreaths.  The roof cornice is lined with dentil moldings.

China Banking Corporation (China Bank) Building: Dasmarinas cor. Juan Luna Sts., Binondo, Manila. Tel: 2247-5388.

The historic, five-storey Pacific Commercial Company Building, also known as the  Juan Luna Building, Juan Luna Plaza, the First National City Bank (now Citibank) Building and the Ayala Building, was built in the 1920s. Designed by American architects Murphy, McGill and Hamlin of New York City and Shanghai, it was built at a cost of two million pesos, finished by July 1922 and inaugurated on November 13, 1922.

Pacific Commercial Company Building

Later bought by Enrique Zobel, the building was known as the “Ayala Building” from 1940 to 1959. In 2007, LBC Properties Inc. led a renovation of the building. The First National City Bank also occupied the building.

In 2009, the building was bought by businessman Carlos Araneta who planned to the building to host a business process outsourcing company. The building underwent renovation in 2012 and was meant to be named as the Juan Luna e-Services Building. The facade of the building was preserved. However lack of investors hindered Araneta’s plan and the Juan Luna Building was purposed as a mixed-used building that also serves as a living museum.

Historical plaque installed by the National Historical Commission in 2017

Past midnight of May 28, 2018, a fire broke out at the nearby Land Management Bureau Building. By 8 AM (PST +8:00), the fire has reached the Juan Luna Building and the fire affected the third floor and portions of the fourth floor.  The fire, put out around 4 PM, also affected the 150 Plaza Cervantes Building, the Moraga Mansion and the National Archives of the Philippines office (although the agency stated that no historical documents were burnt since it keeps these in their offices in Paco and Ermita). Due to the timing of the start of the fire, the incident is suspected to be caused by arson.

Occupying an approximately 1,800 sq. m. (19,000 sq. ft.), irregularly shaped corner lot adjacent to El Hogar, it has a frontage of 43 m. (141 ft.), along General Luna St., and 46 m. (151 ft.) along Muelle de la Industria, along the Pasig River.

Check out “El Hogar Filipino Building”

The building’s design is derived from the trademark architectural features set by the International Banking Corporation of New York for its overseas branches. The bank’s prototype, made up of a row of colossal columns in antis, was faithfully reproduced for its Manila headquarters. The ground floor, with arched openings with fanlights emphasized by stones forming the arch, was fully rusticated to effect a textured finish.  Lintels, resting on consoles, adorned the main doors.

Six three-storey high, engaged Ionic columns, dominating the south and west facades above the ground floor, end in an entablature topped by a cornice and are flanked by a pair of pilasters on both fronts. The slightly indented fifth floor is also topped by an entablature crowned by strip of anthemion.

Pacific Commercial Company Building: Juan Luna St. cor. Muelle de la Industria, Binondo, Manila.

The El Hogar Filipino Building (Spanish: Edificio El Hogar Filipino), also known simply as El Hogar, was an early skyscraper in the Philippines. Built sometime between 1911 and 1914, it was designed by Spanish-Filipino engineer Don Ramón José de Irureta-Goyena Rodríguez and architect Francisco Perez-Muñoz in the Beaux-Arts style, its architecture reflecting elements of Neoclassical and Renaissance styles.  Opened on December 2014, it was one of the first buildings in Manila built entirely out of concrete.

El Hogar Filipino Building

Right across Juan Luna Street, on its northern front, is Pacific Commercial Company Building (commonly known as the First National City Bank Building, it was built in 1922), another important edifice, and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building on its rear.

Check out “Pacific Commercial Company Building” and “Old HSBC Building”

The four-storey building, by the Pasig River, was built as a wedding present of Don Antonio Melian y Pavia, a Spanish businessman who was titled as the third Conde de Peracamps, to his bride Doña Margarita Zóbel y de Ayala, who was a sister of  patriarch Don Enrique Zóbel de Ayala.

Don Antonio was born on May 21, 1879 in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands in Spain. From Spain, he sailed to Peru in 1903 where he held posts in the insurance company La Previsora and in the Casino Español de Lima. In 1907, he first set foot in Manila and, on June that same year, married Don Enrique Zóbel de Ayala‘s sister Doña Margarita Zóbel y de Ayala at San Agustin Church.  In 1910, he sailed from Peru back to the Philippines and established the El Hogar Filipino and the Filipinas Compañía de Seguros together with his brothers-in-law Enrique and Fernando Zóbel y de Ayala.

The El Hogar housed the Melián business empire, such as the Filipinas Compañía de Seguros (the first local-owned fire insurance company), Tondo de Beneficiencia, Casa de España, Casa de Pensiones, and Sociedad El Hogar Filipino, a financing cooperative and lending company. Other tenants of the El Hogar include Ayala y Compañía, Sociedad Lizárraga Hermanos, and Smith, Bell and Company (a shipping company). In the 1920s, after the completion of its own building at the foot of the Jones Bridge in Plaza Moraga, a short walk from the El Hogar, the Filipinas Compañía de Seguros moved out of the El Hogar.

Check out “The Revitalized Jones Bridge”

It survived World War II (it only suffered minor damages during the Battle of Manila in 1945) and a number of earthquakes and is one of two remaining American-era structures in the area facing the Pasig River. In the post-war years, Sociedad El Hogar Filipino closed down, along with other Melián businesses, leaving only the Filipinas Compañía de Seguros. Because of this, the Meliáns sold the El Hogar to the Fernandez family, and the El Hogar was rented out to other companies, mostly customs brokerage firms with few residential tenants. It also became the shooting location of movies, TV shows and fashion and advertising shoots.  Some decades ago, the building was finally abandoned as an office building and fell into neglect and decay.

On February 2014, news involving the El Hogar sparked when it was reported that it was sold to The Ritz Premiere Corporation, a Chinese-Filipino real estate developers, which reported that it will demolish the El Hogar because of the building’s stability, and be turned into a condominium. By November, G.I. sheets fenced up the El Hogar Building, seemingly being prepared for demolition.

The news spread like a wildfire throughout heritage conservationists (who wrote to both the city government of Manila and the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, or NHCP, to stop the demolition of the El Hogar), cultural advocates, and ordinary citizens alike. Because of this, a petition to stop the demolition was created. The Ritz Premiere Corporation said that they do not have plans of demolishing the El Hogar but will, instead, use it as a warehouse.   The NHCP issued a cease and desist order and attempted to purchase the iconic building.  However, negotiations were halted when NHCP and The Ritz could not agree with the price.  The building’s status is still uncertain.

Some of the building’s interesting features are its two garden courtyards and its unique mirador (balcony) where one can see the Pasig River and the southern part of Manila which includes the walled city of Intramuros, Ermita, and Malate.  El Hogar’s magnificently ornate grand staircase, considered as one of the most ornate in the city, has a sculpted mythical griffin as its base and bears Antonio’s and Margarita’s initials. However, on July 6, 2014, the magnificent and intricate grille work of the building’s grand staircase were seen being loaded to a truck belonging to a building contractor.

The value of the El Hogar Filipino Building is its architecture.  A representation of American period design, materials and construction methods, the building is a representation of the architecture of business establishments of that era. It also has a collective value as one of the significant structures within the historic Binondo district and Escolta Street, along the cultural landscape of the Pasig River.

El Hogar Filipino Building: cor. Juan Luna St. and Calle Muelle dela Industría, Binondo, Manila.

First United Building

The Art Deco  First United Building, alternatively known as the Perez–Samanillo Building, was built in 1928 and was the tallest building in Manila during its completion.  Designed by  Andrés P. Luna (the son of renowned painter Juan Luna), Juan Nakpil de Jesus was the civil engineer and Jose G. Cortes was responsible for its construction.

That same year, the building won the Best Décor Award.  The building was built for Spanish businessman Luis Perez Samanillo (related to the owners of Hotel de Oriente in Binondo, he was killed during the Spanish Civil War) at the time when Escolta was considered a financial center.

In February 1928, the Erlanger & Galinger, and Hale Shoe Company moved in to the building, followed by leather goods store Riu Hermanos. In 1936, Berg’s Department Store, Manila’s premiere department store and a main landmark in Escolta , set up shop on the building’s ground floor. In 1933, the building hosted the consulates of France (Room 329) and Panama (Room 217).

Following the aftermath of World War II, the building was left significantly damaged but was later repaired. In 1951, self-made Chinese businessman Sy Liang Teng of the Syliangten family bought Berg’s Department Store from its original American owner, Ernest Berg. It closed sometime in 1982 and Fairmart took over.  Ideal Home Houseware Center also occupied the ground floor until 2004.  In 2012, East West Bank occupies the eastern corner of the building.

Around 1964, the Perez–Samanillo Building was put on sale and, in 1968, was bought by José Cojuangco (the late Pres. Corazon C. Aquino‘s father), owner of United Bank a tenant of the building, who held the building for 11 years. In 1979, the parts of the building were acquired by Danding Cojuangco (half of the ground floor and the whole second floor) and the Syliangteng family (half of the ground floor where Berg’s was located and the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th floors). The Tanco family also bought a piece of the building from Cocobank.

In the 1970s to the 1980s, due to its proximity to the movie theaters of Avenida Rizal, the building hosted various film production studios:

•  RVQ Productions of comedian Dolphy in Room 514, from 1974 to 2008 and the smaller Room 310-B from 2008 to 2012
• Nora Villamor (NV) Productions of actress and producer Nora Aunor, in Rooms 502 and 506, from 1973 to 1985
• GC Films, associated with Rolando and Gabby Concepcion, from February 1982 to July 1984 in Room 308.
• Essex Films of Danny Zialcita occupied Room 323 from April  1984 to May 1986, Room 315 from August 1986 to December 1988 and Room 317 from September 1983 to December 1988. 
• LL Productions of Lito Lapid held office at Room 321 from February 1984 to May 1989.
• Solar Films occupied Rooms 306, 310 and 312 from March 2001 to May 2004.

The Syliangtengs made a conscious effort to maintain the building through an “adaptive reuse” approach. On May 16, 2015, the modest First United Building Community Museum was opened to reflect the colorful history of Escolta through the story of the First United Building and of patriarch Sy Lian Teng, an entrepreneur who ran Escolta’s (and Manila’s as well) premiere department store, Berg’s.

Check out “First United Building Community Museum”

Aside from being one of Manila’s finest pieces of surviving pre-World War II Art Deco architecture, the building is also a centerpiece of the Escolta Street Revival movement.  On May 26, 2016, the space once occupied by Berg’s was converted into a bazaar and exhibition space for young creative artists called Hub: Make Lab, an incubator for creative startups, artists and makers in the community. The booths feature a variety of sellers, with items ranging from notebooks to knickknacks.

Hub: Make Lab

A series of local shops for arts and vintage goods, these cluster of exhibition booths, under a hanging sculpture of Leeroy New, were designed by architect Arts Serrano.  Also found here are Folk Barbershop; Fred’s Revolucion Pub (an artist-run bar) and Den’s Coffee Shop and Contemporary Culture.

In 2017, the First Coworking Community, an open space for people looking for an environment where they can create new ideas and develop meaningful connections with other passionate creatives, was opened.  During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, their operations were disrupted but all have since resumed operations. On October 16, 2018, the building was declared as a Heritage Structure by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.

HCP plaque installed in 2018

The five-storey First United Building has a rectangular plan. The main facade of the building has a central tower, containing the graceful main entrance (with filigreed wrought iron doors) of the building below, flanked by two chamfered corner towers on both ends. Ornamental treatments of the three towers feature thin cylindrical moldings running up to the square plates and continued by beveled arches that relate to the windows at the sixth floor.

Stout finials, above the arches, flank the octagonal window. A pergola, with protruding rafters originating from the girder, connected the bevels. The central tower has a rigid arch and is capped by elongated octagons that bordered a display. Geometric patterns on the lamps of the building are dominated by boomerang-like chevrons layered with spirals and lancet arches.

The parapet on the topmost part has floral arrangement on an urn with equally distant low-relief medallions. The main entrance leads to the elevator and the stairwell. To open up the intersection, the side towers were both cut in the corners.

First United Building: 413  Escolta Street, Binondo, Manila.  Tel: (632) 7744 5148 and (632) 7241-5150. E-mail: firstunitedbuilding@gmail.com. Coordinates: 14.5987°N 120.9794°E.