Se-tenant Pairs (35,000)
7p Post Office Main
Building
20p With
portrait of Architect Juan Marcos de Guzman Arellano
Miniature Sheets
of 10 (7,000)
Designer: Corazon T. Loza
Design Coordinator: Dr. Ngo Tiong Tak
Graphic Designer: Edward Gaspay
First Day Covers: Manila
THE PHILIPPINE POSTAL SERVICE
The Manila Central Post Office located at Liwasang Bonifacio, is a
Neo-Classical style building designed by Architect Juan Marcos de
Guzman Arellano in 1926. It was destroyed during World War II and
rebuilt in 1946, after the war.
Juan Marcos de Guzman Arellano is known for
his neo-classical architectural creations and modern realism style
in painting. He was one of the 14 children of the prominent Arellano
family of Tondo, Manila. He attended the Ateneo Municipal and
graduated in 1908. He took up special courses in drawing and
painting under Lorenzo Guerrero, Toribio Antillon, and Fabian de la
Rosa.
He attended the Philadelphia Academy
of Fine Arts in 1911 and moved on to Drexel Institute to finish a
bachelor's degree in architecture the following year. He also took
lessons at the Beaux Art School in New York. He worked for George
Post and Sons in New York and also said to have worked for Frederick
Olmsted Jr.
On his return to the Philippines, he partnered with his architect
elder brother Arcadio Arellano, between 1913 and 1916. They worked
on projects such as the Gota de Leche building in Sampaloc, Manila
and the old Casino Espanol on Taft Avenue, Manila. Later, he joined
the Bureau of Public Works when the last American consulting
architects George Fenhagen and Ralph H. Doanne were leaving. From
1916 to 1935, Arellano engaged in projects that have defined the
American colonial and Philippine commonwealth periods. He designed
the Legislative building (now National Museum building), the Post
Office Main building and the original Jones Bridge.
In 1930 he designed the Metropolitan Theater while working as
consulting architect in BPW. He also served as director and manager
of Capitol City Planning Commission and director of the National
Planning Commission until 1954.
As he retired in 1956 at age 58, he went back to his first love -
painting. Considered by some as the first modernist, even before
Victorino Edades and Diosdado Lorenzo. He was also a painter with a
marked influence of the post-impressionists, particularly Gaugin and
Goya. He had painted some 300 works since 1911.