asianTraveler Magazine

I became a culture vulture in the early 1980’s when I saw my first artwork displayed in a museum. Since then, I have become a habitué of local art institutions.

But my love affair with the Ayala Museum came much earlier. I remember seeing galleons and the dioramas during my middle school days. I also remember regular walks by the museum in the 1980’s when I used the old Greenbelt area as a pass through. Little did I know that I would eventually be involved in the art world, and that the Ayala Museum would
be my sanctuary.

Many are not aware that from the 1970’s to the 1980’s, the area around the museum used to be an aviary. I used to visit the aviary which had a netted area housing birds of magnifi cent shapes and hues squawking and chirping. Then without any warning, it was all gone. The birds were transferred to a wildlife sanctuary in Quezon City.

The Ayala Museum was one of my favorite structures in the old Greenbelt area. The building looked like an interesting series of intersecting cubes. For me, the structure was innovative, bold and contemporary relative to its time.

Today, the museum stands proudly at the new Greenbelt area, one of the most popular shopping and dining destinations in the metro. The Lego-inspired structure gave way to an elegant 10-storey steel and glass building. A glass walkway links the museum to nearby office buildings, making it accessible by car or on foot.

It is a mere stone’s throw away from Ayala Avenue which cuts through the entire Makati Business District. From the sidewalk, a massive distorted paperclip created by National Artist Arturo Luz greets the public. A water feature that serves as a pathway for the visitors connects to a walkway that leads to the Ayala Museum and Greenbelt 4.

The Museum also houses a restaurant appropriately named M Café. Right outside the museum, a Zen-inspired garden called the Museum Plaza is home to colorful fish and lush plants. It provides an escape from the hustle and bustle of the city which surrounds it.

The foyer serves many different purposes. Often, it is the site of many cocktail parties. The Museum Plaza leads you to the pedagogical world of art and culture. From the reception area, a world of discovery begins.

The Museum’s seminal benefactor Fernando Zobel “envisioned it to house Philippine history under one roof.” More than 50 years later, the reality has exceeded Zobel’s dreams. Today, the museum’s battle cry is to “re-collect the past, to re-present the future.”

The second floor of the Ayala Museum houses the permanent exhibition of Philippine history’s highlights. Sixty dioramas showcase important events that helped shape the country’s history. I must be old, because I have actually lived through some of the exhibited scenes! Be that as it may, it is an exciting thing to tell my own version of history.

The third floor accommodates fabulous works by great Filipino artists such as Amorsolo, Luna and Zobel himself. Being a Filipino, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride when I view their great masterpieces.

The first and fourth floors of the museum are devoted to temporary exhibitions. The day I visited, “Kisame,” Filipino for ceiling, was on exhibit at the ground floor. This showcased the paintings on the ceilings of some old churches in Bohol, an island province in the Philippines.

To re-create the way the paintings were situated in the church, the blown-up pictures were placed as if they were on the church ceilings and walls. The exhibition notes, on the other hand, were placed directly opposite the pictures. I had to step on the notes in order to view the pictures.

The fourth floor had three major exhibitions. The first showcased the clothes used during the Philippines’ colonial era, the second showcased Southeast Asian pottery,
and the third was all about gold.

Visiting the Ayala Museum was like taking a joy ride on a time machine, bringing me from the present to the past and back again. This trip to the museum was more than just an educational one. It wasn’t just a chance encounter with a stranger but more like touching base with an old friend.