The market known as the Parian de San Jose once stood on this site from 1783-1860. Established by Governor-General Jose Basco, 1738; then demolished, 1860.
This site was then occupied by the Escuela Municipal de Niñas from 1892-1899. It was renamed as the Manila Grammar School and American High School, 1899-1905, then as the Manila High School, 1906.
An undated US Colonial Era postcard featuring the Manila High School. Photo from the Carlos P. Romulo Foundation.
It was renamed again as the Manila South High School in 1921; then as the Araullo High School, 1930.
It was destroyed during the Second World War. The name reverted to Manila High School in 1958.
The school was established by the friars of the Order of the Preachers as the Colegio de Santo Tomas de Nuestra Señora de Santissimo Rosario in 1611.
In 1645, It was raised to the status of a university by Pope Innocent X.
The university was graced with the following titles: “Royal” by King Charles III of Spain, 1785; “Pontifical” by Pope Leo XIII, 1902; and “Catholic University of the Philippines”by Pope Pius XII, 1947.
The library of the University of Santo Tomas in 1887. The library was first mentioned in 1605 in the will of Archbishop Miguel de Benavides, the acknowledged founder of the university. Photo from the Biblioteca Nacional de Espana.
It was destroyed during the Second World War. It moved out of Intramuros in 1945 to Sampaloc, Manila, where its present campus now stands.
The office building that occupies the site was constructed in the 1960s.
The Beaterio de la Compaña de Jesus was established by the Venerable Mother Ignacia del Espiritu Santo in 1678. No less than the Archbishop of Manila approved the rules of the order in 1732.
It was granted royal recognition in 1755 and canonically approved by the Holy See in 1931. Destroyed during the Second World War, the beaterio was reconstructed as the Bagumbayan Light and Sounds Museum in 2003.
The Ateneo Municipal, which once stood on this site, was established as the Escuela Pia in 1816.
It was taken over by the Spanish colonial government and renamed as the Escuela Municipal in 1830.
When it was turned over to the Society of Jesus in 1859, it was renamed Ateneo Municipal. It became the Ateneo de Manila in 1901 and underwent renovation in 1920 with ornamentation done by Isabelo Tampingco.
The main entrance of the Ateneo in Intramuros, undated photograph. The school was notable for its instruction in the arts and sciences. Photo from Laya, Jaime, et. al. (1981). Intramuros of Memory. Manila: Intramuros Administration
The school was destroyed by fire in 1932, and the main campus was moved to Padre Faura St. in Manila. The original campus reopened on the site as an elementary school in 1941 but was destroyed during World War II. Main campus and elementary school moved to its present site at Loyola Heights in Quezon City a decade later.
The Asuncion de Manila is one of the oldest superior normal schools for women in the Philippines. It was established and entrusted to the nuns of the Religious of the Assumption by Royal Decree of Maria Cristina, Queen-Regent of Spain, in 1893. Asuncion moved out of Intramuros in 1895.
The Church of Santo Domingo was possibly the most popular of eight that existed in pre-war Intramuros, according to the book La Casa de Dios principally authored by historian Fr. Rene B. Javellana.
This was because it housed La Naval, an image of the Virgin of the Rosary linked to a naval victory over the Dutch in 1646.
Every October, the church dedicated to St. Dominic of Guzman by the Order of the Preachers celebrated La Naval’s feast day with a procession that drew huge crowds of people. The event was even immortalized in literature by Nick Joaquin.
The structure erected in the mid-19th century was put up to replace a fourth one levelled by the strong earthquake of 1863. When this was destroyed by incendiary bombs on Dec. 27, 1941 during a Japanese raid of Manila, it wasn’t reconstructed.
La Casa de Dios described the Church of Santo Domingo as Neo-Gothic, prominently featuring two square towers on its facade and a quadrilateral tower over the main altar.
Portals and windows topped by Ogive arches decorated the structure’s front exterior portion.
“The interior had an air of gracious spaciousness, with groin vaulting and pillars set apart. The choir had a bronze railing of Philippine manufacture. The pulpit was artistically carved from native wood,” wrote Benito J. Legarda Jr. in a piece about the Intramuros churches in La Casa de Dios.
He added that La Naval was kept in a side chapel with other church treasures, including a gallery of tracery work, medallions representing the sacred mysteries of the rosary, an artistic altar, and a massive ornate silver tabernacle.
The image was saved during the bombing that destroyed the church and is now housed in the new Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City.
This modern office building on the site where the Church of Sto. Domingo once stood was constructed in the 1960s.
The Church of San Nicolas that used to stand on this site was built through the efforts of the Augustinian Recollects.
It was the third and last church erected in the area under the patronage of St. Nicholas of Tolentine.
Japanese forces burned the structure in February 1945 during the occupation of Manila and killed the Recollect priests.
The St. Nicholas Church was described in La Casa de Dios, a book published by the Ortigas Foundation which had Fr. Rene Javellana as principal author, as having engaged Doric columns on its facade.
Below is a longer description of the church in La Casa de Dios.
Each side of the main door had a niche that hosts an image while three windows decorate the upper part of the front exterior. The pediment had a window flanked by octagonal designs.
The main altar featured a niche that carried an image of Jesus the Nazarene. A lot of paintings were displayed on the interior walls and even in the cloister. Rather than stone, the stairway had carved wooden supports.
The bell tower with its engaged pilasters and viewing balconies on the fourth and fifth levels was most striking. Although the nave and cloister walls still stood after it was burned down by the Japanese during the war, the Church of San Nicolas was not rebuilt.
The site was cleared of the remaining ruins in 1959 and acquired in 1976 by the Bulletin Publishing Corporation, which put up a modern office building a year after.
Casa Manila looks like a typical mansion of the upper class in colonial 19th century Philippines. It was built from 1981 to 1983 following the design of a house that once stood along Jaboneros St. in the Chinese district of Binondo in the 1850s.
The ground floor walls of such houses were made of adobe or volcanic tuff, which was the main building material from the late 16th to 19th century. It’s the same substance that makes up the walls of Intramuros. Second levels extended over the ground floors and served as living quarters. Its design made it resilient against earthquakes.
In 19th century Binondo, residents lived in the second level of their house and turned the first floor into shops. So it is with Casa Manila, which now serves as a memorial of what was once a way of life in the Philippines under Spanish rule.
The Casa Manila interior with its painted walls, carved traceries, crystal chandeliers, Chinese ceramics, and gilded furniture depicts the opulence of the Spanish era. It is furnished with local and imported antique pieces from the Intramuros Administration Museum Collection.
Casa Manila forms part of the Plaza San Luis Complex, a neighborhood made up of nine period houses constructed in the 1980s. They feature the various architectural styles of homes in colonial Philippines.
Postern used as access from Fort Santiago to the Pasig River. Lieutenant Governor Simon de Anda, leader of Spanish resistance against the British occupation of Manila (1762-1768) during the Seven Years War, escaped through this postern after a siege of Intramuros by the British Army.
