Furniture—also known as muebles (Spanish) and kasangkapan (from Tagalog “sangkap,” ingredients), or kagamitan (from Tagalog “gamit,” use)—are functional and decorative objects found in a dwelling or any building, public or private. Furniture serve three practical functions: as storage and display, as support for the human body, and as surface on which to lay things. Furniture also serve as decorative pieces in interiors and have prestige and ceremonial functions that vary from culture to culture and from one historical period to another.
Furniture may be made of any material, such as stone, metal, wood, vines, fiber, glass, and leather.
Furniture often relate to interior space. Certain forms of folk architecture, because they have floors of split bamboo, cannot support many and heavy objects, whereas the bahay na bato or stone house generally had a number of furniture, most of which were made of hardwood.
The Ethnic Tradition. Traditional ethnic houses are simply and functionary furnished. Daily activities are performed outdoors as residences, which have limited space, are reserved mainly for sleeping and storage.
Baskets and chests are generally for storage. Grain and food are kept in variously- shaped baskets, such as the Pangasinan bakul, the Ilocano labba or laza, and the Laguna buligan. The Tagalog tampipi or the Visayan bakag is a rectangular lidded basket which stores clothes and heirlooms. A more secure container is the baul (chest), made of wood and fastened by a lock and hinges. Wooden baul inlaid with mother-of-pearl have long been used by the Maranao and other Islamic groups, although it was probably introduced to lowland groups by the Spaniards.
Like the more affluent bahay na bato, the bahay kubo or nipa hut may also have an aparador (clothes cabinet), a banggera or built-in rack for drying utensils attached to the kitchen window, and a paminggalan or cabinet with two slatted doors for food and utensils.
The banco may be attached to a wall, like the one built into a structure of the Kankanay bauko house. The typical Kankanay house also displays different baskets for storing tools, jars, and lusong and lay-o or mortar and pestle, as well as those baskets specially designed for storing particular foodstuff, like the anggawin or round basket for edible snails.
Colorful mats and cushions; a pile of chests; and the boras, a hanging bamboo screen decorated with geometric shapes and scenes of Mecca, decorate a Tausug house. In the absence of a table, food is served on footed brass trays covered with a dome-shaped, multicolored cover of pandan leaves.
The banig (mat), although multifunctional, is most often used for sleeping. Laid on the floor at night, it is rolled and kept during the day. The papag or papagan, a bed of bamboo or wooden slats, is found in lieu of a banig in some lowland villages. The papag has no mattress; over it is placed a mat or sheets and blankets and pillows. The sleeping area within the one-room ethnic house, such as that of the Tboli, is defined, not by solid walls, but by curtains or screens.
The native term for table, mesa or lamesa, indicates a hispanic origin. However, Pedro Chirino in 1600 noted that the natives used a dulang, a table that is “small, low, and round or square in shape” which could be removed after meals. The dulang might still be found in the bahay kubo, although many have been replaced by the waist-high, Western-type table.
The Spanish Colonial Tradition. Spanish missionaries and colonizers, who first erected more permanent houses in the islands, introduced a variety of furniture. Local furniture likewise incorporated foreign artistic influences through trade; the Chinese design of ball-and-claw on the feet of tables, chests, and benches appears in many 17th-century pieces. Rococo-inspired rocaille motifs, modified and flattened, mark later 18th-century examples, like the mesa altar (altar table). In the 19th century, as trade with England and the United States increased, furniture design began to manifest the French Louis XV and the English Victorian; Neogothic and art nouveau came later in the century.
The first pieces of furniture used by the Spaniards were imported from Mexico, but by 1573 Spanish trade with China delivered houseware and furniture as goods for the galleon. A Chinese-made piece from this period is the facistol (music stand) at the San Agustin museum, a three-sided ebony piece resting on a triangular base supported by crouching sphinxes. This originated from Macao and is dated to the end of the 16th century.
Mexican merchants began to settle in Manila as the galleon trade prospered. It has been hypothesized that meeting the needs of this class required the crafting of furniture by skilled Filipino and Chinese artisans under Spanish supervision. By the early 17th century, Chinese artisans were based in centers of the craft in the coastal settlements of Cebu, Batangas, Manila, and Ilocos.
Muebles enconchados (inlaid furniture) evolved during this period, patterned after the mudejar-style furniture of Mexico but with Chinese features. These pieces, mostly oversized cabinets, were made of ebony and elaborately inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl and embellished with bronze bases, mounts, and capitals. Their feet were formed like stylized lions.
Furniture craft achieved a level of excellence during the 17th and 18th centuries. Central Luzon specialized in bone inlaying, while the Visayas produced deftly- carved narra pieces. The natives learned from the Chinese. By the 19th century, furniture makers were producing works in Peñaranda, Nueva Ecija; Baliuag, Bulacan; Paete, Laguna; and other inland towns near rivers and forests. Other centers were Bacolor, Pampanga and Malabon, Rizal (now in Metro Manila) where the colonial government founded trade schools. However, as late as 1886 the Chinese monopolized the finishing of pieces. More furniture shops opened with the rise of the middle class. In 1891 Manila had six shops, and 30 years hence Manila had 10 importers and manufacturers of furniture—27 retailers in Binondo and some in Santa Cruz, Quiapo, and Tanduay (Jamir 1975, Sta. Maria 1983). These furniture were often made of hardwood, like molave, kamagong, tindalo, narra, ipil, and palomaria.
Notwithstanding the spread of European styles, two distinct regional styles emerged in Luzon, called the “Batangas style” and the “Baliuag style.”
The Batangas style of Taal and Lipa appeared in the 17th century. Predominantly Chinese in influence, such pieces favored purple and golden-brown tindalo or rosewood, the joints of which were bound by bamboo dowels and thin wedges instead of glue and nails. Early Batangas furniture were simple, graceful, and dignified. Flat or shallow carvings enhanced rather than obtruded.
Baliuag furniture came from a town in Bulacan with the same name. Baliuag furniture, most often made of narra, is identified by the use of bone inlay and caning for bed frames and the seats and backs of chairs. These pieces are sturdy although apparently fragile. Bamboo dowels hold mortise-and-tenon joints for durability.
The Philippines was also receptive to fashionable European styles in the 19th century. Thus styles like the Louis XV revival, the Louis XVI revival, the renaissance revival, and the Early Victorian persist to the present. The style locally called Luis Quince barely reflects French Louis XV furniture. The former have “turned upright supports and a motif of bunch flowers with featherlike scroll” (Fernando and Ricio 1978). The original Louis XV are curvilinear; combine red, green, and yellow with black trimming; feature floral, scallop, and pastoral motifs; and use inlays and veneers of metal and marble. However, both styles have identical cabriole legs, the pied de bouche or doe’s foot, a design probably based on the Chinese “dragon’s foot which was first seen in Europe by European courts on Chinese imports brought in by Dutch traders” (Sta. Maria 1983). Another period style, Carlos Trece, is of uncertain origin; the prototype may have been named after Spain’s Carlos III, who reigned from 1759 to 1788. Chairs and sofas have high backs of woven cane “framed by twisted columns with pointed finials and honeysuckle crest. While the front legs are turned, those behind are squarish” (Sta. Maria 1983). Later in the century, Philippine furniture also caught up with the revivalist trend, incorporating gothic ornamentation.
Nineteenth-century houses became storehouses of a family’s accumulated treasures, typical of Isabelina or later Victorian homes. The period was characterized by the bed, the cabinet, the dining table, and the long seat. Eduardo Ah Tay, a Binondo Chinese, was a renowned Misericordia Street furniture maker of the time.
Art nouveau (German, jugendstil), in vogue from 1890 to 1910, presented an alternative to staid classicism and overstuffed Victoriana. Many local artisans were inspired by this return to natural forms, particularly to native plants, like sampaguita, ilang-ilang, bamboo, anahaw, and even ampalaya. The Tampincos, a family of sculptors with an atelier in Quiapo, Manila, were commissioned to do architectural details and furnishings, like valances and frames. Isabelo Tampinco localized art nouveau in wood carving, employing areca and anahaw leaves among other native elements. The painter Emilio Alvero is credited for initiating the complete decorated look, binding architectural details with furniture design.
Storage. The church and its adjoining convento were prominent structures in the Spanish colonial era. Emulating Spanish lifestyles thus entailed copying the furniture in churches, conventos, and also Spanish houses.
Some innovations were done on the pre-Spanish baul. These may have reproduced in carving the patterns of the tooled Cordovan leather which covered chests brought by the galleons. More common today is the household chest, which in northern Luzon is called the “Vigan chest.” “Simple and utilitarian, they are dovetailed and designed to sit on the floor. The baul’s sole concession to decoration is the tonguelike drop called chapa, in one, two or three parts; it is sometimes incised with foliate patterns reminiscent of Chinese or Indian brasswork. Two of four metal disks in parallel rows run up and down the front… Home-forged iron bales serve as handles; in addition versions sport twin drawers with rustic wooden pulls.” While the Batangas baul sits “on a separate hollow base with cutouts of Chinese clouds,” the Baliuag chest is European in tone (Sta. Maria 1983).
The aparador was a large cabinet with one, two, sometimes three doors. Church sacristies stored various utensils and silver ornaments in huge aparadores. Residences, usually bedrooms, had smaller aparadores. In the 1880s aparador meant either an aparador ropero (cloth cabinet), later shortened to aparador, or an aparador platero (showcase). Early aparadores were at least 3.048 meters tall and could be from 1.82 to 3.048 meters wide. As these did not provide for hangers, clothes were folded inside drawers. When fortunes grew in the 19th century, aparadores began to have a large mirror on their doors and elaborate carvings on the crown. Pieces from Hong Kong outfitted with mirrors, and later, cheaper American types were imported in large number in the early 20th century. The dirty-clothes hamper, simply called ropero, had a wooden framework with woven rattan sidings. On one side, it had a door to ease emptying of contents. A family’s porcelain and silver tableware were displayed in a platero or platera, a cabinet with open shelves made of hardwood and glass. Across the dining hall stood the vajillera in which porcelain and glassware were kept. Some homes had a third cabinet, the cristaleria, for glassware.
Books and curios where placed in a cabinet with layers of open shelves, called the estante. An aparador de libros (bookcase) also kept books. Many conventos had a special aparador de libros which held parish records. Some are marked with “Archivo de” followed by the town’s name. To secure them during earthquakes, they were fastened with ringholds embedded in the wall. The vitrina was a smaller and lighter variation of the estante. As its name suggests, it was an open shelf enclosed in glass. While books were earlier kept in massive built-in shelves, by the 17th century the detached bookcase was built as books became smaller. The comoda was an upright chest, with two or more drawers, for table linens and small articles. In church sacristies long and bulky cajonerias stored altar clothes and priest’s vestments. The upper surfaces of these, wide and polished, were used by the priest as he laid out his chasuble and other accessories in preparation for mass.
An altar for household santos was found in almost every home. Mesa altar, now the popular but inaccurate term for this piece, is a cross between a table and a comoda. It usually has two to three drawers standing on four legs reinforced by a stretcher. Some have long, slender drawers for storing candles. Early Batangas pieces, like the tables found in Chinese temples, had cabriole legs and wide flanges with the cutout wave profile of the Ming altar table. Early types had one drawer with thin brass pulls, but the more common later pieces had three drawers.
In the bedroom was the painadora, a dresser or chest with drawers and a surmounting mirror. The more elaborate tremor had three full-length mirrors, two of which could be adjusted to allow a view of the user from three angles. The almario (from Spanish “almario,” arms), originally a cabinet for weapons in Spain, in the Philippines refers to a tall, slim, fourposted bedroom piece which stored pillows, mosquito nets, rolled-up mats, and other beddings. Inspired by the Chinese open cupboard, the Batangas style almario consisted of “four square vertical pieces topped by flat rails with projecting ends, and a cupboard at the bottom. The front and side of the cupboard were made up of scrolled vertical slats and a solid back. The cupboard front had a sliding door of solid wood or scrolled back. There were no shelves in the upper part of the structure. The pillows were simply piled on top of the other.” (Jamir 1978).
At the entrances to living rooms were hat and cane racks, often with mirrors. Called bastoneros, many such stands came from England. Among the local variations were plain, three-legged pieces and fancy art nouveau types with glass- knob hangers and mirrors. Later, deer-antler pieces and accordion-type hat racks, both hung on walls, came into use. All these hat racks served to display a gentleman’s array of hats, canes, and umbrellas.
Furniture for supporting the human body include chairs, benches, sofas and beds. Although chairs were part of the Chinese household, chairs in all their variety arrived with the Spaniards and not with the Chinese with whom the Filipinos traded for centuries. Seventeenth and 18th-century chairs were boxlike and patterned after the wainscot chair, with a wooden back panel.
Chairs were also an integral part of the church, being both practical and symbolic. The silla episcopal (bishop’s chair) was heavy and intricately carved. These used solihiya (woven rattan) or could have been richly upholstered in velvet. Several were placed by the main altar for the priests and his assistants.
The tropical butaca or sillon (planter’s chair) had a reclining back and long wide arms. The frailero, also silla frailura or silyang prayle (friar’s seat), is so named because it was supposed to be wide enough to accommodate a portly friar. The term comes from Spain itself, indicating how popular the cliché of fattened clerics was. The silla perezosa (lazy chair) had overextended flat arms on which one’s legs could rest during a nap. Perezosas had rockers, such as those enjoyed by British traders of the early 1800s. The seats and backs of these chairs were of solihiya to allow free circulation of air.
Although mercedoras or tumba-tumba (rocking chairs) appeared before 1898 (bentwood pieces were imported from Austria in the late 19th century), it was the Americans who popularized them. Most vintage rocking chairs date to the 1930s and were manufactured in Binondo.
Guests or tenants sat on bancos or kapiyas (benches) on the ground floor of a house while waiting to be summoned upstairs. The kapiya (probably from Spanish capilla, chapel) has its origin in the church pew. Pews were not commonly used in church; the congregation knelt or stood, according to the liturgy. Only prominent parishioners sat on the long benches along the middle of the nave, which could be plain or carved. The Santo Niño Basilica in Cebu has carved pews emblazoned with the Hapsburg eagle, while the Baclayon Church in Bohol has a pew decorated with genre scenes.
The gallinera was so named because the slatted bottom half was designed to cage roosters, while their owners transacted business with the residents of the house. The 19th-century directoire type of chair came with or without arms, and had turned and reeded front legs terminating in boots and square back legs; two horizontal stretchers formed the backrest. Many late 19th-century salas had a sofa, popularly known as the mariposa, which was derived from the Victorian horsehair sofa and named after its butterfly-shaped back. Like chairs, beds were an innovation in the Filipino lifestyle. Beds were often of the four-poster variety, which was convenient for hanging mosquito nets. Their sleeping surfaces were of solihiya to provide coolness and comfort.
The nuptial bed was customarily the first furniture piece owned by newly wedded couples. Some Ilocos beds dating to the 1800s were crowned with leaves and flowers, their supporting posts braided or reeded. Characteristic of the Ilocos beds is the symmetry between the head and foot board. Central Luzon beds had magnificent headboards carved from slats of narra or kamagong and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Many turn-of-the-century beds carried the couples’ monogram, which was also carried onto a child’s first bed.
The more popular four-posters in the late 19th century were done by Ah Tay, who blended European design and tropical flora. The headboard might use an ogee arch, while stylized pineapples served as tester corners and halved squashes served as bed supports prompting the name “kalabasa” (squash) bed.
Brass beds were modish but not too popular because they had to be constantly polished. Beds were usually plain with knobs or finials on top of the bed posts. Iron bed steads were also common. They were sturdy and could be easily stored. The bed posts, 1.82- 2.13 meters long, were usually topped with brass finials.
The traditional dulang around which Filipinos squatted during meals gradually gave way, especially among the upper class, to the higher mesa with matching chairs adopted from the Spaniards. Large families required long wooden tables which could seat up to 36 people. Not all tabletops were made of a single slab of narra, tindalo, or molave. To enlarge the tabletop, a slab was framed by thick boards 15.24-30.48 meters wide; hence the name binandeja (traylike) in Laguna, Batangas, and Tayabas in Quezon. Some tables were inlaid at the center or edges; legs and stretchers could be carved or turned. To accommodate many guests during a fiesta or other large gatherings, some dining tables had drop leaves that could be raised to increase the table’s surface area. Additional space was also provided by identical tables that could be put up end to end; or rectangular, polygonal, or half-moon side tables that could be joined to the end of the dining table.
Vestibules, living rooms, and bedrooms had consolas (side tables) and mesitas (center tables). From the 1860s marble-topped tables were made by the same shops that specialized in tombstones and other sculpture. Molding and grooves along the perimeter gave shadows to the wide expanse of white. Although local marble quarries were known, the Rodoreda family, marble workers for government buildings, used imported marble from Japan, Europe, and America.
Writing paraphernalia were stored inside escritorios (desks) and office tables, the tops of which could be folded or rolled up. Most desks were locally made although a number were imported from Hong Kong, Europe, and the United States. Lighter in appearance was the “friar’s desk.” This had a drawer on each end of the table, a hinged slanting lid that could be raised, and cabriole legs. In the bedroom, porcelain wash basins were set on wood or marble lavaderas. The costureros (sewing tables) used for hand-operated and treadle machines were also found in bedrooms.
In 1851 Michael Thonet exhibited his cane and steam-bent wooden furniture, popularly called Vienna furniture, at the Crystal Palace exhibition in London. Supplanting heavy Victorian furniture, Thonet furniture had sleek silhouettes where every line had a structural purpose. Dismantable and mass produced, its wooden parts could be shipped, then assembled upon reaching their markets. Imported bentwood tables, chairs, hat racks, and baby strollers graced Philippine houses, offices, schools, and even clubs like Club Filipino.
After 1914, bentwood ceased to be manufactured in Europe and production stopped altogether. Entrepreneurs from San Miguel, Bulacan met orders from Guam, Hawaii, and the United States. Instead of beech, they used rattan bent in several ways—by steaming, holding over a benzoline or kerosene lamp, or immersing in boiling water for half an hour. Rattan furniture, locally known as batibot, came in both Viennese-bentwood design and Victorian-wicker design. Black nito was also used to accentuate lightcolored rattan.
The American Colonial and Contemporary Traditions. Mass production and urban overpopulation was a result of 20th-century industrialization. The crowding of population centers altered the Filipino concept of domestic space. Furniture became smaller to fit accessorias (rowhouses). Art deco-inspired assembly-line furniture sets for the bedroom, living room, and dining room were in demand.
Iron bedsteads from the United States and brass beds from Singapore competed with handcrafted wooden beds and eased them out of competition. The Cosmopolitan Company in Escolta, founded by E.M. Bachrack in 1902, imported iron beds which were sold on easy installment plans. Parson’s Hardware, on the other hand, imported beds from Singapore. Only in 1910 were iron beds with cane bottoms manufactured in Binondo.
During this era, Philippine batibot chairs met stiff competition from bamboo chairs manufactured in the Wanchai district of Hong Kong. However, by 1938 Filipinos had control over the local rattan furniture business. Leading rattan furniture manufacturers were L. Provedora Incorporated, Gonzalo Puyat and Sons Incorporated, Matibay Rattan Arts and Decoration Incorporated, State Rattan, Quiroga Bed Factory, Rattan Adjustable Furniture, Rattan Products Manufacturing Company, Nazareno’s Rattan Craft, and Tuason and Sampedro Incorporated.
In the first quarter of the 20th century, many porches and gardens had wicker chairs and tables, the rounded edges of which typified the Edwardian period.
Prosperous families and businesses employed architects, such as the Arellanos, Juan Nakpil, Pablo Antonio, and Tomas Mapua to design interiors. Quality pieces were manufactured by the Ortoll furniture atelier before World War II. The master carver Nuguid, formerly employed by Ortoll, later opened his own shop and developed the baroque-revival style known as “Betis baroque.”
In the relative peace of the immediate postwar era, new forms were erected in the urban landscape. There were three distinct metropolitan building types: the bungalow, the split-level house, and the rowhouse or apartment. Given low perspective, furniture emphasized comfort and utility. Instead of developing a unique Philippine style, foreign models were copied. The preference was for simple, straight-forward construction in the lines of Oriental and Scandinavian furniture. The Scandinavian style, also known as Swedish Moderne or Danish design, focused on glossy sculptural wooden forms achieved with a high level of integrity and refinement. Oriental styles became popular in the 1950s. Oliveros (1992) notes: “The clean, molded construction of Chinese furniture of the Ming period, particularly the yoke, horseshoe, and spine-hugging central slatted chairs, and low kang tables were copied. Japanese tansu chests were the basis for the simple lines of mass manufactured chests of drawers and storage cabinets still being done today” (Oliveros 1992).
In 1953, Aguinaldo’s Department Store on Echague Street, Manila opened a Decor Arts department that displayed original furniture from Europe and the United States. The owner Francisco Aguinaldo hoped that local versions of these pieces could be made to reach a wider audience. Thus, to improve the furniture department, young interior designers were hired, among them, Ched (Mercedes) Berenguer-Topacio, Wili (Guillermo) Fernandez, Lor Calma, and Edgar Ramirez. The 1950s saw the emergence of a distinct “contemporary look” based on function and innovativeness of design.
Furniture design also developed with the establishment of professional interior design. Colleges and universities began to offer courses and degrees in interior design. Practitioners of the field included designers of different generations— Ernest Korneld, Arturo de Santos, Rosario Luz, Phyllis Harvey, Pedrito Legaspi, Eddie del Rosario, and Ronnie Laing. The profession was institutionalized in 1963, with the founding of the Philippine Institute of Interior Design. Two years later the Cancios and Edith Oliveros established the Philippine School of Interior Design.
From the mid-1950s to the 1960s, corporate architecture promoted the contemporary look expressed in glass, steel, and leather. Furniture of this period was “inspired by the work of Mies van Rohe, in particular, his Barcelona chair, Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia and others” (Oliveros 1992). The look was interpreted in the Philippines by Cancio-Calma and by designers from the Aguinaldo team that had ventured out on their own. Old furniture houses like Puyat and Baluyot, continued to make custom pieces. Arte Español was known for wrought iron; Rattan Art, for rattan and wicker; Jaime Ortol and Pilar Zaragosa, for Spanish-influenced styles; Florentino’s, for Chinese styles; Joaquin Imperial, for French-inspired style; and Nicfur, for less expensive pieces of modem furniture.
In the nationalistic spirit of the late 1950s and early 1960s, affluent collectors, like Luis Araneta and Arturo de Santos, turned to Filipino objects. Pioneer decorator Rosario Luz brought into vogue the “new ilustrado” look, combining Filipino antiques with contemporary furniture. Folk art also began to be used, such as moriones masks, pastillas or milk-candy wrappers, and taka (papier maché). The trend toward reviving native artistic traditions was strengthened by the research of Fernando Zobel, Benito Legarda, Dominador Castañeda, Alfredo Roces, Alejandro Roces, and Gilda Cordero-Fernando. Today, this trend continues in the antique-style gallinera, kapiya, cama, tocador, butaca, aparador, platera, mesa and silla, mesa altar, and others.
In the 1980s the postmodern style of architecture led some young designers to create furniture in this style. Two of these are Eric Diaz and Joaquin Palencia. Budyi Layug has also done daring designs for bamboo furniture.
Although furniture were exported as early as the Spanish period, they became an important item for export especially in the 1980s and the 1990s. Furniture in rattan, bamboo, hardwood, leather, stone, and other locally available materials have been made following contemporary designs of noted interior designers.
• R. Javellana/R.T. Jose/R. Villegas/M.P. Consing.
References
Fernando, Gilda Cordero and Nick Ricio. Turn of the Century. Quezon City: Vera
Reyes, 1978.
Jamir, Milagros. “Of Chairs and Chicken Coops.” In Archipelago. Part I, Vol. II,
No. 19 (July 1975), 39-40; Part II, Vol. II, No. 20 (August 1975), 40-42;
Part III, Vol. II, No. 23 (August 1975), 43-46.
Oliveros, Edith. “Manila Moderne: Furniture of the 50’s and the 60’s.” In
Design and Architecture (1992), 26-27.
Sta. Maria, Felice. Household Heirlooms and Antiques. Manila: GCF
Books, 1983.
Tinio Jr., Martin I. “The Inside Story.” In Turn of the Century. Manila:
GCF Books, 1978.
Villegas, Ramon. “Designing for the Next Decade.” In Design and
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