WHAT THE HELL?
To all management and board of directors of Insular Life Philippines:
To all management and board of directors of Insular Life Philippines:
You idiots. What in heavens name have you done to your former main office? Why the hell couldn't you leave good enough alone? It was only a year ago that your Makati ex-headquarters, a brilliant modernist masterwork by Architect Cesar Concio, stood proudly at the corner of Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas. It's brise-soleil facade and sculptural canopy was a symbol of the dynamism of Makati's rapid growth in the 1960's; it's space-age demeanor an icon of the zeitgeist. Sadly, from being an expression of the optimism which reigned when the Philippines was the most economically and socially progressive country in Asia; it has become as bland and cheezy as any of the other McBuildings infecting the skyline of today's Makati. Concio's formerly graceful curves and diamond detailing are now slathered over with sheeny aluminum imported on the cheap from China as the neon logo of fastfood behemoth Jollibee ironically greets you at the entryway. For an institution that claims to be sensitive to culture and the arts, this comes as a coup de grace for some pretty horrific past aesthetic blunders done by Insular Life. And if nobody has told you which blunders these are, then allow me to enumerate them for you now. One. Your new headquarters in Alabang is not only boring, it's ugly. Two. The nasty Impy Pilapil sculptures scattered around your Alabang lobby are cornier than a painting of dogs playing pool. Three. You put the Napoleon Abueva frieze (the one you transferred from the Makati headquarters) on the wrong side of your new building. And Four. The aforementioned renovation. Conclusion: YOUR ART CURATOR SUCKS. FIRE HIM/HER. Gosh. You think you guys might have learned something when everybody bitched about what a terrible renovation you did at the original Insular Life Building on Plaza Cervantes back in the 1980's. So really, if you can't stop yourself from being cultural neanderthals, then stop claiming to know anything about art at all.
Tsk tsk. Morons. I'd kick your asses myself if I had the chance.
