The same Brutalist icons, but not as you know them

It is said that Brutalist architecture asked for patience. Its language was not immediately inviting and resisted quick affection for it stands firm in raw concrete and heavy, geometric forms.

A brutalist landmark, the PNB Financial Center continues to shape the bay area skyline.  Photo from the PNB One Hundred Years of Service Commemorative Coffeetable Book

Appreciation for this style came with distance. That return happened around 2019 across cities, including in the Philippines when the culture began to look again and see intent behind the weight. Buildings that were once dismissed as severe began to draw in a new audience. Architects, designers, and the public revisited them with a fresher perspective.

Iconic properties of the Metro skyline
In Makati and Pasay, two such structures are among those that gained renewed attention: the PNB Makati Center and the PNB Financial Center, properties managed by PNB Holdings Corporation (PHC). 

From the street, both buildings read as resolute. The PNB Makati Center, designed by Filipino architect Carlos Arguelles, a key figure in modern and Brutalist architecture, holds its place along Ayala Avenue with a sense of order, set against a district in constant evolution.

On the other end, the PNB Financial Center, found nearer the bay, stretches across a wide footprint of almost 90,000 sqm. Designed by noted Filipino architect Gabriel Formoso, it carries the same material honesty, set against an open horizon.

When PHC assumed stewardship, the shift began at the threshold. They ensured not to erase time but work with it, leaning toward adaptive redevelopment. They ensured that the structure remains legible and that interventions respond well to present-day use.