Ivatan Heritage Architecture: A Survey of Different House Types and Their Evolution

  • Jose F. Ignacio College of Architecture University of the Philippines Diliman
  • Roland Miguel Alejandro

Abstract

The typical representation of an Ivatan house (heritage house of Batanes) is a house made of stone, lime, wood and thatch roof made of cogon, a structure resembling houses found in European hinterlands.  It clearly depicts the effects of harsh climatic conditions on the islands and the efforts of the Ivatans to adapt to a rigorous tropical environment.  It tells a story of how the indigenous communities built compact and sturdy houses for protection against ravaging typhoons and the cold Siberian winds.

Unknown to most, however, is that this stone house is a product of an evolutionary process dating back to pre-Hispanic times.  It is not an accurate assumption to say that the lime-stone-wood-and-thatch house is the sole representation of an Ivatan dwelling.  Although the lime-stone-wood-and-thatch house has withstood the test of time, the fact remains that there are several other house types that have endured to this day most of which are made of wood-and-thatch.

This paper presents a survey of the “extant” Ivatan house types and morphologies that have evolved over a long period of time. An architectural timeline is presented as an attachment to this paper to establish the evolutionary process of the Ivatan heritage house (see Table 1). This paper does not include a description of non-existent pre-colonial heritage architecture in Batanes.

Author Biographies

Jose F. Ignacio, College of Architecture University of the Philippines Diliman
Jose F. Ignacio is an architect, visual artist and a senior lecturer at the University of the Philippines College of Architecture where he finished his BS Architecture degree. He specializes in tropical design which he mastered at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom and Heritage Architecture through training programmes taken at Lund University in Sweden. He is currently the assistant laboratory head of the UPCA Environmental Architecture Laboratory.
Roland Miguel Alejandro
Roland Miguel Alejandrino took his Bachelor of Science in Architecture degree at the University of the Philippines. He was involved with the production of the Ivatan House Manual (IHP-1) and assisted the Batanes province in its bid to be encrypted to the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage and Natural Sites.
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