When the Philippines started embracing American culture after gaining independence from Spain, it was also enamoured by the art deco architecture popular then in the rest of the design world. The style flourished in 1920s Manila, which was beginning to thrive as a major metropolis in Asia. This period saw the rise of art deco structures such as the Metropolitan Theater, the neoclassical Jones Bridge and the ostentatious European-designed mansions in the Magdalena estate (now known as New Manila). This went on until the onset of the Second World War.
It was a different world, marked with glitz and glamour, as designers across disciplines going the extra mile to inspire innovation and make a bold statement.
This rising sensibility propelled the late Don Generoso Villanueva to bring a taste of modernity to Bacolod. As the city in the heart of Negros Occidental began to flourish from its famed , sugar barons like him built mansions that would stand the
