It’s no secret that Baguio City has a thriving creative culture — named as a UNESCO Creative City in 2017, the northern city is home to a vibrant community of artists and artisans, amidst a rich cultural heritage of folk and contemporary art.
As Baguio continues to find ways to support the economic growth of its creative sector, the city council has apparently proposed turning the old Diplomat Hotel atop Dominican Hill into a creative hub — and plans for its conservation are underway.
As an artist’s hub, the Diplomat is envisioned to include a 90-seater auditorium, a lobby, galleries, workshops, artists’ studios, a library, cafe, and a rooftop viewing deck, according to ARCH LICO, a research-oriented design consultancy firm headed by Architect Gerard Lico that specializes in landmark and heritage conservation.
We know what you’re thinking: the Diplomat Hotel? Isn’t that haunted?
True, the local government will have its hands full in not just shedding off the hotel’s eerie image, but in rehabilitating the hotel — a historical landmark in its own right — and ensuring its structural and aesthetic integrity. Yet in reimagining the hotel as an artist’s hub, one architectural firm wants the Diplomat to embrace its otherworldly character.
“Owing to its history, the Diplomat Hotel, once known as the Dominican Retreat House carries a spiritual quality that is inseparable from the collective memory of the people. Its place in the popular imagination is that of mystical faded beauty, a romantically aged ruin”, the firm wrote.
ARCH LICO added, “Thus, it is sensible to retain and enhance this essential spiritual character, as well as, the ghost stories and urban legend in the process of adaptive reuse as an Artists Hub, thus, avoiding alienating the people who have grown to love the place.
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