| By Gina Areopagita
Huge glass boxes that shoot right up to
the sky. Totems of steel. Ah, the thoroughly apt description
for those enduring symbols of modernity: The high-rise building.
In other countries, they settle for nothing less than a skyscraper,
a behemoth of a building serving as a powerful symbol of
progress
and ambition. There is no way the field of architecture
can compromise the science and art of drawing these structures
to any flimsy, old-world technique.
Unless,
of course, you were talking to a Filipino architect who has done
buildings, hotels, and factories in China, Hong Kong, Japan and
the Philippines who likes his works to fuse the old and the new.
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Architect Enrique Gozar
dares to unite modern design and the
ancient science of Feng Shui, among other disciplines. His works
are
modern, no doubt, but drawn up taking careful consideration of Feng
Shui
tenets.
"Having traveled extensively in Asia, and having lived in Hong Kong for
several years, I have managed to employ Feng Shui in my works. I
have seen how Feng Shui works and it is a good way to ward off
bad luck
and a pleasant way of attracting good luck,' he chuckles. Architect
Gozar
designed the PS Bank Tower in 1996 with all the bad signs working
against
him, he says. He found the location particularly bad for
business.
He claims his employing Feng Shui in designing the building deterred
bad
luck. The PS Bank Tower is now one of the most successful
edifices
in the area with spaces sold at almost P90,000 /sq.m.
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"Since
the location is bad I designed the building to be like a star. A
star has eight corners and eight is a lucky number. It means
money and
prosperity. And corners are always more expensive because most
executives
prefer corner spots as offices. Having eight means more money
than
four," he explains.
He adds that when designing a building he employs other techniques like
the psychology of colors.
“It is important to know the effect of the edifice’s color because it
is a magnetic wave and it can attack different parts of the body. With
the
PSBank tower, I chose green as the color of the glass because it is
soothing
to the eyes”.
Gozar admits that he employs so many disciplines when working on a new
building. He studies carefully on each and every discipline
before
incorporating them into his designs.
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'When building, I
personally look at the geo-technical and earthquake designs. And then I
employ specialists for the glass works, curtain wall designers and
metal works to achieve maximum efficiency. Unknown to a lot of
people, some metals have a plaster effect that could lead to bad luck,
so I cheek metals used in my works to be sure,' he says.
Even without the mystical Fung Shui factor, Gozar would still have been
an impressive professional. He founded Gozar Planners (HK) Ltd.
in
Hong Kong in October 1987. Soon after he was working on a
multitude of projects like master- planning for Panyu Master Plan
Development in China, doing interior renovation and fit-out works for
the Furama-Kempinski hotel in Central China.
The firm also did various interior projects like the offices of
Thamesway Pacific of London, the Dial Corp. of USA, the La Boheme and
Kublai’s restaurants in Hong Kong, the architectural and interior
design of the Shanghai Swan hotel and Renaissance Hotel in Guilin
China'.
|
'We
pride
ourselves in the fact that we built the second largest Pepsi Bottling
Plant
in the world, located in China.
Gozar recalls how a particularly funny incident happened on his way to
setting up an office in Manila. "A very popular Fil-Chinese
tycoon was on
the lookout for the best architect in Hong Kong because he was about to
have three condominiums built in Manila. When he finally sat down with
him,
he found out I was a Filipino.”
That might have been other tycoon’s cue to hire his services. As soon
as he returned to the country, he was offered several big projects
including the Duty Free Fiesta Mall in Paranaque which he finished in
1997.
“It was built under time constraints. We were tasked to
design the whole mall in a period of 11 months. The mall is now one of
the most technologically advanced in the world using state-o-f the- art
technologies from security to payment devices,” he says beaming. |
Currently he is building
a hypermart in Cagayan de Oro which, in
essence, is supposed to be bigger than a supermall; five towers in
Valencia Quezon City; three towers in Roxas Boulevard; a Lim Ket Kai
food factory complex in Shanghai China; and the Duty Free Philippines
Site Development. He is also the project director of the 45-story GT
Tower in Makati.
“An architect is a combination of many professions. You have to be a
politician to sell, an artist to create, a sculptor to chisel, a doctor
to know how people will react to your work and a layman or a priest in
order to allow religion to be integrated in your work. It is a must for
every designer to architect a balancing effect”.
Copyright ©2004-2007
Gozar Planners +Architects
|
An Architect In
his
right element
