Go (coco)nuts! Share this story with your friends.
How nice, right? This stage, about 40 feet tall and 30 x 12 meters wide, was designed by the 44-strong Archion Architects, an architecture firm commissioned by the archdiocese of Palo, Leyte.
“We donated our services to the archdiocese of Palo,” says Dan Lichauco, partner in charge of the project, who clarified it was not the local or the national government that approached them. DPWH is paying for the stage rental, he adds.
He tells Coconuts Manila over Facebook that the stage is “made with an apex to mimic a bahay kubo. We wanted to show the strong Filipino character without being over-decorated.”
The stage riggings wraps — which is a system of lines that allows crew to manipulate things like lights — are made with sawali, or split bamboo mats that we know from nipa huts.
The sawali will be purchased in Tacloban, which is pretty much the only thing that will be purchased in this whole endeavor. The rest will be rented to minimize the cost. “Local materials and labor will be used to build the stage,” Lichauco says.
Aside from the main stage, there will be a choir stage to fit 250 persons and half an orchestra. Meanwhile, Nicholas De Laange of Designs Ligna will be doing the main altar and the papal chairs.
He says his firm has been working on this project since July 2014, with Archion Architects, the Archdiocese and the Vatican sending the stage designs back and forth “until this one got approved. We took into consideration all the requests from the parish, the security team, and the Vatican.”
The Pope will be in Tacloban on Sat, Jan 17, but stage preparations will be underway as early as 10 days prior. “It will leave Manila on Jan 7 and should be set-up by the 14th if all goes well,” informs Lichauco.
Archion Architects is also responsible for the papal stage in Palo, but unlike the one in Tacloban, the structure there is permanent.
Photo: Dan Lichauco (Facebook)
Reader Interactions