EDUCATION

Ar. Emmanuel Canlas attended elementary school and high school in the
Saint James Academy and graduated in 1973. The Saint James Academy is a
Catholic School located in Malabon City. The school opened in June 1926
as Malabon Normal School under the administration of the Maryknoll Sisters. In
1936, the normal school department was moved to Manila, while the elementary and
high school remained in Malabon. Later on, the school in Malabon renamed Saint
James Academy in honour to St. James the Greater.
Ar. Emmanuel Canlas has been drawing since he was young and has always
been good in drawing. His whole younger life, he had only thought of studying fine
arts. To choose to study architecture during his period of time was a rare event and
in addition to that, architecture was never in his mind. Surprisingly, he still got into
architecture and the way he did was actually by mistake.
After finishing his early education in Saint James Academy, it was time for Ar.
Emmanuel Canlas to go to college. He went to college at the oldest university in
Asia, the University of Santo Tomas. The university was founded in 1611 by the third
Archbishop of Manila, Miguel de Benavides, together with Frs. Domingo de Nieva
and Bernardo de Santa Catalina. It is the Catholic University of the Philippines. The
school was originally to prepare young men for the priesthood. Ever since the
university was built, it was interrupted twice by the Philippine revolution against
Spain and the Japanese occupation of Manila. The university was transformed by
the Japanese military into an internment camp from 1942 and 1945. Fortunately,
those hard times were over and the school has been operating ever since its last
interruption. The institution started with only a few courses, Theology, Arts and
Philosophy.
On the day of registration, he went to the Faculty of Arts to register for his
degree in fine arts. Unfortunately, the architecture and fine arts department shared
the same building. This event was stated as 'unfortunate' as he explains that it is
because he had never wanted to do architecture but that two department was put
under the same roof. Back then, he had no idea what architecture was all about.
There were 2 open counter, one with approximately 5 people in line and another with

approximately 40 people in line. So, with the easy accessibility of the short queue, he
went and queue at the counter with less people. When he arrived at the counter, he
asked for the registration form for fine arts but he was told that he was at the counter
for architecture and that the long queue next to him was for the counter for fine arts.
As ridiculous as it sounds, because he did not want to queue at the long queue, he
proceeded and registered for architecture.
During his time, in the year 1973, it was compulsory to take an entrance exam
in order to get accepted by the university. Fortunately, he passed the exam and his
journey to being an architect started. Coincidently, his grandfather was an architect
and a lecturer in the University of Santo Tomas. When his grandfather found out
about his enrolment in architecture, he told Ar. Emmanuel Canlas that he was very
happy and gave Ar. Emmanuel Canlas a scholarship. Ar. Emmanuel Canlas is very
grateful and appreciative for his scholarship and said that it is because of the
scholarship that he is an architect today. Ar. Emmanuel Canlas' parents did not have
enough fund to afford architecture because architecture requires to buy a lot of tools
and materials which are quite costly.
In the University of Santo Tomas, architecture degree is a straight 5 years
course. During his first 3 years of architecture, it was a rather bumpy road for him
because he was too focused not to fail his semester as he was on scholarship.
Fortunately, he finally began to understand more about architecture. He began to
see his friends more often and realised the efforts his friends put in teamwork, like
how they put in cooperative and coordinated effort to work together as a team for
their assignment. He finally graduated in the year 1978. Until today, he still speaks
about the teamwork that he and his classmates experienced. Ar. Emmanuel Canlas
really enjoyed and appreciate the life as an architecture student. He enjoyed the time
spent in the architecture studio, he and his classmates sleeping over together and
spending their nights in the architecture studio. To his surprise, architecture today
still has the same atmosphere as it was 31 years ago when he was still studying.
This actually led him into being a lecturer in Taylor's University today.
After he graduated in 1978, he went to work in Locsin Partners as a
fresh graduate. Locsin Partners was one of the biggest firm in Manila. They were
commissioned to design the Istana Nurul Iman palace in Brunei which is the official

residence of the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, and the seat of the Brunei
government. Nonetheless, he was very fortunate to have this given opportunity and
said that it was because he was 'at the right place, at the right time'. He flew to
Brunei for this project and that is where he met his wife. He believes that it was faith
that has brought him into architecture.
Ar. Emmanuel Canlas had learnt a lot during his studying years in
architecture. From his many years of experiences, the one thing that he emphasised
on is the teamwork he had during his studying years. He was positively influenced by
his lecturers and his friends by getting inspired and motivated by them. As he says,
we should feel motivated not humiliated.
WONG JIA XIN 1101G13277