

IMAGE Dominic Galicia Architects Facebook

(SPOT.ph) When the National Museum of the Philippines announced in 2016 that admission is now permanently free of charge for all visitors, everyone was ecstatic. More good news comes this 2017 as the third building in the National Museum's trifecta is expected to open in the middle of the year—the National Museum of Natural History within Rizal Park near Agrifina Circle.

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IMAGE Paulo Alcazaren

Aerial view (as of January 2015)

It is right across the Museum of the Filipino People, formerly the Department of Finance building, and the National Art Gallery, formerly the Senate Building on Burgos Drive. Ana Labrador, Assistant Director at the National Museum, adds that that the trustees have approved a resolution to rename the National Art Gallery as the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of the Filipino People as the National Museum of Anthropology." This is to unify it with the name of the forthcoming National Museum of Natural History and create a better identity," she continues.

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IMAGE Dominic Galicia Architects Facebook

Tree of Life Courtyard (as of January 2017)



IMAGE Dominic Galicia Architects Facebook

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(as of April 2015)



IMAGE Paulo Alcazaren

(as of January 2015)

On their Facebook page, Dominic Galicia Architects posted construction updates of the new Museum of Natural History, formerly the Department of Tourism building. The glass dome was completed in December 2016 while the Tree of Life Courtyard beneath it is almost up and running as of January 3, 2017.

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IMAGE Dominic Galicia Architects Facebook

LEFT: Marble Hall (as of October 2014); RIGHT: Ayala Hall (as of January 2017)

Restoration of the neoclassical building, originally built by Architect Antonio Toledo as the Agriculture and Commerce building in 1939, commenced in 2013. It was the design pitch of architectural firm Dominic Galicia Architects and interior designer Periquet Galicia that won the bid after they proposed the over-arching concept of the Tree of Life metaphor.

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"It distills into one symbol mankind's primordial quest to understand his environment, a quest that was perhaps sparked by man's first act of curiosity," the firm explains through their website. The Tree of Life also looks like a double-helix DNA, the building blocks of life and the flora and fauna that will soon be showcased in the museum.

Considering that the Philippines is identified as one of the world’s biologically richest countries, it's about time we get our own National Museum of Natural History.