Encircled

The lovely landscaped gardens and fountains of Greenbelt Park at the center of several malls which are, in turn, surrounded by the high-rise commercial and condominium buildings of the Makati Central Business District. The only building I recognize in this cluster is the tallest one on the right: the BSA Tower, a condotel.

Natural or man-made, take a refreshing dip in Watery Wednesday.

A lesson in perspective

Two more luxury residential condominium towers in Rockwell Center, and the last of the series for now. On the left is Hidalgo Place, which is across the Ateneo Professional Schools. On the right is the Rizal Tower. This photo is deceiving in two ways. One, Hidalgo Place is a long, rectangular building and this is only its narrow end. Two, Rizal Tower is much farther than it looks here. It is 47 floors high, compared to Hidalgo's 24.

SEE IT SUNDAY: SKYSCRAPER

Yin-Yang

The Joya Lofts and Towers are luxury condominiums in Rockwell Center, across the Nestlé Philippines building and Power Plant mall. The towers are supposedly yin-yang shaped, but I don't quite see it from this perspective. I guess the relatively low building in the middle has the loft units—the windows are tall enough. It's a nice idea, but who wants a view of the street?

Ubiquitous

I don't think Metro Manila has a residential-commercial complex that doesn't have a mall, and Rockwell Center is no exception. The entire complex centers around Power Plant, seen here through the stairwell window of the Ateneo Professional Schools.



This is the narrow south end of the mall, whose ground level is occupied by Zara, a Spanish clothing chain store. Power Plant is named such because the 15-hectare Rockwell Center used to be the site of a thermal power plant, which closed in 1994.



The entrance of Power Plant across the street from Nestlé and PHINMA is flanked by cafés and restaurants, as is its counterpart on the other side of the mall.



And because he still hasn't been to Rockwell and he was looking for the mall a couple of days ago, this post is for Steven of Cavite Daily Photo. When you finally get the chance to go to Power Plant, enjoy your shopping, Steven! :)

In the trenches

The Law School and Graduate School of Business of the Ateneo de Manila University are located in Rockwell Center in Makati City. Though other cities have been competing aggressively during the past decade to get companies to relocate their headquarters by offering big tax breaks, Makati is still considered the premiere financial and commercial center of Metro Manila. Hence the location of the two schools, both of which offer continuing education courses for professionals. Its little palm-shaded brick building provides a visual respite from the glass towers which surround it.

Urban or rural, natural or man-made, take a sightseeing tour of our world's diverse scenery!

Face-off

Nestlé Philippines (left) and PHINMA Plaza (right) share a circular driveway. From afar, they look like they're beside each other. But when you get near enough to see their main entrances, you realize that they're across each other. To me, it looks like a battle of the corporate buildings, refereed by The Manansala, a luxury condominium tower.

See what's reflecting what at James' Weekend Reflections.

Metal awning

The headquarters of Nestlè Philippines at Rockwell Center in Makati City, right beside (or across, depending on your point of view) yesterday's PHINMA Plaza. I was too near to get the logo at the top but you can see it in last year's photo.

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our beautiful world.

A wave of glass

This is the PHINMA Plaza in Rockwell Center in Makati City, owned by the PHINMA Group, a holding company with investments in property development, construction products, education, energy, finance and business process outsourcing.



When I posted a photo of the headquarters of Nestlé Philippines back in June 2009, PHINMA Plaza was peeking beside it and I thought that the building was round. It turns out that only the facade is curved and the rest of the building has flat surfaces.



It took me almost a year to finally visit Rockwell Center again and fulfill your request, but VP, this one's for you.

The King's good servant, but God's first

Early in his life, English lawyer, statesman, scholar, and writer Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535) was torn between a monastic life and a life of civil service. He became a Carthusian monk but eventually, his desire to serve his country won out and he entered the field of politics after three years. His thirty-year political career was tumultuous and controversial, and when he refused to swear to the 1534 Act of Succession and Act of Supremacy, which declared King Henry VIII the supreme head of the Church of England, More was tried, found guilty of treason and beheaded. For the same reasons that he was beheaded, Thomas More was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1935 and he is considered the patron of lawyers and politicians. It is therefore not surprising that the chapel in the Ateneo Professional Schools (law, business, government, and medicine and public health) in Makati City is named the Chapel of Saint Thomas More.

Deli-cious

European deli meats are still not a common sight in Metro Manila. Usually imported, and therefore expensive, they are carried only by large supermarket chains and a few deli shops located in upscale malls or neighborhoods. Earle's Delicatessen is unusual in that it makes its own sausages and deli meats. This is from their branch at The Columns Ayala. Owned by a brother and sister tandem, Earle's has a German master sausage-maker as a consultant who comes here twice a year to teach their staff how to make deli meats authentically. And when you buy any of their sausages and hams, they will ask how you want it cut: thin, thick or shredded. It was the first time I encountered such a thing. This Earle's has nothing to do with the UK franchise—the brother in the team just happens to be named Earle too.