GENERAL SANTOS CITY -- The city government is targeting to start early next year the construction of the city’s Cultural and Heritage Museum.
Vice Mayor Shirlyn Bañas-Nograles, chair of the city museum project’s technical working group (TWG), said Tuesday the demolition and clearing of the old city hall building here is currently underway to pave the way for the development of the museum.
She said the demolition works, which started in late January, faced delays these past months due to problems with the conservation of key structures of the old city hall building.
The local government had planned to preserve some parts of the building, especially its facade, footings and columns, and integrate them with the museum structure as designed by architect Michael Ang.
It required the repair and retrofitting of the old city hall building, which is located at the back of the current city hall.
But Nograles said it turned out that the building parts they planned to conserve were no longer stable and could pose safety risks to the planned two-storey museum.
She said the City Engineer’s Office and an independent structural engineer commissioned by the TWG recommended instead the demolition of the old city hall building.
Representatives from the National Historical Commission of the Philippines “have also expressed the same view” during an ocular inspection of the site.
Owing to this, Nograles said the TWG opted not to conserve the façade of the old city hall building.
“The continued use of the structure may cause safety risks that can cost us not just millions of pesos worth of building repairs in the succeeding years, but may also incur undue, incalculable costs in both the city’s beloved heritage and the lives of the people,” she said.
But the vice mayor noted that they have secured remnants of the former structure like some wooden parts, bricks, cements and its marker.
She said these would be included as exhibits in the museum or reused for the interior design of the structure, a conservation technique adopted Davao Oriental province for the Mt. Hamiguitan Natural Science Museum.
Nograles said the TWG will consult experts from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Museum on “creative ways to incorporate the collected relics” of the old city hall building.
The city government had tapped the UST Museum and its Graduate School’s Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and Environment to assist the cultural mapping of the city.
The city government designated the old city government building, which was built in 1968, as host of the city museum through City Ordinance No. 01, series of 2011.
Records showed that the site used to host the Municipal Hall of Buayan, the city’s original name, built in 1949.
The city government allotted around P7 million for the demolition and conservation of the old city hall building and P15 million for the development of the museum, which includes the construction of a glass-enclosed atrium at the main entrance.
Some P1.5 million was released for the city’s cultural mapping project, which was launched to complement the establishment of the museum.(PNA)
