Leandro V. Locsin

Leandro V. Locsin (1928-1994) was proclaimed National Artist of the Philippines for Architecture in 1990. Trained first in music before turning to architecture, he became the country's foremost modernist, known for a signature vocabulary of massive concrete forms that appear to float above the ground. His buildings pair heavy, sculptural volumes with deep shadow and a restrained, almost monumental calm.

Locsin designed the Cultural Center of the Philippines (1969), whose marble-clad theater block is cantilevered twelve metres over a reflecting pool, and the Philippine International Convention Center (1976), one of Asia's first purpose-built international convention venues. His Church of the Holy Sacrifice at UP Diliman (1955) was the first circular church and the first thin-shell concrete dome built in the Philippines.

Across a five-decade career his practice, later L.V. Locsin and Partners, produced hundreds of structures at home and abroad, including the vast Istana Nurul Iman palace in Brunei, one of the largest residences in the world. His work defined the institutional face of Philippine modernism and remains its most recognised expression.