Noble and Ever Loyal City

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Quezon Memorial Shrine

Built inside the Elliptical Road, which should have been the site of the National Government Center in Quezon City (the reason the QC Plan was changed in the 50s deserves another blog post). The design was selected in a National Contest that Architect Federico Ilustre won. The whole complex plan consists of a Presidential Museum and Library, but only the monument itself was actually built in painstaking three decades. The reason is the construction is the finishing used Carrara Marble, a very expensive material. The monument was finished in 1978, coinciding with MLQ’s centennial.

The monument should have a staircase and a viewdeck of the whole city as originally planned, but this never happened. Instead, at the base of the monument is where the Manuel Quezon Memorial Museum is located along with his tomb.

The monument stands 66 meters high in an equilateral triangle plan. The height of the building signifies the age of MLQ. There are sculptures of mourning angels atop the monument by Francesco Monti, symbolyzing the three regions of the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The monument should have been the focal center of the whole National Capitol that was planned in Quezon City. The base of the sculpture has bas relief sculptures of some Highlights in the History of the Philippines, still in Carrara Marble.

Today, the area inside Elliptical Road serves as Quezon City’s Central Park, and the monument symbolizes the City itself, contained in several Barangay Seals and the City Seal itself.