A cultural treasure in Las Piñas City
A cultural treasure in Las Piñas City written by Golden Haven Las Pinas Marketing
One of the first towns on the outskirts of Manila was Las Piñas. During Spain’s four-hundred-year rule, a Spanish missionary named Fr. Diego Cera was sent to a barrio in Parañaque with a population of merely 1,200 people, which would later become Las Piñas. The tranquil fishing community was put on the road to prosperity and development due to this God-centered man’s hard labor, persistence, and vision, which led to the building of the Las Piñas Church in 1819 and the six-year construction of the bamboo organ.
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The Bamboo Organ is a 19th-century church organ located in St. Joseph Parish Church in Las Piñas, Philippines. Albeit he had to include metal stops in the organ to keep its tone, he built every other piece entirely out of bamboo, resulting in a one-of-a-kind instrument of which 902 out of 1031 pipes are made of bamboo. Just along the outskirts of Manilla, bamboo was abundant while traditional organ materials were scarce. The organ was designed in the Spanish style with an Asian twist as a result of his work and the setting.
However, not all things are as great as they seem to be. Mother Nature smited the church and organ hastily just after they were built. Three earthquakes struck in a week’s time, severely damaging the organ. A typhoon struck the country in October 1882, forcing floodwaters to come to within a few feet of the church. The organ’s dismantled parts were discovered afloat in the floodwaters that flooded the church forcing Father Cera to begin restoration work on the organ soon after it was completed. Following his death, the organ began to deteriorate rapidly, eventually becoming unplayable in the early twenty-first century and after World War II.
The organ was transferred to Germany for restoration in 1972, thanks to a collaboration between the national government and the local community. Architect Francisco Maosa and collaborator Ludwig Alvarez restored the bamboo organ’s home church and surrounding structures to their 19th-century state. The bamboo organ was unveiled to the world on February 18, 1975. It had 89 brand-new pipes, 35 of which were trumpet pipes and 53 of which were bamboo pipes. Wolfgang Oehms, a world-renowned organist, performed on the bamboo organ at the Philippine Embassy in Bonn, Germany, during a one-hour concert. Following that momentous event, the first long-playing CD of bamboo organ music was produced.
In present time, the organ is now not only playable, but it also serves as the centerpiece of a concert known as the Bamboo Organ Festival. In 2003, the organ was designated as a Philippine National Cultural Treasure. Backed up with an extensive cultural history, the St. Joseph Parish Church with its famed bamboo organ and church museum housed in an old convent in Las Piñas is a must-see tourist spot for both Filipinos and foreign visitors.
Golden Haven Memorial Parks – Las Piñas
Not far from this historical place is Golden Haven Las Piñas. Golden Haven Las Pinas has been acclaimed for its upscale ambiance, elegant architecture, and unprecedented usage of open spaces—an iconic trademark of the Golden Haven brand, consistent nationwide. Golden Haven Las Pinas is inspired by the world’s prominent cultures. A befitting final place of rest for the affluent and well-traveled soul.
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