Beautifully photographed with over 200 pages of interiors that have rarely been seen by the publicSocial/historical ‘memoir’ text, specially compiled for this volume, to transport us back to a time when these residences were in their heydayIn granting the authors uncommon access to their private residences or former homes, inviting fresh architectural and interior photography of the patrician surroundings their families inhabited, the heirs and descendants of those whose fortunes were made through the once pre-eminent Philippine sugar industry reveal a world not quite lostArchitectural overview, setting the houses in their international context with regard to: – Dwellings built from the profits of a lucrative, international commodity trade – The search for national architectural styles in a world emerging from colonialism – The influence of local/vernacular traditions on their programme and formsWinner of the architectural category of the Paris Photo Competition (PX3)Finalist for the Sony World Photography Awards 2024 in the Architecture and Design category Houses that Sugar Built - An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes explores the largely unknown architectural legacy to be found in the ancestral houses of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Pampanga – the three main sugar-producing provinces of the Philippines. These grand residences have yet to receive international exposure.

Nonetheless, they are important in two ways. Firstly, although easily classifiable in terms of architectural style, upon experiencing the buildings themselves there are almost always layers of additional influence.

Secondly, this assured blending of styles reveals what we might call a ‘Critical Ambition’ – a desire on the part of the patrons who commissioned these residences to participate in an international architectural culture. Their relatively overlooked location did not stop the sugar barons responsible for these houses from undertaking a 20th-century form of the Grand Tour of European capitals, returning with a desire to bring the latest trends from Paris or Vienna to the provincial Philippines, or from partaking of the latest streamlined Moderne style from the US.

Beautifully photographed with over 200 pages of interiors that have rarely been seen by the public, Houses that Sugar Built - An Intimate Portrait of Philippine Ancestral Homes is layered with intimate stories and individual house texts that transport us back to a time when these residences were in their heyday. .