Andres Luna de San Pedro

Andres Luna de San Pedro (1887-1952) was the son of the painter Juan Luna and inherited a European sensibility that he carried into architecture. He trained in France, studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, before returning to Manila where he served as the architect of the City of Manila from 1920 to 1924.

He became one of the defining designers of Escolta, then the premier commercial street of pre-war Manila. His Crystal Arcade, completed in 1932, was celebrated as the most modern building in the country and the first fully air-conditioned one, housing the Manila Stock Exchange until it was destroyed in the 1945 Battle of Manila.

Two of his Escolta landmarks survive in altered form. The Perez-Samanillo Building of 1928, now the First United Building, was the tallest in Manila at its completion and a showcase of art deco detailing, while the Regina Building carried his reworking of an earlier 1915 structure. Together they expressed the confidence of the era's business district.