Arcadio Arellano

Arcadio Arellano (1872-1920) came of age as a maestro de obras, the Spanish-era master builder, graduating from the Escuela de Artes y Oficios in 1895. A supporter of the Philippine Revolution and a nephew of the Katipunan's first president Deodato Arellano, he moved fluidly into the American period, working closely with Governor William Howard Taft as a private consulting architect and joining the new Bureau of Architecture around 1901.

His surviving works show a designer comfortable in both traditional and revival modes. The Gota de Leche Building in Sampaloc, completed in 1915 and designed with his younger brother Juan Arellano, drew on Filippo Brunelleschi's Renaissance Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence. It is now a declared Important Cultural Property that earned an honorable mention at the 2003 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards.

Earlier, in 1914, he built the Bahay Nakpil-Bautista in Quiapo for Dr. Ariston Bautista, a refined bahay na bato that today operates as a museum tied to the Katipunan and the 1896 Revolution. Arcadio's career was cut short when he died in 1920, but his work helped set the template for the Filipino professional architect.