Ang Maharlika – Goldenberg Mansion

Location: San Miguel, Manila / Built in the late 19th century, restored 1966 / Architect: Leandro Locsin (renovation)

The Philippines Historical Committee (PHC) marker says, “Built by the Eugster Family, from whom it was bought by the Oidor de la Audiencia, Jose Moreno Localle; occupied by Admiral Patricio Montojo of the Spanish Navy, 1897-1898, and then by the Spanish Royal Navy Club, 1898.” Became the offices of the Philippine Preliminary Exposition to the International Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA, 1903–1904. In 1908, it was the home of the Philippine School of Commerce. On October 16, 1916, this is where the First Philippine Senate met. Michael Goldenberg bought and lived there in 1950.”

Michael Goldenberg was a French-Jewish businessman who moved to Manila with his father, a doctor who had served in the French Army, when he was six years old. Doctor Goldenberg met Filipino patriots like the Luna brothers when he worked as a chemist at the Botica Inglesa on Escolta. Michael Goldenberg was known for collecting things from the Philippines.

The two-story house on General Solano Street in Manila is an interesting example of Filipino architecture from the 1800s. There are 10 bays on the front of the building. Each bay has an arch on the ground floor and a window between two wooden panels on the second floor. The wooden second floor goes past the stone walls of the first floor to make a U-shaped porch on the first floor. The porch is surrounded by thin steel columns with arched tops that hold up the second floor that sticks out. The inside of a cusped arch is decorated with curved or leaf-like shapes at regular intervals, making it look like a multi-foil arch.

The two central bays of the second floor and the porch on the first floor stick out a little bit from the front of the house to make a covered entrance. This part looks like a pediment because it has a gable and a flat overhang. Behind this part of the facade that draws attention, there is a small tower with three floors that draws attention upward. Each window has a ventanilla, which is a shutter. Wooden panels separate the windows from each other. Three doors are evenly spaced along the front wall of the ground floor. Belgium was the place where the steel arches and columns were made. The porch and main room on the ground floor have a floor made of black and white tiles that look like a chessboard.

The rounded arches of the porch are repeated in wood on the inside, in the hallways on the first and second floors and in the second-floor sala’s volada (gallery). A wide hallway leads from the front door to a grand staircase deep inside the building. The stairs are the imperial type, with a wide single flight that goes up to a landing and then splits into two flights that turn 180 degrees at the landing and go up to the second floor.

The long sala with its volada along the front and side windows and the staircase with its surrounding arcade are both beautiful examples of space surrounded by space. The PHC put up a sign in 1957 that said the house was the Goldenberg Mansion. After the Marcos Foundation bought it in 1966 and fixed it up, it was given the name “Ang Maharlika.” Architect Leandro Locsin did studies and made plans for both the restoration and the improvements. During the Marcos regime, Ang Maharlika was used as a place for guests to stay.