12/04/2026
Yesterday, April 11, The Heritage Collective conducted a digital heritage mapping exercise across selected portions of San Juan City in Metro Manila. The initiative aimed to rapidly assess the city’s potential heritage assets, with particular attention to lesser-known sites that remain unrecognized in the existing local cultural inventory maintained by the local government unit.
Our team covered parts of Barangays Addition Hills, Maytunas, Santa Lucia, and a portion of Little Baguio.
As we moved through various streets and neighborhoods, we documented heritage structures and cultural institutions, geotagging them into our test maps. This exercise laid the groundwork for independently mapping the city as a team. A majority of the potential heritage assets identified are estimated to date from the 1960s to 1970s, alongside what we consider “Future Heritage” such as Brutalist structures from the 1970s to 1980s that may not yet be officially recognized as important cultural properties but are nevertheless significant and worth documenting.
We also encountered noteworthy structures dating from the 1940s to 1950s, offering insight into the urban development of these sections of the city. Interestingly, a few structures appear to date back to the prewar period, particularly along Pilar Street, A. Mabini Street, and Mariano Marcos Street. These findings may potentially push back the timeline of development in these areas even further.
Among the key landmarks mapped were the property of former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and the Santiago Barcelona Ancestral House (Santiago Barcelona was a constitutionalist and a physician to General Emilio Aguinaldo). We also documented several cultural institutions that continue to shape the identity of the area, including Art Underground Manila, The Metro Gallery, the PUP San Juan campus, and Fundacion Sanso.
We further highlighted Francesco's, an Italian restaurant housed in an estimated 1960s to 1970s former residence, which we categorized under our adaptive reuse mapping layer. In addition, we noted an emerging creative hub by Flossom Kitchen + Cafe along N. Averilla Street, laying the groundwork also for mapping creative industries as associated cultural assets.
In total, we were able to map approximately 30-40 heritage and associated assets. This initial dataset serves as a baseline for this section of San Juan and may eventually be shared with relevant institutions to support education and heritage appreciation. These efforts may also support future data-sharing initiatives with local government units and partner institutions.
This activity also served as a training exercise for our team, equipping them with hands-on experience in identifying and mapping potential heritage assets both on-site and remotely using Google My Maps as our primary tool. This capacity-building effort prepares them for future deployments across different areas in the country, contributing to the development of an alternative digital heritage map of the Philippines.
The broader goal is to replicate this digital mapping capacity among heritage advocates, enabling more efficient and comprehensive identification of heritage assets. By empowering advocates with both on-site and remote tools, the initiative promotes continuous mapping, regular updates, and a more action-driven approach to heritage work.
Anchored on the call to “capture what was never captured,” the initiative seeks to surface lesser-known and endangered heritage across the Philippines. Moving forward, trained advocates may be assigned specific themes or locations to focus on, whether within Manila or in heritage-rich towns across the regions. The aim is to build an alternative and reliable resource that goes beyond awareness and moves toward sustained, technology-enabled action.
The vision is again simple: let’s map the heritage layers of all towns across the Philippines, together.
If you are interested in joining future digital mapping activities, type “Interested” on the comments section below so we can gauge participation and continue building a growing, tech-enabled network of heritage advocates.
