Photos of the Taal Basilica and Flight of Steps [July 1914, BPW Quarterly Bulletin]

These photographs are part of a series showing construction projects undertaken by the Bureau of Public Works during the American colonial era. All photographs have been digitally extracted from the Quarterly Bulletins of the bureau and processed using graphics editing software to improve quality. It goes without saying that the eventual output of each extract was always going to be dependent on the quality of the original scan.

The photographs below, however, do not focus on construction projects of the bureau but rather on existing Spanish-era architecture still in existence in 1914 within the municipality of Taal. The July 1914 bulletin noted that there still existed at the time “many old buildings of a public and semi-public nature that are still in existence” in Batangas, and that these offered “conclusive evidence of an early period of prosperity” under the Spanish colonial government.

The photograph below is of the St. Martin de Tours Basilica, which the bulletin noted was a church that “has stood through a number of violent eruptions of this active volcano [Taal].” The same narrative recalled that the basilica was constructed starting 1764, the first Mass celebrated in 1766, and that work on the structure was concluded in 1771.

Below, meanwhile, is a photograph showing the flight of steps from a church built by the Chinese [the Caysasay Shrine] up to the area of the basilica in the upper part of the town of Taal.

Source: 1914 Quarterly Bulleting of the Bureau of Public Works, online at the Internet Archive.