Just ahead of the 75th anniversary of General Douglas MacArthur’s return to the Philippines on October 20, a new Visitor Center at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial has opened in the country’s capital. Designed by Corpus Christi, Texas–based Richter Architects, the almost 9,000-square-foot facility sits on the lushly landscaped site of the onetime U.S. military base Fort William McKinley, and is maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).
After visiting the architects’ National Museum of the Pacific War, completed in Fredericksburg, Texas, in 2009, ABMC commissioned the firm to design a visitor center for its cemetery in Manila, which has the largest number of U.S. World War II graves: 17,000 American soldiers and the Filipino Scouts who fought alongside them are buried there. “It’s a great honor,” says firm principal, Elizabeth Chu Richter. The original cemetery and memorial, designed by Gardner Dailey, began construction shortly after the war, but wasn’t dedicated until December 1960. Today, it is a major attraction, a tranquil, parklike space in the midst of the bustling city.
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