Casa Gorordo

 Casa Gorordo
MUSEUM

    Casa Gorordo is a historic house museum in Cebu, the oldest city in the Philippines. It is located in the Parian district, a locus of vibrant economic and cultural activity throughout centuries of colonial rule and in the modern times. The house was inhabited by Chinese immigrants upon its founding in 1614, it was already a house for wealthy mestizo families by the 20th century.

      This house is an example of a traditional Filipino house known as "balay nga tisa" and was built in the 1850's. It's famously known to be occupied by the Gorordo family during 1863, this was also the year Cebu opened to world trade.

 Upon entering the historical sight, it already gives you an eerie feeling. Just imagine of all the people who lived here before!  When you enter you will be greeted by a person behind the counter that will ask for payment for entering. Which is totally worth it because you're entering a house from the past.  After you pay, you could go down the hallway and turn right and this picture I took is the first room you'll be greeted with.

       The first room will have a TV showing the area on how it looked like before modern buildings appeared, and there was also a gallery of pictures.
      
        The ground floor is divided to different spaces, there is a lobby, a receiving area and an audio-visual room which I said shows the area on how it looked before. This introduces the visitors to the social history of the city and the community that Casa Gorordo is in.

  There's also a space in the ground floor showing the different kinds of vehicles or modes of transportation showing how it evolved as you can see inside the glass cases.

       This part actually made me laugh because I thought about the people who find the museum buying toys somewhere just to put them in glass cases as if they were some kind of jewelry.

     This is probably the first section of the house you'll see if you turn left after going up the stairs. The upper floor of the house actually served as the family's living quarters. This part of the house was completely made out of wood, except the tiled roof. This helped the interiors of the house keep cool during the tropical climate and enabled it to survive typhoons and earthquakes.

Master's Bedroom

     This is the Master's bedroom, this bedroom is used by the owners of the house or the head of the family. It doesn't really have any differences but it does resemble the designs used by the Spanish during the times they colonized us.

Bathroom

     When you first look at the bathroom, you'd actually be quite shocked.  Your thought would be "Doesn't this look like the same with modern bathrooms?" and believe me, its true.  It's complete with a shower, a bathtub, a sink and a toilet.  The only different thing are the lights used in the bathroom. In the bathroom the lights hanged low as you can see near the mirrors.  But still you'd be shocked upon seeing the bathroom.

Dining Room

     The dining room is probably the part of the house that will catch your attention. Looking at the table itself, you could already see what the rich people used to eat.  It's shocking that they have a lot of spoons, forks, a knife and two glasses just for one person on the tables.  They even have candles on top of the tables. You can really see the beauty of how old the utensils are. You'd be amazed on how these utensils are preserved to this day.

Explanation on the need to preserve this site:
We need to preserve this site because it's a house from the past. Most of these types
of houses are already getting removes and replaced by modern designs. It's important to preserve relics from the past, so that we can look back at the past and be aware of the culture of the past. It also gives a Filipino and some Spanish influence. It gives us awareness for apprecation of the past.