San Pedro Macati Church and Lost Bell Tower
Embedded Files
Reconstructing a Wartime Church Through Augmented Reality
Visitors exploring the San Pedro Macati Church augmented reality experience within a café exhibition setting in Poblacion, Makati. Archival photographs function as interactive heritage markers. (NakARaan Lab, 2026).
Beginning with an archival photograph divided into two separate AR markers, users explore San Pedro Macati Church and its lost bell tower as they appeared during and after the Philippine American War through augmented reality.
The church marker focuses on the wartime transformation of the church into a hospital and headquarters for American troops in 1899, allowing users to move through the reconstructed facade and encounter the interior through archival imagery. The bell tower marker centers on the absence of the original freestanding tower today and the surviving historic bells preserved within the church’s present day belfry.
This augmented reality heritage experience combines archival photography, historical reconstruction, and immersive storytelling to explore how civilian and religious spaces can be transformed during conflict. The project explores how immersive media mediates spatial memory and historical reinterpretation through embodied interaction with contested architectural heritage.
Rather than replacing archival evidence, the reconstruction works alongside it, allowing documented history and digital interpretation to coexist within the same experience.
Site and Significance
Archival photograph of San Pedro Macati Church and its freestanding bell tower, 1899, used as the primary AR marker for the reconstruction. (University of Michigan Library Digital Collections, 1899).
Established in 1620 under Jesuit administration, San Pedro Macati Church underwent cycles of destruction and rebuilding, including its destruction during the British occupation of Manila (1762–1764) and reconstruction in 1849.
Interior of San Pedro Macati Church occupied by American troops during the Philippine American War, revealed within the AR experience through interactive viewing. (University of Michigan Library Digital Collections, 1899).
By 1899, the church had been repurposed as a military hospital and quarters for American troops during the Philippine American War.
The wartime occupation transformed sacred space into military infrastructure, revealing how conflict reshapes both architecture and memory. Rather than representing a single historical moment, the church reflects layered histories where religious, colonial, and wartime functions coexist within the same structure.
Side view of San Pedro Macati Church and its freestanding bell tower during American military occupation, 1899. The image informed the reconstruction of the church complex.
Today, the church appears significantly different from its nineteenth century appearance. The original freestanding bell tower no longer survives, finials visible in archival photographs are absent, and the present church includes later additions such as an integrated belfry, commemorative markers, and Jubilee Holy Door symbols associated with contemporary Catholic celebrations in the Philippines.
Local visitors often identified architectural elements that had disappeared or changed over time, connecting the reconstruction to lived memory within present day Poblacion.
The AR Experience
Visitor scanning the archival photograph of San Pedro Macati Church to activate the augmented reality reconstruction within the exhibition space. (NakARaan Lab, 2026).
The experience begins in a café setting, where mounted archival photographs function as AR markers. Visitors often encounter the installation unexpectedly while waiting for orders, working, or exploring the café space.
Unlike museum installations that require intentional visitation, the café deployment allows historical encounters to emerge through curiosity and accidental discovery within everyday urban space. The setting transforms cafés into informal spaces for public archaeology, reflection, and conversation.
Interactive AR experience allowing visitors to approach and reveal the wartime interior of San Pedro Macati Church. (NakARaan Lab, 2026).
As users move closer to the reconstructed church facade, the church doors become a threshold into the past.
The scale of the reconstruction intentionally exceeds the mobile screen, requiring users to physically reposition themselves to explore the church. Stepping back reveals the full facade, while moving closer allows users to approach and enter the doors. The interaction mirrors the experience of viewing monumental architecture in physical space, where scale cannot be fully captured from a single viewpoint.
Users can:
Explore the church facade at architectural scale
Tap the church doors to reveal the interior
Move around the reconstructed structure using their devices
Explore the lost bell tower in 360 degree view
Examine the historic bells through interactive overlays
Visitor reactions often centered on the moment they tapped and peeked through the church doors, creating the sensation of entering the historical structure itself. Local visitors immediately recognized architectural changes over time, including the removal of the church’s raised pulpit visible in the archival interior photograph.
Reconstruction Approach
Digital reconstruction of the San Pedro Macati Church facade developed from archival photographs and historical references. (NakARaan Lab, 2026).
The historical reconstruction is based on multiple archival references anchored on a 1899 photograph from the University of Michigan and supported by Library of Congress images and historical documentation.
Architectural proportions and scale were estimated from visible relationships within archival photographs. Surface textures, weathering, and material aging were carefully reconstructed from highly detailed archival imagery to preserve the appearance and condition of the church during the late nineteenth century.
Developed in Autodesk Maya, the reconstruction prioritizes visible architectural elements supported by archival evidence while intentionally avoiding speculative additions.
Archival interior photograph presented within the AR experience, documenting the wartime occupation of San Pedro Macati Church by American troops in 1899. (NakARaan Lab, 2026).
The interaction intentionally limits full interior access. Rather than exposing incomplete or speculative reconstruction, users encounter the church interior through archival photography, allowing documented evidence to remain foregrounded within the experience.
The archival image inside the church was also perceived by visitors as more authentic than a fully reconstructed interior because it directly documents the wartime occupation of the church and preserves visual details that no longer survive today.
Digital reconstruction of the lost bell tower of San Pedro Macati Church based on archival photographs and surviving bell references. (NakARaan Lab, 2026).
For the bell tower, reconstruction was informed by archival photographs and surviving visual documentation of the bells shared by the church community online. While the original freestanding bell tower no longer survives, the bells remain preserved within the church’s present day belfry.
The reconstruction therefore operates between absence and survival, allowing lost architecture and surviving material heritage to coexist within the same AR heritage experience.
Experiencing the Past Through AR
The experience combines multiple forms of historical representation and interactive history:
Facade — digitally reconstructed from archival photographs
Interior — presented through archival imagery documenting wartime occupation
Bell Tower — reconstructed for immersive 360 degree exploration
The church and bell tower are intentionally separated into different AR experiences. The church focuses on wartime spatial reinterpretation, while the bell tower centers on absence, continuity, and surviving material heritage.
Interactive AR reconstruction of the lost bell tower featuring historical overlays about the surviving bells preserved within the church’s present day belfry. (NakARaan Lab, 2026).
The bell tower experience allows users to move around the reconstructed structure and inspect how each bell was installed within the tower. Interactive overlays provide historical information about the bells San Agustin (1714), Santa Maria Biglang Awa (1749), and Virgen de la Rosa (1838).
Virgen de la Rosa bell, 1838. One of the surviving historic bells associated with San Pedro Macati Church. (Sts. Peter and Paul Parish Makati, 2020)
Santa Maria Biglang Awa bell, 1749. Historic bell associated with the surviving bell collection of San Pedro Macati Church. (Sts. Peter and Paul Parish Makati, 2020)
San Agustin bell, 1714. Historic church bell preserved within the present day belfry of San Pedro Macati Church. (Sts. Peter and Paul Parish Makati, 2020)
The bells survive not only as religious objects, but also as material witnesses to centuries of continuity, destruction, reconstruction, and occupation.
The project avoids dramatizing wartime violence within the café setting, instead focusing on spatial transformation, adaptation, and embodied exploration through historical evidence and immersive storytelling.
Limitations and Boundaries
The interior is not reconstructed due to limited documentation and the availability of archival imagery. Structures outside the visible frame are also omitted to avoid speculative modeling.
These decisions ensure that the reconstruction remains grounded in verifiable evidence.
Why This Matters Today
San Pedro Macati Church offers insight into how civilian and symbolic spaces can undergo radical reinterpretation during periods of conflict, shifting from religious and communal functions into strategic wartime infrastructure.
The project is ultimately interested in how spaces accumulate layered meanings across time and how immersive technologies can reconnect contemporary audiences with these transformations through embodied interaction and spatial storytelling.
By situating the experience within cafés rather than museums, the project expands digital heritage engagement into everyday environments, encouraging curiosity, conversation, and reflection beyond institutional settings.
Augmented reality allows visitors to move around, approach, and inspect heritage structures from multiple viewpoints, offering forms of immersive archaeology and historical reconstruction that static images and traditional displays cannot fully provide.
Ultimately, the experience invites reflection not only on what has been preserved, but also on what has been lost, transformed, and continuously reinterpreted over time.
References
City Government of Makati & Makati Cultural Affairs Office. (2006). Barangay Poblacion: Its cultural mapping as the heritage district of Makati. Stampa Offset Inc.
Library of Congress. (ca. 1899). Church at San Pedro Macati, used as a hospital. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012648150/
Sts. Peter and Paul Parish Makati. (2020). Know the history of our bells [Facebook photograph]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=3192966137483184&set=a.131517562968708
Tueller, J. B. (2023). Layers of time and place: San Pedro Macati, Metro Manila, the Philippines. World History Connected. https://doi.org/10.13021/whc.v14i3.4017
University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. (1899). Church at San Pedro Macati occupied by American troops: Rizal province -- 1899; 539; 1899. Philippine Photographs Digital Archive, Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/s/sclphilimg/x-539/phla565
University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. (1899). Troops billeted in a church during the Philippine insurrection: San Pedro Macati, Rizal -- 1899; 540; 1899. Philippine Photographs Digital Archive, Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/s/sclphilimg/x-540/phla566
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