Waterfront's Lobby Art
Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino’s massive, high-ceilinged lobby is its principal attraction. Crisscrossed by hundreds of people each day, the lobby sets the whizzing pulse for the hotel and dictates its overall ambiance. Based on a play of rich imagery, sumptuous colors and amplification to a grand scale, the lobby makes an immediate statement about how one can expect things to be “bigger” and more luxurious at the Waterfront.
It is also the main display area for most of the hotel’s commissioned art. Upon walking in, one is immediately taken by the enormous painting on its vast ceiling—a navigational map from antiquated times, with obvious references to the age of conquest, when galleons traversed the oceans from the Old World to the New World. Charting a path of circumnavigation—not unlike the one taken by Ferdinand Magellan on his historic journey to the Philippines—it touches a subliminal chord in all who understand this momentous event that changed our country’s history. Native Philippine symbols juxtaposed with scenes of early Christianization occupy the sides of the ancient map of the globe.
Drawing from the seafaring theme, one can see large embedded murals on the lobby’s front walls. Paintings of large galleons with gigantic billowing white sails facing a tumultuous ocean depict the sense of adventure and excitement of those times. These round paintings are set in gilded frames, in abeyance to the rich decorative theme. They, along with the ceiling painting, are intangible. In plain sight but out of reach of anyone, their seeming aloofness plays to the viewers’ imaginations.
Other canvases—immense pieces that span anywhere from six to ten feet horizontally—are oil paintings showing melded scenes from the great seafaring civilizations of the East and West. Commissioned by various Filipino artists, they are inspired by the mystery of the glorious age of conquest and actually draw much of their imagery from the European paintings that flourished in those days.
On the one hand, one can make out European galleons, their proud sails moving in the wind, and tinier escort vessels ushering them to shore. On the other, one can spot Chinese junks and small harbor boats from the old ports of Hong Kong. A couple of paintings depict the majestic Ottoman fleet in its siege of Constantinople. This homage to the great seafaring cultures of old days is a beautiful complement to the vast openness of the lobby, its rich, historic subject matter and its allusions to the grandiose ideas of humanity.
The paintings serve as conversation pieces for anyone who spends time at the lobby; no doubt they have, in one way or another, caught the attention of countless guests and passersby and lovers of popular art.
Collectively, they make a distinct statement of romantic opulence.