Heritage Churches of the Cagayan River Basin

Heritage Churches of the Cagayan River Basin is a comprehensive architectural survey of the major heritage churches of the Spanish colonial era that were built due to the evangelization efforts along the Río Grande de Cagayan, the longest and most capacious river system of the Philippines. This surveying of the architectonic elements of these beautiful houses of worship starts at the river’s mouth where the earliest Spanish colonization took place, proceeding upriver until reaching the headwaters at the foothills of the Caraballo mountains.

Each survey encompasses the history of a church and its urban settlement, the description of its features, the measurement and typification of its major architectonic elements, and finally a critique of its aesthetics and conservation aspects. Copiously illustrated with specially drawn-up floor plans, photographs, and archival material, this art book not only sheds light on the church builders, the Dominican order in particular, but also the anonymous artists and builders who together worked on a hauntingly original and distinctive regional constructive art to form a unique “Cagayan style” from the late sixteenth until the nineteenth century. Together these churches remain as witnesses to more than three centuries of faith and proud heritage of the townsfolk of the Cagayan, Isabela, and Nueva Vizcaya provinces.