Quezon Memorial Circle

The Quezon Memorial Circle is a national park and shrine located in Quezon City, former capital of the Philippines (1948-1976). The park is an ellipse bounded by the Elliptical Road. The site was originally intended as the grounds of the National Capitol to be built in Quezon City. While the cornerstone for the structure was laid in 1940, only the foundations were in place when construction was interrupted by the beginning of the Second World War in the Philippines. After World War II, President Sergio Osmena issued an executive order stipulating the creation of a Quezon Memorial Committee to raise funds by public subscription to erect a monument to his predecessor, President Manuel Luis Quezon.

After a national contest was held for the purpose, a winning design by Filipino architect Federico Ilustre was selected. The monument would consist of three vertical pylons (representing the three main geographic divisions of the country: Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao), 66 meters (217 ft) tall (Quezon's age when he died), surmounted by three mourning angels holding sampaguita (the national flower) wreaths sculpted by the Italian sculptor Monti. The three pylons would in turn circumscribe a drum-like two-story structure containing a gallery from which visitors could look down at Quezon's tomb, modeled after Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb in the Invalides.

Construction of the Quezon Memorial was begun in the late 1950s but proceded slowly. It was finally completed in 1978, the Centennial of Quezon's birth. His remains were reinterred in the memorial on August 19, 1979. Planned auxiliary structures, including a presidential library, museum, and theater, were never built. On April 28, 2005, the remains of Mrs. Aurora A. Quezon, widow of the president, were solemnly reinterred in the memorial as well.

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