Discover Intramuros

Intramuros is built in Spanish colonial architecture, adapted specifically for the Philippines' frequent earthquakes and tropical climate -- thick walls, low profiles, and reinforced buttressing on major buildings, an approach sometimes called "earthquake baroque" when applied to the era's churches. San Agustin Church, the district's oldest surviving structure, is the clearest surviving example, built substantially of adobe and coral stone rather than the brick and timber more common in Spain itself.

The district's defensive walls, built up over decades following its 1571 founding, originally included bastions and a moat as part of a genuine fortification system -- Intramuros was a working fort as much as a residential quarter, a purpose still legible in what survives of the walls today.