Quezon City was built as a capital that never quite ruled — a 1939 planned city whose Art Deco monuments, wartime cemeteries and 1986 revolution shrines still stand along EDSA and Commonwealth Avenue. Three days of Philippine nation-building, occupation and dictatorship.
The 66m Art Deco pylon (1952-1978, by Federico Ilustre) holds Manuel Quezon's remains in a marble crypt below. The basement museum displays his desk, wheelchair, Malacañang furniture and the 1935 Commonwealth inauguration film. Open Tue-Sun 08:00-17:00.
Completed 1984, the spired concrete cathedral is the headquarters of the Philippines' largest homegrown church, founded 1914 by Felix Manalo. The 7,000-seat hall and adjoining Templo Central compound define the INC architectural style copied nationwide.
Rebuilt 1954 after the 1941 bombing of its Intramuros predecessor, this National Cultural Treasure shelters the 1593 ivory image of Our Lady of La Naval de Manila and 16 Galo Ocampo stained-glass windows. The Dominican crypt holds friars' remains moved from Manila.
Himlayang Pilipino on Tandang Sora Avenue holds the Bantayog-style graves of martial law dissidents and the Ateneo Jesuit plot. Its chapel and marker walls trace who died in the 1970s-80s, opened 1965 as one of QC's first memorial parks.
Opened 1992 on Quezon Avenue corner EDSA, the Wall of Remembrance carves the names of over 300 martial law martyrs, added to yearly. Eduardo Castrillo's 14m bronze Inang Bayan sculpture and a museum of Marcos-era detention artefacts anchor the site.
Built 1989 at EDSA-Ortigas where nuns knelt before tanks in February 1986, Francisco Mañosa's shrine is topped by Virginia Ty-Navarro's bronze Virgin. Relief panels and a chapel mark the four-day People Power Revolution that ousted Marcos.
The Jorge B. Vargas Museum holds the collection of Quezon's executive secretary — Amorsolo and Luna canvases, Commonwealth papers, wartime propaganda. Outside, Guillermo Tolentino's 1935 Oblation marks the 1949 campus move from bombed-out Padre Faura.
Enrile and Ramos defected from Marcos here on 22 February 1986, sparking the revolt. Across EDSA at White Plains, Castrillo's 1993 People Power Monument shows a mass of figures surging behind a female Inang Bayan.
The national military cemetery holds 49,000 graves — Bataan Death March survivors, Korea and Vietnam dead, and since 2016 the contested tomb of Ferdinand Marcos. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Heroes' Memorial Gate date to 1947.
The 1930s Balara Filtration Plant, part of Quezon's capital plan, still treats Angat water behind Art Deco pump houses. The adjoining park's stone bridges and swimming pool ruins date from the 1950s, when it was Manila's weekend escape.
Opened 1960, the Araneta Coliseum was the world's largest domed arena and hosted the 1975 Thrilla in Manila between Ali and Frazier. The 1965 New Frontier Theater beside it kept its space-age lobby through a 2016 restoration.
Kamuning's 1950s bungalows housed the first civil servants of the new capital; several survive along K-1st to K-10th streets, including the Nick Joaquin house. Markers note the wartime Japanese garrison that occupied Diliman's ridge.