Located right across Plaza Intramuros and Benavides on the eastern side is an up-and-coming structure to be opened sometime in the 2nd half of 2011. This would be the 4-storey UST Sports Complex. This would serve as the home of the university’s varsity team the UST Growling Tigers with a gymnasium that can accommodate up to almost 5,800 people, with provisions for holding activities basketball, badminton, gymnastics, table tennis, indoor running track, dancing, and a fitness center. Given the university’s rich athletic history, it will also house a museum showcasing memorabilia like trophies, medals won by the university in various sporting competitions, especially in the UAAP which UST is a founding member.
Next to the complex is the Alfredo M. Velayo Building, named after one of the founders of one of the country’s foremost accounting firms SGV & Co. (V standing for Velayo) Being named after an accountant, it should be natural that this building would be the home of the university’s College of Accountancy. Though it also holds an “interesting” function also of being an indoor 3-level carpark. Maybe someone can enlighten me the link between cars and accountants, aside from possibility that many of UST’s accounting students have cars.
Across the 2 structures along Roque Ruaño Dr. (named after UST’s priest-engineer who designed the iconic Main Building…we’ll get to that later in the series) are 2 campus buildings: the Albertus Magnus Bldg. (named after the Dominican theologian and philosopher) which is the home of the colleges of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Education, Conservatory of Music, and the Education High School; (one of the two high schools in UST) and the Roque Ruaño Bldg., which fittingly serves as the home of the Faculty of Engineering.
On the opposite end of the campus is the Beato Angelico Bldg. It is fitting that the home of the university’s colleges of Architecture and Fine Arts & Design would be based on a building named after the Dominican painter friar of the Renaissance. UST Publishing House is also based in this building.
Nearby the building would be what was once the university’s sports complex, with the swimming pool which still stands today and the old UST Gymnasium. It was an interesting building by itself, a Bauhaus-inspired architecture courtesy of Fernando Ocampo completed in 1932. For 78 years, it served as the home of its Growling Tigers until the decision was made for them to move to the aforementioned and bigger UST Sports Complex. The gymnasium at this writing is now being demolished, with its façade retained, as construction is in full swing for a UST Alumni Center to rise in its place.
And of course, one cannot miss the wide open green space of the campus that serves as a football field and parade grounds especially for UST ROTC cadets during weekends.
To be continued…
Acknowledgements to Wikipedia
© The Urban Roamer
