Landmarks of Manila (1571-1930) reads like an invitation to slow down and look again at a city many people think they already know. She traces Manila’s early growth from a riverside settlement to a capital shaped by colonial planning, natural disasters, and bursts of ambition. Churches, bridges, civic buildings, plazas, and fortifications appear as they once stood, each carrying a mix of intention and accident. The photographs and maps give the text a physical weight, showing streets that have changed beyond recognition and structures that survived only in memory.

De la Torre writes with a clarity that makes the city’s past feel close. She pays attention to the choices that created Manila’s neighborhoods, the way people used its spaces, and the forces that kept reshaping them. There is no nostalgia in her account, only a steady effort to understand how the city grew and why certain places mattered.