Ramon Orlina is a licensed Architect, having graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Santo Tomas College of Architecture & Fine Arts, he worked for C.D. Arguelles and Associates for four years and after that, he formed Ramon Orlina and Associates doing architectural works and administration of projects. He is also a Member of the College of Fellows of the Philippine Institute of Architects.

 

In 1975 he had his one-man show painting on glass at Hyatt Gallery in Hyatt Hotel. By 1976, he had pioneered the use of glass as an artistic medium of expression in sculpture.  Since then he has gone full time in the arts and exhibited extensively in Philippines and elsewhere around the world.

 

Among his many awards are the ASEAN Awards for Visual Arts in 1993 and the Third ASEAN Achievements Awards for Visual Arts in 1994.  In 2006, he was awarded The Outstanding Filipino (TOFIL) Award for his accomplishments in the field of Visual Arts.  In 2012, he received both the Gold Medal of Merit Award bestowed by the Philippine Institute of Architects, in his recognition of his outstanding works in the field of Architecture and Visual Arts and Gawad Gintong Likha, the highest architectural recognition in the Philippines given by the Philippine Institute of Architects (PIA) co-presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).  In 2014, the Rotary Club together with the Quezon City Government awarded him the Rotary Golden Wheel Award in Arts and Culture. In the same year he was given 2014 People of the Year Award by Stargate PeopleAsia. Most recently in 2017, he received the Outstanding Manilan Award and the Manuel L. Quezon Gawad Parangal Most Outstanding Citizen.

 

Among his successes in international competitions, he has won the “Mr. F”  prize in the 1999 Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale in 1999 and the First Prize in the Sculpture Category of the II Bienale International del Baloncesto en las Bellas Artes 2000 in Madrid, Spain, and numerous Honorable Mentions in international competitions in Japan. His masterpieces in glass place him, in international appraisals of the art, among the gurus Dale Chihuly of the US and Bertil Vallien of Sweden.

 

He has a significant body of outdoor and monumental works amongst which is a 10.32 meters high, cast bronze and glass sculpture for the University of Santo Tomas called “QuattroMondial” that was unveiled in January 2011.

 

Orlina’s name is synonymous with glass sculpture in the Philippines and to his credit, he successfully opened in December 2013 a private art museum that includes a sculpture garden/amphitheater called Museo Orlina in Tagaytay City, Cavite. By November 2015 the museum had expanded to double its size with larger gallery spaces and a space for a museum cafe. In 2017 and 2018 the Museum  received the Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor and has ranked as #1 destination to visit in Tagaytay till now.

 

2012   Gawad Gintong Likha 2012

The highest architectural recognition in the Philippines given by the Philippine Institute of Architects (PIA) co-presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines