National Artist of the Philippines - Salvador Bernal

Salvador F. Bernal
Theater Design (2003)

Salvador Bernal is a theater designer who has designed more than 300 productions distinguished for their originality since 1969. Sensitive to the budget limitations of local productions, he harnessed the design potential of inexpensive local materials, pioneering or maximizing the use of bamboo, raw abaca, and abaca fiber, hemp twine, rattan chain links and gauze cacha.

As the acknowledged guru of contemporary Filipino theater design, Bernal has shared his skills with younger designers through his classes at the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University, and through the programs he created for the CCP Production Design Center which he himself conceptualized and organized.

To promote and professionalize theater design, he organized the PATDAT (Philippine Association of Theatre Designers and Technicians) in 1995 and by way of Philippine Center of OISTAT (Organization Internationale des Scenographes, Techniciens et Architectes du Theatre), he has introduced Philippine theater design to the world.