The Podium

The Podium is an upscale mall which is part of the SM chain of malls. Where as the SM malls caters mostly to the B-C-D market, the Podium was the 1st mall by SM targeting the A-B market. It used to be this smaller mall with 4 floors and not much crowd and is located along ADB Avenue in the Ortigas Center. For the longest time, it caters only to a small upscale market, mostly those who work at the Asian Development Bank, located right besides it. On weekdays, You would often find expats there having coffee, tea, meals, holding power meetings, catching a movie or simply to shop.

Last year, SM decided to expand the place by demolishing the huge BDO Headquarters behind the Podium and rebuild the place to incorporate the two properties together. The renovation added in more stores, more space and restaurants to attract more people.

The mall brings back good memories because I used to drop by there when I pick up my daughters from their school located nearby. We would  spend some time there to bond and share a snack. Now that they’re all grown up, I no longer drop by there as often. In fact, yesterday was the 1st time I went back after it was renovated. The interior looked like a completely different mall. It’s one of the few malls here in Manila that can compete with the malls in HK by the way it looks inside. The interior architecture and design, with it’s sweeping curves, blew me away. I am glad I had the Samyang 12mm (although I wish I still own the 10-24mm lens) mounted on my Fuji X-Pro 2 and was able to get some shots of the interior.

I wasn’t able to shoot much as it was a bonding time with my family but here are a fews shots I was able to take. Unfortunately, I missed the focus on some of the photos, a by product of poor eyesight and shooting with a manual focus lens.