El Fraile Island
— — a concrete battleship that never moved.
Not only on a wall.
“A small rock in the south channel of Manila Bay, shaved flat by U.S. Army engineers and rebuilt as Fort Drum between 1909 and 1919. The result looks like a moored battleship: reinforced concrete walls, a steel cage mast, and two twin 14-inch turrets fixed for the harbour approach. The fort held out under siege in 1942, fell to Japan, and was retaken in April 1945 when American forces flooded the interior with fuel and ignited it. The hulk still stands.
El Fraile Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
El Fraile is a small rocky islet at the southern entrance of Manila Bay, between Corregidor and the Cavite coast of Luzon, Philippines. Between 1909 and 1919 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shaved the rock to the waterline and built Fort Drum on the foundation, one of four harbour defences guarding the bay. The fort was designed as a reinforced concrete battleship: walls up to 36 feet thick, a steel cage mast for spotting, and two twin 14-inch gun turrets fixed to cover the south channel. It is the only structure of its kind ever built and remains today as an abandoned ruin under Philippine jurisdiction.
Fort Drum's structure is reinforced concrete on bedrock, 350 feet long and 144 feet wide, with a top deck about 40 feet above mean sea level. The walls range from 25 to 36 feet thick on the seaward side and the deck slab is 20 feet. Two Model 1909 twin 14-inch gun turrets sit fore and aft, each weighing about 1,000 tons; secondary batteries of 6-inch guns line the casemates. The cage mast, a U.S. Navy design contemporary with the South Carolina-class battleships, rose from the centre. The structure cost roughly $5 million by 1919 dollars to complete.
Fort Drum opened fire on the invading Japanese fleet in 1942 and held out under siege until the general surrender of Corregidor on May 6 of that year, the last of the bay forts to lower its flag. Japan held the island until April 13, 1945, when U.S. forces of the 38th Infantry Division and 113th Engineers landed on the deck, pumped 2,400 gallons of diesel and gasoline into the lower casemates, and ignited it with a delayed charge. The interior burned for days. The hulk has been abandoned since, visible from Corregidor ferry tours.