Santa Rosa
— the city the expressway grew up around.
Not only on a wall.
“A city on the shoulder of Laguna de Bay, an hour south of Manila when the traffic lets you go. Most Filipinos know it for the Enchanted Kingdom rides above the South Luzon Expressway, or for the Toyota plant that employs half the people they grew up with. The old parish of Saint Rose of Lima still keeps the centre.
Santa Rosa, 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.
Santa Rosa is a first-class city in Laguna province, in the Calabarzon region of the Philippines, about forty kilometres south of Manila along the South Luzon Expressway. It sits on the southern shore of Laguna de Bay, the country's largest lake. The population passed 414,000 in the 2020 census and has grown faster than most provincial cities through the 2010s on the back of automotive and food manufacturing. The Spanish colonial parish of Saint Rose of Lima, established in 1792, holds the old town centre and gives the city its name.
Laguna de Bay defines the north edge of the city, 949 square kilometres of fresh water, the largest lake in the Philippines and the third-largest inland body of water in Southeast Asia. The shallow western shore at Sinalhan still supports tilapia and bangus fisheries, though decades of upstream growth have stressed the water. The Marikina watershed feeds the lake from the north and the Pasig River drains it to Manila Bay. The lake holds the heat of the day past sunset and the western horizon runs to the silhouette of the Sierra Madre.
From Manila the drive runs about an hour outside rush hour and well over two inside it. The South Luzon Expressway exits at Santa Rosa and Eton; Enchanted Kingdom, the country's largest theme park, sits a few minutes from the off-ramp. Public buses run from the Buendia and Cubao terminals in Metro Manila. The lakeshore at Sinalhan is the older edge of the city; the corporate parks at Greenfield and Nuvali are the newer one. English and Tagalog are both spoken everywhere, and most signage carries both.