Art History has been concerned in recent decades with cultural dialogue as part of the new perspective from World Art History. As part of the traditional approach, official art has maintained its preferential role. Although the cultural dialogue can be traced on several social levels, representative architecture, such as that of government palaces or churches, is characterized by the scarcity of examples. Conversely, residential architecture exhibits a wider and richer sample, but unfortunately one not so well documented. Starting in the late twentieth century, several approaches on housing in America and Europe commenced. At first, the attempts examined Caribbean cases; later ones examined hybrid works of Spanish and British architecture, bringing forth new perspectives. This chapter seeks to define the cultural dialogue regarding housing in Manila during the seventeenth century. To achieve this, the southern Spain house model will be compared with the Caribbean examples and then with the Manilean house descriptions. To begin to contextualize the issue at hand, it is necessary to take the climatological features of several cities into consideration. More specifically, Cadiz, Havana, and Manila have been chosen. These three were important entrepôts at the time and were connected by a commercial route. None of them was a key administrative city of the empire, as was Seville, Mexico City, and Lima. Other possibilities from the north of Spain have been likewise considered as bases for comparison, although ultimately they were not selected for the evaluation. The significant Basque population in early Manila made it necessary to consider the possibility of its influence on housing. Nonetheless, the cities exhibit very similar climatological circumstances, which aided in the development of common solutions. After a climatological approach, the native architecture of Manila will be examined. From this foundation, the houses of seventeenth-century Intramuros will be analysed. The results will be presented as cases of naturalization, hybridization, or persistence of either native or Spanish models. After being categorized, the city will be shown as a patchwork of building traditions, each one with meaningful social implications.