Southeast Asia's colonial heritage victim of modernisation

Wed, 01 Dec 2010
By Suy Se
AFP

PHNOM PENH: When Cambodia tore down a century-old school in the capital this year, conservationists bemoaned the loss of yet another piece of history in former French Indochina in the rush to modernise.

French colonial architecture – with its shuttered windows, grand balconies and pitched tiled roofs – for decades defined the look of cities in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, even after the French pulled out of Indochina in 1954.

But now, hundreds of historic buildings across the region are being knocked down as governments capitalise on rising land prices and attempt to create eye-catching skylines.

"What I see in Phnom Penh is little – or at worst no – heritage protection of significant buildings. I see the disappearance of old French colonial buildings," said Cambodia-based architectural historian Darryl Collins.

"It's a great pity because I think in time it will be regretted that so many of these buildings have gone," the Australian said.

Built in 1908, the Ecole Professionnelle – Cambodia's oldest training school – was razed in February, the latest high-profile casualty in the impoverished country's quest for modernity.

The Cambodian capital, or the "Pearl of Asia" as it was once known, used to be thought of as one of the loveliest cities in the region thanks to its French-style wide avenues, carefully-manicured gardens and stately homes.

Much of that charm, however, is disappearing at an alarming rate, say conservationists.

They estimate that as many as 30% of Phnom Penh's colonial buildings – survivors of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime and decades of civil war – have been demolished in the past 15 years.

Economic growth

While many Cambodians in the capital prefer to live and work in modern buildings, it's not just historians who are upset by the transformation.

"We should not destroy the French buildings. We should renovate them so that they look nice again," said Chheng Moeun, 76, who sells soft drinks outside a crumbling colonial villa near Phnom Penh's Royal Palace.

The demolitions are being driven in part by the kingdom's economic growth over the past decade, and developers are eager to build apartments and office blocks in the prime locations that many of the colonial buildings occupy.

Samraing Kamsan, a top official at Cambodia's Ministry of Culture, said saving French design in Phnom Penh was complicated because of limited funding and a lack of interest from the buildings' owners.

"We want to preserve those ancient buildings. Some people listen to us, but some do not," the official said.

Across the border, fellow former French colonies Laos and Vietnam are also struggling to maintain their colonial dwellings, said Collins, who blames booming real estate prices.

"It's a short-term pattern of thinking," he said, the main consideration being "sheer profit".

Hoang Dao Kinh, a specialist in the preservation of Hanoi's cultural and historical heritage, said out of more than one thousand French villas in the Vietnamese capital, only a few hundred remain in the original colonial style.

And while the country has made efforts to safeguard old buildings, Kinh said the application of a 2001 law on the preservation of such sites "has met with many difficulties".

Tourist draw

But attempts to rescue some of France's architectural leftovers have not been completely in vain, he added, pointing to Vietnam's Dalat city as a noteworthy example.

In neighbouring Laos, the picturesque northern town of Luang Prabang with its well-kept colonial homes has proved a major tourist draw, and the government is keen to replicate that success in the capital.

Buildings in Vientiane have been renovated and are in "very good" condition, said government spokesman Khenthong Nuanthasing.

"It's good for tourists. When the tourists come to Vientiane, they are looking for that," he said.

Collins believes governments in all three countries should see the preservation of French-era structures not as a nuisance, but as a way to attract revenue from foreign visitors.

"Decisions have to be made about how important these buildings are to the cities," he said.

But if recent remarks by the Cambodian prime minister are anything to go by, those in favour of conservation face an uphill battle.

"They want to keep the old buildings... But when they collapse, who would be responsible?" Hun Sen said in September when he announced plans for a 555-metre tower in Phnom Penh.

"Don't be too conservative. Skyscrapers are appearing. Let's build high buildings," he said.

Building a Brighter Future in Siem Reap

Construction of the outdoor kitchen and dining pavilion took place in January with community members and students from the Design for a Sustainable Future Architecture class. (Photo: Zachary Lamb)
Children at the Ampil Peam school eating in the newly built kitchen and dining pavilion. (Photo: Zachary Lamb)

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

The cost of education is a heavy burden in Cambodia’s rural areas. Parents who cannot afford to educate all of their children are forced to choose those who can attend school. Teachers are paid as little as ten dollars a month, and often eke out a livelihood with additional jobs that take them away from the classroom.

With the vision of creating a world-class learning environment in Cambodia, the Jay Pritzker Academy (JPA) in the northern city of Siem Reap, turned to the School of Architecture at MIT for advice. Founded by philanthropists Daniel and Karen Pritzker, JPA aims to educate talented and motivated students from low-income families while offering support to schools in the surrounding area.

Since opening in 2006, JPA has outgrown its current location. As part of the fall 2.009 Service Learning class, Special Problems in Building Technology - Design for a Sustainable Future, 17 Architecture and Civil Engineering students worked alongside Professors Marilyne Andersen, John Ochsendorf and Meejin Yoon to design classroom structures to accommodate 400 students.

After researching the cultural and climatic needs, the students designed an “ideal” classroom and an overall master plan with systems for built-in water management and natural ventilation. To inform the design and put real faces on a seemingly distant place, students in the workshop were paired with students from JPA. Throughout the course of the fall semester they discovered what really mattered to their Cambodian pen pals. “It was important for calibrating our designs to kid life and changing our perspective,” says Julianna Sassaman (G Course 4).

In January 2010, the class traveled to Siem Reap with the support of the Public Service Center, the Jay Pritzker Academy, and the Department of Architecture. For two and a half weeks, the students tackled three challenges: to work with the original campus’ architects, LBL International, and further develop the design conceived during the fall semester; to devise strategies to increase the comfort and usability of the existing library; and to design and build a new outdoor kitchen for the nearby Ampil Peam school. The students split into three groups and often shifted from one to the next, learning about the local approach to the issues and offering their own expertise in turn.

Working with design-build guru Jim Adamson and alongside Cambodian construction workers, students constructed the 4-meter by 8-meter outdoor kitchen and dining pavilion. Called a pteasbai in Khmer, the pavillion would host Ampil Peam’s 200 primary school children, many who suffer from malnutrition. The team had the opportunity to learn local building techniques like methods for laying hollow cored bricks and how to use simple tamping tools nicknamed “elephant feet,” made from bamboo handles and sections of tree stumps. They also showed the locals how to create experimental materials like rice husk ash as a partial replacement to cement in concrete mixes and rammed earth for eating benches.

On their last morning in Siem Reap, they had an inaugural breakfast with the Ampil Peam students under the newly completed pavilion. The children immediately took to the new structure and began playing hopscotch on the new paving, far exceeding the “kids per linear meter” estimation that Zachary Lamb (M.Arch ‘10) and others on the team had made.

These interactions and more made the biggest impression on Sassaman. “It was really awesome to connect with part of the community through working with them and not just as tourists. … being there long enough to see how people live and how they build helped me understand how it all makes sense together,” she says. “We still have a lot to learn from other cultures and expertise,” but this opportunity was one step in helping children in Siem Reap build a better future for themselves, their families, and their country.

Construction on the classrooms is slated to begin in September 2010.

Building Phnom Penh: An Angkorian heritage [- The soon-to-be-destroyed legacy of Architect Van Molyvann]

Architect Vann Molyvann

The library of the School of Foreign Languages in Phnom Penh, designed by Vann Molyvann. (Courtesy of Susan Schulman)

Tuesday, March 27, 2007
By Robert Turnbull The International Herald Tribune (Paris, France)

PHNOM PENH: Many Asian cities have laid claim to the title of "Paris of the East." During the 1930s, Phnom Penh's candidature was supported by no less a luminary than Charlie Chaplin, who described its orderly, tree-lined avenues as "little sisters" to the Champs-Elysées.

But today's visitors to Cambodia are surprised to discover that the true architectural legacy of this former French protectorate is not colonial at all, but a unique synthesis of postwar European modernism and what might be called "Angkorian vernacular."

"New Khmer Architecture" emerged from Cambodia's 15 years of prosperity following the end of French rule in 1953. The euphoria of independence spawned an entire school of designers and architects who, rather than replicate international styles, chose to reinterpret them according to a set of local conditions, foremost among them flooding and hot temperatures.

It was a kind of Asian Bauhaus in that its members worked concurrently and in a similar style.

The movement's influence was short-lived: few of its architects survived the Khmer Rouge. However, Vann Molyvann, the leader and most prolific member of the group, remains, at 80, an enterprising and respected figure, even if his work has yet to acquire the protection it so patently deserves.

The first Cambodian architect to be trained in Europe - at Paris's Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts - Vann returned to Cambodia in 1956. Introduced to the left-leaning King Norodom Sihanouk, the two spearheaded a campaign of urban development and construction that transformed Phnom Penh from a sleepy colonial backwater to a vibrant, ambitious capital.

From universities to sports facilities, the architect and his royal mentor created more than a hundred public projects throughout Cambodia, using funds from the Chinese, Russian and French governments as well as "nonaligned" states during the decade and a half before Cambodia was dragged into a regional war with the United States. The engineer Vladimir Bodiansky and the urbanist Gerald Hanning provided technical assistance.

Vann's imposing Independence Monument at the intersection of Sihanouk and Norodom boulevards symbolizes the era. Paying direct homage to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the chocolate-hued Phnom Penh structure built in 1960 is adorned, appropriately enough, with a profusion of nagas, the protective serpents of Hindu mythology.

Vann's 1964 National Sports Center, constructed before Kenzo Tange's Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, is as clear a statement of civic pride and for Sihanouk an attempt to proclaim the country's neutrality in the face of growing Cold War hostilities. Cambodia's rejection by the pro-Western International Olympic Committee prompted Sihanouk to join Ganefo (Games of the Nonaligned and Emerging Forces), a sporting event created by China, Russia and others. Cambodia's turn to host the Games came in 1966.

Though Vann shared Sihanouk's utopian vision, his inspiration is drawn from his own architectural heritage. The Sports Center's large ornamental pools directly imitate the barays, or reservoirs, surrounding Angkorian temples, while the elevated walkways at both his Cham Car Mon palace and the School of Foreign Languages pay homage to Angkor Wat's kilometer-long causeway.

Vann's signature suspended "zigzag" roof lines created artificial space to enable air to flow in what he describes as "a reworking of the concave shape of the temple roofs."

The other major influence was Le Corbusier and his complex theories of communal living. Vann's use of the Frenchman's "modular"' as a tool for establishing proportions is best emulated in the "White" and "Gray" buildings of the Front du Bassac, a development begun in 1964 to house foreign advisers and Ganefo's athletes.

"His buildings are like sculptures in the way they celebrate depth and space as well as light and darkness," said the architect today.

Assessing Phnom Penh at that time as "an active sedimentation zone with poor ventilation and prone to flooding," Vann found traditional solutions to mass housing in a rapidly expanding city. A new book, "Building Cambodia: 'New Khmer Architecture' (1953-1970)" by Darryl Leon Collins and Helen Grant Ross (The Key Publishers, Bangkok 2006) applauds the movement's aims and philosophy while establishing Vann as a seminal figure in postwar Asian architecture.

But while steadily collecting admirers abroad and celebrated by the more enlightened sections of Phnom Penh society, this architectural patrimony has not been protected by the authorities. Rather than celebrate the achievements of Sihanouk's "golden age," the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen seems to go to considerable lengths to undermine them.

To the dismay of international groups attempting to stimulate cultural continuity, Vann has been largely shunned by the political establishment in Cambodia. When Unesco organized a conference on how to protect this legacy and designated Vann as its head, it had to disinvite him after complaints by the government. Rarely consulted on the fate of his buildings, Vann has been forced to watch from the sidelines while his work has been ripped out or ineptly renovated.

The refurbishment of Vann's fan-shaped Chaktomuk Conference Hall met with the architect's general approval. However, the Taiwanese Yuanta Group's cosmetic makeover of the National Sports Center in 2000 robbed this voluminous site of a good deal of its land to make way for commercial development. "Economic tradeoffs with foreign developers result in short-term quick-fix solutions that ignore longterm planning," Collins said.

The latest building to attract scrutiny is a theater commissioned by Sihanouk in 1966 to promote Cambodia's performing arts. A masterpiece of concrete plasticity with staircases suspended over shallow pools of water, the Preah Suramarit was gutted by fire in 1994, devastating the auditorium and stage area. It has remained in its ruined state for more than a decade.

Only days after Cambodia's new King Norodom Sihamoni declared a desire to see the theater rebuilt, the government pre-emptively announced its sale to a local telecommunications company, which is expected to replace it with a conference hall and TV tower.

Given the minimal architectural merit, much less public interest to be found in the latest rash of government offices, casino and private villas, this is especially depressing.