turnbull - phnom penh
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View from Phnom PenhTRANSCRIPT
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WWW .ARPLUS.COM MAY 2004 VOLUME CCXV NO 1287
OMA in Berlin (p48} Bucholz McEvoy's Dooradoyle (p58) St Mary Axe, London: Foster & Partners
WORKPLACES
VIEW
27 Young architects in Moscow; high-rise living in Manchester; Patrick Nuttgens obituary
VIEW FROM PHNOM PENH 38 By Robert Turnbull
DESIGN REVIEW
40 Preview of Spectrum 2004: international furniture and interior design show
COMMENT 46 The Office
OFFICE LIVES
48 Dutch embassy, Berlin, Germany OMA
58 Civic offices, Dooradoyle, Ireland BUCHOLZ MCEVOY ARCHITECTS
64 Civic offices, Tubbercurry, Ireland MCCULLOUGH MULVIN ARCHITECTS
68 Offices, Penang, Malaysia KEN YEANG
71 Headquarters building, Tokyo, Japan KEN GO KUMA
PLACE
74 Traumatic transformations in Athens in preparation for the Olympics JIM ANTONIOU
INTERIOR DESIGN
80 Office building, St Mary Axe, City, London FOSTER & PARTNERS/BENNETT INTERIOR DESIGN
HOUSE
86 House, Kyoto, Japan FOBA
PRODUCT REVIEW
91 Milan Furniture Fair
BOOKS
95 Koolhaas's Content; Sydney Opera House; Shigeru Ban; Foster; modern landscape; Roman house
DELIGHT -----98 Villa Lante, Bagnaia, Italy
COVER 48 Dutch embassy. Berlin, Germany OMA Photograph by Christian Richters
3815
HOtel Le Royal, French Art Deco masterpiece in the Orient opened in 1929, now lavishly restored.
The formerly elegant Cambodian capital
was one of the many victims of the
country's civil wars. It is now at peace,
and attention can finally turn to
restoring its rich architectural heritage.
Tn April 1967, Lee Kwan Yew was invited to
Phnom Penh by Cambodia's Prince Norodom
Sihanouk. Crnising along the capital's elegant
boulevards in his Mercedes convertible, the
Singaporean prcn1ier turned to his host and
mused, 'I hope, one day, my city will look like
this'. Eight years after Lee's visit, Phnom Penh
lay charred and abandoned. Khmer Rouge sol
diers had dynamited the National Bank and
cathedral. The Art Deco Bibliotheque became
a makeshift kitchen for Chinese advisers to Pol
Pot staying at a decrepit IIotel Le Royal11ext
door. Books were used as firewood. Pigs and
chickens roamed its corridors.
Today Cambodia is finally at peace and
Phnom Penh is undergoing a remarkable trans
formation. Roads arc being re-paved, colonial
George Gt'Osfier's National Museum completed in 1920 blends Khmer and French themes of the period.
villas rcp~1inted and fount3ins turucd back on
after ~H years . .'\ud, \\·bile belated, the rich
architecturallcgac:' that survived the \Vars is
beginning to attract the attention it dcstTyes, as
well <iS cnn.-.:;idcrabk concern.
At tl1c heart of the tourist agenda is the
Royal l'8lace and the great National Museum
next door, \·vhich houses the best collection of
antiquity frorn Ang"kor's t{~mples outside th{'
l\1usee Guimct in Paris. George Groslier's
1920 masterpiece of Khmer-French architec
ture boasts a vast angled terraco(ta-colourcd
roof supported by massive teak bcarns. Lo\'ers
or Art Deco can admire HCltel Le Royal, the
nerve centre of\'\ ar correspondents pre-Pol
Pol, since lavishly restored by the Rafllcs hotel
chain. The city's cathedral is lost for ever, but.
along the same quiet tree-lined street where it
once stood are nurnerous handsOinc colonial
editices all harrlly changed in 50 years, along
vvith the raihvay station, the ochre bank and
post office, not to mrution the archives and a
reinvigorated Bibliothcque (sans codwns). For me, however, Phnmn Penh's real archi
tectural legacy is not colonial but Modernist,
fusing postwar French trends (and a celebra
tory use of concrete) with the indigenous motifs
of Angkorian antiquity. Called 'New Khmer
Architecture', the unique hybrid flourished
over the decade and a half following the end of
French rule in 1953, but ended abruptly with
the coup that deposed Sihanouk in 1970 and
led ultimately to 30 years of civil war.
The architect responsible for the majority of
these structures is 78-year-old Vann l\1oly
vann. The first of his countrymen to be trained
in Europe, at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris,
Detail of National Museum roof.
Independence Monument by Vann Molyvann.
he-cam
busier.
Phnom
sen·ice
the tow
vidcd t<
period.
insists,
his ovvr:
Hcv
V\'as to
prince over lC
rencvn
bodia
sirnulta
round' pies a1
Penh.
this ne'
l\lonur
Boulev
the ole
dcveloi
the Ar
structu
by a I" snakes
Ont
formal
slung<
zigzag
ways a sugg-es·
pies. C functic
to the!
Railway
. .. endo
rned back on
cted, the rich
:d the wars is
it deserves, as
.genda -is the
Jnal Museum
1 collection of
:s outside the
ge Groslier's
nch architec
Hta-coloured
1eams. Lovers
~e Royal, the
lents pre-Pol
: Ra files hotel
c for ever, but
trcet where it
orne colonial
I years, along
ere bank and
rchives and a
Jchons). 1's real an·hi
ll Modernist,
nd a celebra
genous motifs
'Ne\v Kluner
id nourished
ing the end of
1bruptly with
'in 1970 ~nd
1e rnajority of Vann Moly
~ to be trained
Arts in Parjs,
he came directly under the influence ofLc Cor
busier. Vann Molyvann used the :vfodulor in
Phnom Penh during the 1960s, enlisting the
services of engineer Vladimir Bodiansky and
the town planner Henning, both of whom pro
vided technical assistance to the UN during the
period. But the essence of his style comes, he
insists, from Angkor \Vat and Khmer antiquity,
his own architectural heritage.
He was to Sihanouk as Christopher Wren
was to Charles II or Shusiev to Stalin. The
prince and his leading architect planned well
over I 00 projects as part of an ambitious urban
renewal programme aimed at dragging Cam
bodia out of the political backwater, while
simultaneously proclaiming the country's new
found self-confidence and sovereignty. Exam
ples are liberally scattered aronnd Phnom
Penh. However, the most obvious symbol of
this new national identity is the Independence
:V1onument that stands defiantly on Norodom
Boulevard, the broad thoroughfare thatjoins
the old colonial section to the modern zone
developed during the '60s. Directly emulating
the Arc de Triomphe, the chocolate-hued
structure is, appropriately enough, surrounded
by a profusion of nagtH, the mythical protective
snakes and kbach. or Khmer ornaments.
On the same street, set back from the road in
formal gardens, is a compound of cooL low
slung concrete and brick pavilions with quirky
zigzag roof lines. dcvated Angkor \'Vat vvalk
ways and rhythmical symmetrical doorways
suggestive ofTa Phrom and Preah Khan tem
ples. Cn·<:itrd as a state p;.-dacc 1 the complex
functions today as the Senate and is acccsslblc
to the public when the government is not in ses-
Railway station, French colonial Classicism ...
... encloses dramatic concrete interior.
Stadium Of national sports complex.
Vann Molyvann's Bassac Theatt<e.
sion. Similarly elegant is the riverside Bassac
Theatre, a brown brick and concrete structure,
with a foyer designed as a series of large trian
gles suspended above shallow pools of water
and cantilevered staircases. Diamond pat
terned reel, black and white tiles add splashes of
colour, while louvred ventilation provides light
and air. Sadly, the auditorium was gutted hy
fire in 1994, forcing perforn1ers to rrtove down
stream to the Chaktomuk Theatre at the point
where the Mekong, Tonie and Bassac rivers
converge. Conceived in 1961 as a Buddhist
conference hall, the fan-shaped building
deploys, once again, triangles and zigzags as
unifying motifs.
The 80 000-seat ='lational Sports Complex,
which opened concurrently with Kenzo
Tange:s more famous stadiun1 in Tokyo in
1966, is perhaps the strongest statement about
friendship between nations and hosted the
Asian Games or the same year. Besides the
four vast concrf'tt towers, the stadiurn has a
stunning cantilevered roof and large ornamen
tal pools that directly imitate the bamvc~, or tra
ditional reservoirs of Angkor \'Vat. i\lore
allusions to Khmer antiquitv can be found at
the School of Forci?;n Languages on Pochen
toug Boulevard, vvht-re another n.oga-protcctrd
walk.,.vay leads the \'isitors over bauyj of\\ ater.
To one side is a tinv circular library of ribbed
concrete.
Vann ~luly\aral rect'ntly became the subjt-ct
of a rnajor study, Bui/dinx Cambodw: .'\"{;:, !thmer
.-bdutecturFJ953-J:J7fJ, by ARK (Architectural
IZt'st·arch Khrnrr;, <-1 group cnmp1 is in,~ archi
tect H()k SukoL dll historian Darn·! ( :otlins
~1nd the an hitcef-tJrh;nJi.sr Hdcn ( ~r;tn! Ro::.~
Lu Ban Hap's Chenla Theatt'e.
Circular ribbed library of Foreign languages School.
Due to be published this year, one of its airns is
the creation of an inventory of all Cambodian
architecture from the period. Vann 1\!lolyvann,
Collins asserts, was not alone but merely the
greatest and most prolific of a group of archi
tects working in his employ, most of whom died
during the civil wars. A good example is per
haps the Chenla, Lu Ban Hap's eccelltric,
abstract theatre where Sihanouk hosted his so
called international film festivals.
But ARK has major concerns, the main one
being that Cambodian architectural students
have little knmvledge of the creative flowering
following independenu·. (Ironically, when so
much of modern Cambodian identity is sub
sumed by the overwhelming power of Angkor
and the Angkorian empire on the national psy
che.) As a result, neglect, botched restorations
and inadvertent destruction are still serious
threats to the survival of twentieth-century
huildlngs. lvlany renovations are neither up to
standard nor conducted transpucntly. The
Bassac Theatre remains in a state of suspended
animation, while officials at the Ministry of
Culture fight ovc-r the rnoney needed to restore
it. The Chenla has been annexed by an ugly,
circular restaurant. The restoration of the
Sports Complex was handed over to a Tai
wanese cornpany so that the perimeter could
be developed with commercial outlets. Results
were poor and served only to suffocate this
ClriCC imposing!;.' \'olumlnous space. ::\'lore
responsive and inwginati\·e approaches arc
greatly needed, so that this distinctive period of
Indo-Chintsc 1\:fndcrni;-;m can be truly appreci
ated once IHOIT. ROBERTTURNBCLI.
391