The Vann Molyvann Project continues to raise awareness and document the extraordinary, and threatened, collection of buildings by Cambodia’s most prominent architect of the 1960’s.
Below is a summary of their incredible work to date.
1. Building Survey and Documentation
The VMP have now surveyed and drawn what they believe are Vann Molyvann’s six most important buildings. The record the VMP are creating will ensure that if the demolitions continue—and that is the current trend—there will at least be a record available for future architects, students, scholars and the general public. But there are still nine buildings left to deal with in the very busy period remaining through the end of September—when the VMP reach their deadlines for the production of materials to exhibit, publish and archive.
Recently completed surveys:
The State Palace (now the Cambodian Senate) was inaugurated in 1966. In its original condition it was an open-air complex of terraces, walkways and sunken gardens sheltered under an folded and cantilevered concrete roof—the design of which allows for enormous clean spans and incorporate an ingenious double shell for ventilation above the enclosed areas. The buildings were primarily used for state functions (read glamorous parties)—which took place on the large central terrace. This terrace has now been walled in and contains the senate chambers—but in most respects the building is in fairly good shape. Some drawings are below.
 The State Reception Halls, an early commission from 1962, were used for small gatherings, visits by foreign dignitaries and performances of traditional dance and film. The halls are an exquisite grouping of small buildings interconnected with terraces and reflecting ponds.
The 100 Houses project, completed in 1967 to house workers of the National Bank of Cambodia, is a collection of 100 identical houses on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. The buildings are inspired by traditional Cambodian wood houses but rendered in refined modern detail. Some are in an advanced state decay, others have been extensively modified or replaced by oversized luxury villas—a few are reasonably well preserved. One owner kindly provided access to a very well maintained home. The VMP also made their way into a partially collapsed house—sad to see but helpful as the VMP could get a good look at the structure.
Selected surveys completed:
The Institute of Foreign Languages: Vann Molyvann’s last building before he fled. A masterpiece that combines all the elements he developed over his long career.
The National Sports Complex. The single most important public space in Phnom Penh. This enormous complex shows a mastery of structure and scale—but it also works at the simplest of levels. It is cool in the main arena, shaded areas abound, and it is intensively used by the public at all times of day.
Vann Molyvann’s House. Elegant and simple in plan and section—complex and exquisite in detail. No opportunity was left unexplored—a fantastic example of an architect left to his own devices. The enthusiasm for detail recalls Paul Rudolph’s apartment in New York or the John Soane house in London.
In the works:
The VMP are currently surveying the Chaktomuk Conference Hall. Completed in 1961, it was Vann Molyvann’s first major commission. A fan shaped building with a folded concrete roof it is one of Phnom Penh’s most important landmarks. Process images below
House for the Mother of Norodom Sirivuth, completed in the late 1950’s, is one of the few villas designed by Vann Molyvann in Phnom Penh. Their field work is largely complete—some drafting work remains.
Coming up:
Capitol Cinema, Phnom Penh
Sangkum Reastr Niyum Exhibition Halls
House of Penn Nouth, Phnom Penh
Pasteur Institute,. Phnom Penh
National Bank of Cambodia, Sihanoukville Branch
SKD Brewery, Sihanoukville
Church of St. Michel, Sihanoukville
2. Advocacy
Raising awareness about the outstanding quality and cultural significance of these buildings, and the importance of their preservation, is central to their mission. These buildings need to be known and talked about by scholars, architects, students and the general public around the world. Their efforts to date on this front include:
· A retrospective at the Phnom Penh French Cultural Center in late September.
· An article for Perspecta, the Yale School of Architecture Journal.
· Princeton Architectural Press has expressed interest in publishing a monograph. Interviews with the Wall Street Journal, Dwell, Conde Nast and La Liberation.
· Publication in the Phnom Penh Post and La Liberation
3. How you can get involved
Volunteer:
The VMP have been joined by several experienced architects and students form around the world. All have donated their time, talents to come to Cambodia--the skill and dedication they brought has made this project possible.
Participants have included Kurt Evans, Juenan Wu, Kevin Blusewicz, Terri Lee, Nancy Nichols, Garret Wong, Yasemin Tarhan, Ryan Fitzgerald, Kyle Brooks, Maeve Staunton, Courtney Smith-Frank and Eric Robinson, Leakhena Setha, Yaroslavna Podolitaskaya. Cambodian participants have included Yam Sokly, Yivchhoy Chhuong, Veng Sopagna, Pen Serey Pagna, Bun Chan Dara and Yin Sotheara.
The VMP are now looking for people with the following skills to join us through the end of September:
Architects and architectural students with experience in site survey, drafting, building physical and computer models and exhibition design
Graphic Designers who can help us put together materials for publication and exhibition (much of this type of work can be done without coming to Cambodia)
Writers/researchers to help prepare materials for publication and exhibition
Architectural photographers—important for all aspects of their work.
For more information contact;
Bill Greaves
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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James O'Toole of the Phnom Penh Post reported 31 March 2010;
Droughts and flooding may have been decisive factors in the mysterious collapse of the ancient Khmer capital of Angkor, according to a new study released this week.
In a paper published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, researchers Brendan Buckley, Daniel Penny and their collaborators argue that climate variation strained the city’s complex and fragile infrastructure beyond repair, leaving it unable to support its population.
“The lack of textual records dating after the 13th century has created a historical [gap] and divergent, unresolved claims about the causes, rate and timing of Angkor’s decline and fall,” Buckley and his colleagues wrote. “Historians and archaeologists have, with a few notable exceptions, only rarely considered the role played by environment and climate in the history of Angkor.”
The researchers based their argument on an analysis of growth rings from cypress trees discovered in Vietnam that were almost 1,000 years old.
By looking at the varying widths of the growth rings, Buckley and his colleagues determined that Angkor was subject to two major droughts – one in the mid 1300s, and another in the early 1400s – that coincided with the period in which the Khmer imperial capital is believed to have begun an accelerated decline.
These droughts, which likely had a severe impact on Angkor’s agricultural productivity, were followed closely by unusually intense monsoon seasons that led to floods and damage to the system of canals and baray upon which residents depended for water management.
“What our study demonstrates ... is that decades of weakened summer monsoon rainfall, punctuated by abrupt and extreme wet episodes that likely brought severe flooding that damaged flood-control infrastructure, must now be considered an additional, important, and significant stressor occurring during a period of decline,” the researchers wrote.
Buckley said the research was part of a broader project looking at medieval droughts in Asia, and described his recognition of its relevance to Angkorean history as “one of these serendipitous kinds of things”. It was only when he was dating the tree rings, he said, that he realised they bore such a close relation to the period of Angkor’s decline.
Research in Siem Reap was conducted in part by scientists from the Greater Angkor Project (GAP), a research group run out of the University of Sydney. GAP deputy director Dougald O’Reilly said the study built on the insight of French archaeologist Bernard-Philippe Groslier, who argued in 1979 that the famed Angkorean canals were part of a hydraulic system that was not in place simply for religious reasons.
The new study, O’Reilly added, lends depth and context to the emerging understanding among archaeologists that Angkor’s demise was more complicated than traditional theories have suggested. In the past, scholars have ascribed the decline to conflict with the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya and the flight of the empire’s elite to what is now Phnom Penh.
“The work that Buckley and Penny and [their collaborators] have done is really another piece of the puzzle that shows us that the decline of Angkor was a much more nuanced situation,” O’Reilly said.
Though Buckley was careful to note that a number of factors were likely involved in Angkor’s ultimate failure, he said the city may have been undone in part by its own feats of engineering.
“It just may have been ... [that] they weren’t able to cope with the vulnerability that they had because their system was so immovable,” Buckley said. “They didn’t have the ability to adapt very nimbly to these sorts of changes in their environment.”
With changing sea and river levels an issue of concern today in Southeast Asia, Buckley said, the importance adaptability in the face of a changing climate is a lesson that might be drawn from Angkor’s experience.
“Nature’s still dominant, and we don’t really control it like we’d like to,” he said. “The question is, how able are you and how nimble are you in adapting and adjusting to it, and that’s going to be the critical issue.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SAM RITH
Original story at http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010033134619/National-news/climate-blamed-in-fall-of-angkor.html
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May Kunmakara of the Phnom Penh Post reported on Tuesday, 30 March 2010 "a climb in quarterly ticket revenue for tickets to the Angkor temples reflected a slight recovery for a tourism sector hurt by global and regional uncertainty, officials said Monday.
Ticket sales grew 20 percent for the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period last year, according to figures from Apsara Authority, the agency that manages the temples.
The new figures marked a recovery from 2009 sales, which had dropped 10 percent from levels in 2008, at the onset of the economic downturn.
“We’ve seen a recovery in the whole sector for several months this year, allowing our revenues to increase around 20 percent so far,” Apsara Director General Bun Narith told the Post. “However, last year the impact of the global crisis, the [H1N1] outbreak, as well as political turmoil in Thailand, all impacted the drop in foreign visitors to the Angkor Wat temples.”
Tourism Minister Thong Khon said the sales figures reflected the sector’s overall recovery. Revenue declined on the back of a 5 percent fall in foreign visitors to Siem Reap in 2009, he said.
“But I see that in recent months this year, foreign tourists increased around 25 percent [in Siem Reap], which would contribute to the increase of ticket sales revenue,” he said.
The government allows more than 5,000 foreign delegates to visit the temples for free each year, he said.
Last year, the revenue from ticket sales dropped to around US$27 million from nearly $30 million the year before, he added. Cambodia saw revenue of $32 million in 2007.
Although revenue is down, tourist arrivals grew slightly in 2009, up 1.7 percent from 2008, according to the ministry. January arrivals were up 6.36 percent from the same month last year.
Bun Narith said political unrest in Thailand and the military standoff on the Thai border were no longer hurting Cambodia’s tourism sector.
“Now our tourism gateway is changing destinations, from the usual Thailand to Vietnam,” he said. “We saw tourists in the region increasing a lot last year”, especially from China, Singapore, and South Korea, as well as Europe and the United States, he said.
About 5,000 people now visit Angkor Wat every day, he said, with foreign visitors using a weeklong pass over the course of one month, instead of seven days in a row.
“I don’t dare say what percentage we will take this year, but it will be quite a bit better than last year, because the crisis is over,” said Bun Narith."
Original story @ http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010033034485/Business/angkor-ticket-revenues-up-20pc-during-q1.html
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On March 13, 2010, Norimasa Tahara reported for McClathchy Newspapers from Luang Prabang;
More than a 10th of the Buddha statues in Luang Prabang, an ancient city in north-central Laos whose urban district is a World Heritage Site, have gone missing in the past few years.
Minobusan University in Minobucho, Japan, whose students help restore statues in Luang Prabang, says 120 Buddha statues are missing.
In 2001 the Buddhist university began a survey of the statues, the number of which was unknown, and in 2007 it reported to the Laotian government that it had confirmed the presence of 1174 statues. However, a survey conducted in 2009 revealed that 100 statues were missing from 35 temples. In 2010, another 20 statues were found to be missing.
Laotian authorities suspect the statues are stolen for resale, and have begun conservation efforts with support from the Japanese university.
Luang Prabang, on the Mekong River about 425 kilometres north of Vientiane, was the capital city of Lan Xang kingdom, which was established in the 14th century. The statues there are wooden Theravada Buddhism statues made in the 14th century or later, and are of high historical value.
While monks at the temples have begun keeping guard over the statues by sleeping at the temples, Minobusan University students have distributed brochures at the Luang Prabang National Museum to sound the alarm over the property loss and to call for increased security in the city.
''I hope to take part in establishing a security system for these historical heritage pieces,'' said Yoshitaka Suzuki, 26, a researcher and student at the university.
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The Phnom Penh Post reports;
American authorities plan to repatriate a “very large” shipment of cultural artefacts plundered from temples in the Kingdom, a senior US law enforcement official said Tuesday.
John Morton, the assistant secretary of homeland security for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said American officials are working on the logistics of transporting a shipment of priceless antiquities, some of them very heavy, back to the Kingdom later this year.
“In 2007, we returned small items,” Morton told reporters after a meeting with Cambodian officials in Siem Reap Tuesday.
“For this next repatriation, the items are very large and weigh several thousand pounds. We have to make special arrangements for them to be shipped to Cambodia.”
Morton said the artefacts were large pieces removed from a temple that had found their way into the US.
Cultural spokespersons in the Kingdom have long decried the illicit sale of ancient artefacts.
The items, looted from ancient burial sites or wrenched from important monuments and temples throughout the country, are often highly sought after on the illicit international art market.
“This is international business, and unfortunately, there is a black market in cultural artefacts,” said Morton, whose department includes the repatriation of stolen cultural heritage worldwide.
“It can be very difficult to investigate these cases because the items have been stolen many, many years ago.”
The US has pledged to work with Cambodian authorities to stem the flow of the illegal art trade. An ongoing memorandum of understanding between US authorities and the Ministry of Culture bans the importation of Cambodian artefacts dating back to the Iron Age into America.
Tan Chay, director of the heritage police, said after the meeting that US officials have promised to help Cambodia with skills training and that they hoped to open a permanent office in Cambodia to work on antiquities issues.
Earlier this year, authorities released a watch list of items that are commonly stolen from cultural sites in the Kingdom and trafficked onto the illicit art market. It was planned to be distributed to officials at major border crossings.
See the original here; http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010030333008/National-news/us-vows-to-return-shipment-of-looted-khmer-antiquities.html
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