Kitsch Kcamp Khmer

A Thesis Exploration

by Aik Xuan Xin Ezra

May 2019

Presented to the School Of Design and Environment National University Singapore In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the M.Archi

Cultural Production + The Equitorial City

Kitsch, Khmer, Kcamp in Cambodia

A new Khing has risen over Cambodia. His Kingdom? Diamond island. It is a place where many others have tried to stake their claim but all pale in comparison to the new kid in town. Crowned in gold, draped in a coat of colours, the Khing stand unevenly on buckled legs. Within it, it hosts a variety of programs. Part hotel, part office, part stadium, part shopping mall and part private residence.

Underneath the cloak of various hues, the assemblage of programmatic spaces congregate to prop the crown up as high as it can go. Stretching beyond the tallest building on the island by a hair.

During the day, the tower stand unassuming. Its rotated volumes allow for sunlight to reach into its core and cross ventilation is afforded to the hotel rooms due to the porous facade. To room extends into the facade. At night, the tower is reimagined. The stadium becomes an exciting platform for bareknuckle fighting while the space underneath the stage quickly attracts various sorts of vices and illegals. The facade is lit up into a neon sleazy glow as office workers continue into their after hours activities. The hotel rooms serves to accommodate the various needs of its occupants.

Who dares challenge the king? Who will wear the emperor’s new clothes?

Vann Molyvann

Delphine Vann

Norodom Sihanouk

Norodom Sihamoni

Hu Sen

Hun Manet

LLu Ban Hap

Vladimir Bodiansky

Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, Kampot, Battambang

Ho Chi Min City

The Molyvann Project A+U Publications

KA Tours

Building Cambodia; New Khmer Architecture

Notes on Camp

The Nobert Elias Reader

Intellectuals and Popular Culture

Faith in Fakes

Architecture and the Minature Architecture Production

Folded plates, Doubled plates, House on Stilts, Concrete Stilts, Ankored Architecture, Angkorwat, Angkor Strong, Aluminium fins, Concrete fins, Chinese money, Repetition, Exaggerated Motifs, Modernism, Tropicality, Trope-icality, Earth, Wind, Rain, Fire, Khmer Rouge, Systems and Access, Ventilation blocks, Floods, House on the River, Ventilation Tubes, Light shelves, Light Tubes, Light Fins, Concrete-filled moats, Fire, Pol Pot, Military coups, Brutalist Towers, Fantastical Facades, Myraid Mosaic Fenestrations, Shiny Crown, Vice City, 3D Printing, Mimic, Camp, Kitsch, Khmer

This thesis looks at exploring the systems of architectural production and its role in the ongoing cultural production of post-independence equatorial cities.

Its architectural consequence includes a built architectural project or a physical urban intervention that explores the utilizing dialectic of camp-kitsch aesthetics as a relevant cultural agency within the contemporary architectural means of production.

Its based on the following research that is centered around Helen Grant Ross and Darryl Collins coining of the term ‘New Khmer Architecture’, Nobert Elias exploration of the notion of kitsch, Susan Sontags exploration of kitsch and camp, Andrew Ross understanding of pop culture aesthetics and Arnolds Pacey’s discourse on technology in world civilisation. The method of design is based heavily on Eco’s collection of essays in Faith in Fakes, Mark Morris’s view on the minature in Architecture and the Minature and Beatriz’s Architecture Production. The project is also supported by travel as a way of research read the city.

Copyright © 2019 by Aik Xuan Xin Ezra

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

MArchi Press

11 Architecture Drive

Singapore, S999111

Imagined in the Kingdom of Cambodia

Printed in the Republic of Singapore

Built in the National University of Singapore

Abstract

This thesis is about exploring the systems of architectural production and its role in the ongoing cultural production in equatorial cities during its post-independence. It explores the relationship between kitsch, camp and fakes as processes in architectural design. The architectural consequence the thesis includes a built architectural project or a physical urban intervention that utilizes camp-kitsch-aesthetics as a relevant cultural agency within the contemporary architectural means of production. In this case, it is a tower situated in diamond island. A copy, a critique or a mere monument? On one hand, the tower seeks to extend that exaggeration of form and motifs and on the other hand it takes itself less seriously due to this exaggeration. As such the doubleness allows for the critique of Vann Molyvann legacy as well as the current state of capitalistic development in cambodia.

The argument put forth is that, characteristic to most post-colonial cities, the need to modernise and develop as a country often results in the changing of urban fabric as capital moves into the city. With it comes the need to project a sense of progress and development in order to attract more investment. As such this might lead to, in some cases, what is termed as the Manhattan skyline transfer where cities start to look like other developed cities due to the collection of towers and the aggregate aspiration for height as symbol.

The hunch is, the desire for modernity and modernisation might then lead to the ineviatble usage of kitsch in order to commercialised the cultural sophistication in which it samples from. Thus it raises the question of the mechanism of ‘kitsch-ing’ or ‘camp-ing’ as a legitimate means of cultural production within the equitorial city.

Yet to critique the city and its state of development in a subtle manner requires a method of design that allows for ambivelance in taste and judgement, thus the utilizing of camp as a design method is appropriate. Camp involves both a sense of doubleness where things are not merely what they seem to the viewer, and a preference for inverse, the very bad now reinterpreted as good. Camp thus makes most sense not as an aesthetic style but as a mode of apprehension or a hermeneutic. The fake can become the real. It is about taste.

This conversation is situated in contemporary Cambodia. Having just wrestled national independence in 1953 from their former French colonial masters, Cambodia found itself at a period of opportunity, optimism and patriotism. Eager to prove that their country to be competent, capable and contemporary, the then King Sihanouk began a slew of developmental programmes that aimed at rejuvenating the country. It was a time of ‘unprecedented creative dynamism’ that seemed to grip the country, a time when ‘everyone was aware of that it was necessary to rediscover our origins’ so as to ‘reassert its (Cambodia) own personality’ (Ross & Collins, 2006). More importantly, crucial to most of the architectural development during this so-called “golden age” of Cambodia was beaux-art trained architect Vann Molyvann. Under the patronage of the king, he had access to resources, opportunity and expertise that allowed the flourishing of many state led architecture projects. He was the architectural author of what is known as ‘New Khmer Architecture’ (NKA). A term coined by Helen Grant and Darryl Collin, NKA refers to a style of architecture that posits itself to be modern yet Cambodian. Reaching an apotheosis in the 1960s , it was unexpectedly and tragically aborted in the 1970s due to the shifting political situation caused by military general Lon Nol that ushered in the tragic beginnings of the Khmer Rogue under Pol Pot.

Current Cambodia finds itself almost back at square one after the enactment of a constitutional monarchy led by Prime Minister Hun Sen. It is modern city within the framework of the market economy but also under a government that runs a dictatorship with prime minister husen sitting at the seat of power for 33 years now. With a deeply traumatic past of brutality, coups, uprisings and instability, my interest in the country comes at a time where the dictatorship is about to be solidified under an alleged corrupted government that sells land to foreign investors while having no issue with evicting his own citizens. At the same time, architectural masterpieces, such as the national stadium, are sold off to the highest bidder in return for uneven profits. Today these structures are not seen, they are hidden within tall glass buildings that serve as vertical piggy banks. By the turn of this year, Phnom Penh was home to an estimated 8,600 condominium units, with 13,000 more due to be completed by the end of the year, according to data collected by real estate services firm CBRE Cambodia. Vannak says that nearly 2.5 million people occupy the capital day-to-day, including those living outside the city centre and those commuting in from nearby provinces. Many of the completed projects also remain bought but unoccupied thus serve to hollow out the city block by block. (CBRE, accessed Nov 2018).

The city is thus fast becoming either a place for the rich chinese due to the promise of their investments, or a city that is slowly hollowed out by tall glass buildings. Each tower marks a new tombstone in which a part of the city has died to the foreign invasion.

Cambodia Pearl of Asia

Research by Travel

Moly I’m Moving On

In order to read the city, a precedent study in the form of a research travel trip in order to create a catalogue of buildings that are unique Cambodia. The trip would trace most of the works of Vann Molyvann. This would then be used to create a taxonomy of various architectural design moves or methods. This would come in the form of photographs, sketches and architectural drawings. The trip also hopes to collect a series of informal interviews with some architects, architectural professors and students of the vannmolyvann movement in to understand the realities of practicing in Cambodia. This is linked to understanding the agency that the architect as a profession has. This is an attempt to define the conceptual, experimental and methodological boundaries in which these architectural ideas operate in.

Having personally visited cambodia previously on an internship period of two months but was mostly on the site of construction rather than the visiting of town and architectural areas, the author is keen to understand and experience the city from what Dell Upton decribes as lieux de memoire (Upton, 2002) where buildings through material moves and structuring bodily experiences serves as where cultural agency is translated into spatial configuration and materiality that is then to be tied closely with history and cultural context as argued by Psarra. (Psarra, 2009)

Today’s political climate vastly differs with the city almost being overwhelmed by the frenzy of construction, over-densification of built environment with almost no political will or regulations to curb such. My hunch is that this would then lead to the exclusion of citizens. Today’s flow of capital and distribution of labour have consequences on the developing nation in its exclusion of the majority. What this translates to architecturally is the reduction of public spaces where areas are increasingly gentrified and citizens being evicted.

This trip also hopes to acquire a visual vocabulary of architectural types/tropes/ moves/design sequence that is linked to the period of the so-called golden age of khmer architecture. The notion of khmer-ness (aesthetic interpretation, spatial configuration and materiality) is of interest by drawing upon the olympic stadium as a example of how the ‘khmer-ness’ interfaced with the contemporary of its time in terms of translating palatable vernacular aesthetics, construction process and spatial experience.

The proposed trip of 10 days leave much buffer time for any unforeseen circumstances that might arise from scheduling conflicts to difficulty in accessing buildings. The proposed trip is roughly broken down in attempting to visit 3 architecture buildings of interest per day.

New Khmer Architecture

New Khmer Architecture (NKA) was coined during the 1960s as a term to describe the style architecture being built in the rapidly albeit recklessly developing city of Phnom Penh. It surfaced at that time where public buildings were seen to have blended modern construction techniques (modernism, brutism and its offshoots) with Cambodian tradition, it claimed to be authentically Cambodian yet legibly modern. Helen and Darryl then defined it as a style that included ‘the modern movement, both vernacular and ancient khmer styles and the colonial heritage from Europe’. (Ross & Collins, 2006) What is seems to suggest is a comprehensive amalgamation of the various architectural influences and qualities that Cambodia has acquired throughout its history. Interestingly, it is mentioned that the style was more than just the ‘unique aesthetics’ but it also attempts to reference and include the ‘Cambodian culture and everyday life’ (Ross & Collins, 2006).

NKA represented a kind nationalistic sentiment and ambition of the King to construct a clean lineage and narrative that bridged the void between a glorious ancient history and a future that modernism promised. This was during a period of post-independence where nationalistic sentiments were high thus arguably affording the King the ripe socio-political climate to claim it as such. This movement was a style of architecture that was proliferated by ‘an elite group of modern Cambodians’ who were eager to advance their country being motivated by a ‘quasi-religious belief in their national vocation’.

Yet there seems to be an inherent contradiction of NKA as an idealogy. On one hand it attempts to leverage on the historical narrative of the ancient Khmer kingdom and civilisation as a means to accumulate cultural and political capital. On the other hand, it also desires the contemporary along with the promise of modernism. This might then require the ‘troublesome contents’ (Tay, 2003) of its history from which it samples from to be jettisoned even though these are legitimate and authentic by-products of the ‘everyday life’ in Cambodian culture (Upton, 2002). ARchitecterual endeavours under the umbrella of NKA, as defined by Helen and Darryl, then faces the danger of being seen as just a ‘stylised expression’, a kitsch. Helen and Darryl is quick to counter balance by stating that ‘there is no attempt to emulate it or to copy it for the sake of appearance’ and that what has transpired was ‘completely authentic and new design which looks like what it is’ (Ross & Collins, 2006). They argue that the mere replication of tradition is what ‘characterises misplaced nationalistic pride’ and results in an ‘architecture devoid of invention’ (ibid). Yet this raises the rhetoric concerning what is considered replication or what are the lenses in which is used to read the NKA that prevents it from being read as a kitsch?

The term Kitsch came out of Germany and was often used as a way to describe the cheap and showy art that came out during the commercial development during the 19th century Europe. It was a way to label and distinguish between high art of good taste versus the counterfeit, bad taste and the fake. Emerging out of the German idealist aesthetic theory, kitsch was used as a counterpoint to the ‘aesthetuc utopia’ expounded by German idealist philosophers. Matei Călinescu elaborates this critically by stating that kitsch can become ‘a specifically aesthetic form of lying’ (Mch., B., and Matei Calinescu, 1988.) where he further categories them into two groups, one of propaganda and one of entertainment. Yet he agrees that it might be difficult to tell them apart for ‘propaganda can masquerade as ‘cultural’ entertainment and, conversely, entertainment can be directed toward subtle manipulative goals (ibid). Giovanni Maciocco and Silvano Tagliabambe looks at how kitch can become ‘an aesthetic category that well represents the contemporary city’ (Maciocco, G. & Silvano T, 2009). Where kitsch serves as social propaganda, it effectively distracts and ‘placate anguish’ during a period of turbulence or cultural transition. The bland, polite, and the acceptable has the potential to hide or conceal sinister happenings in the urban fabric and environemnt. Matei calls it a ‘dreaminess’ through the ‘aesthetcis of deception and self-deception’.

Specifically in Cambodia, I posit that the mechanism of kitsch is used in two ways, one to ensure the continual buildings high rise buildings in order to create the illusion of development and modernity, the other, to cater to the Chinese market that is propping up the developmental bubble through the importing of European kitsch as an urban intervention.

Camp is usually discussed with reference to kitsch where camp is an aesthetic style and sensibility that is achieved through the use of irony or self-awareness. Often posted as a critic to the notions of what is considered high-art or authentic art. The use of inversion is used to challenge and conventional attributes of beauty, value and taste through an invitation of alternative consumption and apprehension. Susan Santog lists the key attributes making up camp such as : ‘artifice, frivolity, naive middle-class pretension and excessive shock value’. (Sontag, 2018)

Andrew Ross sees camp as an engagement that of cultural meaning that then leads to its redefinition, this is often done through the mechanisms of juxtaposition where the outdated convention is pitted against the more technological, stylistic and satirical contemporary. In a move of reappropriation, camp works to mix the categories of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. Things can become “camp-y” because their historical manifestation due to their association with certain powers are now no longer relevant. In contrast to kitsch, camp reppropriates ironically while kitsch seeems to remain rather sincere. Camp takes and samples from ‘unexpected value’ that can be ‘located in some obscure or exorbitant object’ (Ross, 2016). However Andrew also notes that

Kitsch | Khmer | Kamp

the use of irony is problematic as those with agency to redefine are often those who are of a privilege position to begin with.

Specifically to Cambodia, the rush to develop has left the urban landscape void of proper planning and regulations. This has led to the excessive proliferation go building in order to attract global capital and investments. With it comes the devaluating of previous architecture namely the NKA. This is seen from how some of the ornamental water bodies surrounding the Olympic National Stadium has been filled up with concrete by foreign contractors in order to build more condominiums. Buildings such as the Preah Suramarit National Theatre was burnt down during its renovation supposedly by a worker who accidentally left his blowtorch on during lunch. The Sangkum Reastr Niyum Exhibition Hall has part of its building torn down to make space for the building of a commercial space.

Though this can be seen as the inevitable removal of the old for the new, NKA was a unique point in the history of Cambodia for what it represented and the gradual removal of it should be slightly alarming. Camp can then enter as the ‘recreation of surplus value from forgotten forms’. Though Susan Santog exploration of camp sees it as the ability to induce a ‘yuck factor’ where ‘its good because its awful’, this thesis is interested in the utilising of camp as a vehicle of preservation and critique of the modes of cultural production in Cambodia. (Sontag, 2018)

Conclusively, NKA should read more critically. It is a unique architectural style that derives its inspiration from camobdian historical architectural motifs and vernacular spatial organisations. Its utilised contemporary means and systems of architectural production in its time, modernism, in order to present itself as ‘Architecture’. Its claim to cultural legitimacy and authenticity could be made due to the unique relationship between the architect and the king. NKA represented a time where state production aligned itself with the cultural production of the city, the offical captial C culture. ‘Tradition is expressed metaphorically, while its brutalist concrete structure - the archetypical trait of late modernism - is conspicuous’ (Iwamoto, 2017). NKA as an architectural manifestation then refelcts these political realities. However it’s claim to cultural authenticity with regards to ‘Cambodian culture and the everyday life’ cannot be made too quickly as it risks subsuming the ‘historical specificity’ (Crinson, 2005) under a common nationalistic narrative.

New Khmer Architecture?

Does NKA lend itself to be read as a process of kitsching? Influenced by the contemporary architectural movement of that time, modernism and brutalism were tools that Molyvann used. It was clear that he saw ‘form…as an expression of essence, historical period or function’ (Psarra, 2009). NKA to him was a way to claim cultural agency. For Ross and Collins, they defined it as a style that included ‘the modern movement, both vernacular and ancient khmer styles and the colonial heritage from Europe’. (Ross & Collins, 2006) The vernacular is often depicted in purely architectonic terms. Descriptions such as as the ‘light-weight structures built with materials that deteriorate quickly such as wood, bamboo and straw’ is common place. This is linked to the historical understanding of property ownership that was ‘practically non-existent’ and houses were meant to be ‘dismantled and reassembled easily’ and ‘replaced cheaply’. Pointing towards Jumsai’s differentiating of the ‘two types of civilisation’ and reduction of the ‘little tradition’ of South east asian to ‘cultures of rice agriculture, three way basketry and most important, house on stilts’ (Kusno, 2000). But the sampling of historical narratives appears rather superficial as it subsumes the complex narrative of history under a single arc. If the process of kitsching is defined as the borrowing or ‘mimic(ing) sophistication’, the clear and direct aesthetic association that some of the NKA buildings have then appears to be guilty as such.

The olympic stadium is considered to be his magnum opus of works. It echoes the axial orientation of the Angkor Wat by having its from entrance face the west, basing its composition on rules ‘which were extremely rigid and classical’ as their ‘square plans were orientated on the cardinal axes which had exact symbolic meaning’ (Iwamoto, 2017). Gerald Hanning wrote that the ‘order of dykes and canals, of mounts *phnom) and moats that characterises Khmer tradition, found its place naturally in the design of the National Sports Complex (Ross and Collins, 2006). Molyvann later explains that ‘a series of water surfaces recalled the characteristic moat of Khmer settlement and assured the required drainage’ was included. Sketches that compared the sectional qualities of the Angkor Wat is mirrored in the Olympic Stadium.

The SKD brewery building hints the direct correlation between the idea expressed in the structure to the function of the structure itself, correlation is used to claim cultural agency in this case. The SKD brewery was inspired by the transference of vertical load through the cantilevering of beams that is typical of the ‘dong raik’, or Cambodian rice farmer. The building expresses this structure in a similar fashion with the cantilever overhangs of the roof being supporting by long beams that run across.

The Chaktomuk Conference Hall derives its from from the Cambodian national icon which is the palm tree. It takes references from the palm leaf or more specifically, the sugar palm tree borassus flabellifer. Yet there isn’t a clear relationship in the buildings program or function, and the form which is sampled from, other than the

folded roof that mimics the profile of the leaf. Is it just merely ‘literal and decorative’ (Upton, 2002)?

The IFLA (Institute of Foreign Langauge) building was Molyvann’s last before he had to leave the country to avoid the political upheavel. The building contains a library that is said to be inspired by the ‘traditional Khmer straw hat’ and the lecture theatres that are suspended by angled columns supposedly embody an animalistic energy as if it is ‘about to jump’ (Vater 2010).

Helen Ross and Darryl Collins are quick to defend these criticisms by stating that Molyvann’s works move beyond being a ‘pastiche of temple architecture’ owing to its ‘innovative’ structure that then ‘relates to tradition’. Expression of motifs through structure is then suggested as the waty in which Molyvann claims cultural agency thus avoiding being labeled as kitsch. (Ross & Collins, 2006)

1. Sanskrit Roof

2. Honeycomb Top

3. A Red Brick Hat

1. Ochre Louvre

2. Trapezoid Void

3. Rectangle Tangle

1. Chamfered Spout

2. Micro Spout

3. Concrete Spout

1. Aluminium Slits

2. Red Slits

3. White Slits

1. A Straw Hat

2. A Palm Leaf

1. Hollow Roofs + Brick Verneer

2. Scooped Roof + Concrete Grater

1. Concrete Block 1 + Golden Views

2. Concrete Block 2-5

1. Concrete Block 6 + 7

2. Concrete Block 8 - 10

Day 1 - A Bumpy Start

Day 2 - A Silent Olympic, The Final Piece

Day 3 - The Private Theatre, Private Houses

Day 4 - Unexpected HCM, Salt trail

Day 5 - Local Opinion, Gangja and Girls

Day 6 - CAMbuilding

Day 7 - Siem Repping

Day 8 - A Revisit

Day 9 - City from the Other Side

Day 10 - Home

Arrived at the airport at Phnom Penh at 940 pm in the evening. The main goal was to get a SIM card first because the airport wifi was pretty useless to begin with. Also prior research has indicated that grab taxi service was available.

The airport does not allow such services to enter in order to protect the business of local taxis. Prices to the city range from about 15-17USD, however if you get a grab taxi, it only costs 5USD.

I managed to walk out of the airport where i was then swarmed by a group of local taxi drivers, however seeing that i have a phone in my hand their rapid verbal assault consisting of ‘tuk tuk’, ‘taxi’, quickly turned to ‘grab? Grab?’. As it turns out, they are pretty aware of the platform although some are priced out due to the inability to afford a mobile device. My grab driver seemed to be lost, and so i was left standing on the roadside with my red luggauge.

After a few minutes most of the drivers have moved on to tout for other customers walking out, yet there was a group of drivers trying to help me find my driver. Finally, one of them looked at my phone and said ‘same price’ and gestured to his car. Seeing my way to rest, i nodded and was on my way.

Place of accommodation was the blue boutique hotel priced at 25USD per night. This is considered a mid-range hotel. Cambodia experienced a construction boom in 2017 regarding guesthouses and hotels.

This time period is considered low season also, booking a hotel on booking.com is a good choice because they vary the prices according to demand. I booked the hotel at 23USD per night excluding breakfast (5USD). The hotel base rate was 30USD per night including breakfast.

The night ended rather uneventfully except for the witnessing of a group of drunk hotel restaurant staff dancing in celebration of the hotel manager’s birthday.

Breakfast consisted of a generic intercontinental breakfast.

Grab service brought me to the National Olympic Stadium or also known as the National Sports Complex.

Cambodia was scheduled to hold the SEA games during the 1963 and thus there was a frantic rush to complete the stadium. Work began in 1962 and within 1.5 years the work was completed. Yet, the glory was stolen by Jarkata who hosted the World Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO), a non-aligned version of the Olympic games, this was during the cold war.

King Norodom Sihanouk inaugurated the stadium in 1964.

Stepping into the indoor stadium immediate invoked a sense of awe and admiration as the light filtering into the stadium was stunning. The temperature immediately cooled compared to the stark heat that was beating against the external of the building. It felt as if i were walking into a cave. The ribbed roof structure housed a multiple nests of birds.

Stepping outside a sense of indignation and pity welled up towards the rapid development that already has started to encroached upon the stadium. The residential housing highrise building that is built along the curve of the stadium, crudely named olympia city, it is an exhibition of the extent to which the country is selling itself out for FDI. Prices for one apartment unit is roughly 500,000USD. Further investigation reveals the the stadium has been sold to a Taiwan construction company.

The destructive construction moves has already taken place in order to build concrete blocks that accumulate capital that has no where else to go. Water pools that surround the stadium in order to collect rainwater that also serve as a meeting place for people to gather has already been filled in.

Snapped a couple of photos and bought some icecream.

Architects: Vann Molyvann, Um Samuth, Gerald Hanning (urban integration and ecological), Claude Duchemin (drawings from Paris), and Jean-Claude Morin (drawings from Paris)

Engineers: Vladimir Bodiansky (coordinating engineers and architects ie PM), Mean Kim Ly, Wladimir Kandaouroff (calculating of struturcal components)and Keat Chhon

Contractors + Sub contractors:

I have been taking grab car for most of my travels around PP but decided to take a tuktuk given that it’s almost half the price per trip, it also allowed me to take some street video scape.

A 20mins ride takes me to another masterpiece by Vann Molyvann. This was his final work before he had to leave with his family to Sweden so as to escape the coming war. In many way it is seen as the maturing of the architect as many motifs, design methods and thoughts are applied here.

What was really striking was the effect of having water reservoirs that really acted as a social space that is already naturally cooled. The addition of trees in the surrounding region made the space extremely comfortable despite the summer heat.

The grandwalk way was often abandoned in my observation as most students just ride their motorbikes all the way into the building’s entrance. The walkway served as a connecting element for the entire architecture scape. Access to the library and the building was closed at the time of visit.

The rest of the late afternoon was spent fruitlessly searching for the 100 houses address.

Chaktomuk Conference Hall Renovated Spire

The same generic continental breakfast greeted me, the dining area was rather empty and quiet which was not unusually given it was an off season.

I decided to go with a grab tuktuk as an economical choice and also to shoot some street videos if possible. 10 mins later I was at the chaktomuk conference hall. I was not able to access the inside of the building as it is now a private building.

It was quite apparent that the architectural motifs of the VV roof is carried and copied throughout the city as it was not uncommon to catch sights of private houses utilizing the same shape of the roof although not its full intended function of creating a double roof.

Just about a 5min walk away from the venue you might see something like this.

Being rather close to the Royal Palace, the place was swarmed with tourist as well as local Cambodians who were there for a weekend stroll. Shirtless joggers were not an uncommon sight with most of them being foreigners. Along the same street, Preah Sisowath Quay, you would find a whole slew of eateries, cafes, restaurants, bars, and hostels. This was one of the areas where foreigners and tourist would flock to.

Food prices ranged from 4-8 USD which is comparable to that in Singapore, local foods would cost roughly 1-2 USD in comparison and can be found in informal roadside carts. As I invited my tuktuk driver to join me for lunch i realized my faux pas and offered to pay for his lunch as he joined me in a rather empty burger king joint.

Lunch concluded and the tuk tuk driver dropped me off at the wat botum park where I was to wait for a contact to pick me up.

Architect: Vann Molyvann

Inaugurated in November 12, 1961

20 million riel ($1.5million USD) by american aid

Function: Public conference hall and theatre

Current function: Private conference hall

Privatised and refurbished in 2000 under the eye of Vann Molyvann, $3.5million cost in renovations.

Architecture Design:

-Triangulated concrete suspended from beams

-Radiating fan-shaped roof akin to a palm leaf

-Structure is raised off the ground to appear suspended

-Roof, window and doors made of gold anodised aluminium

Changes after refurbishment:

-Additional 596 seating

-Pink paint on walls

-Addition of ‘orientalist’ balustrades

-White coat on the previously golden VV

Chaktomuk Conference Hall Slited Vents | Ornamental Structure |Riverside Temple

Architect: Vann Molyvann

Initial Function: Exhibition of Sangkum Reastr Niyum

Previous function: National Cultural Centre

Present-day: Abandoned

First building to be completed for the bassac river project that covered a wide range of themes during the urban planning period and development along with the production of arts and crafts.

The 100 Houses was an experiment in alternative urban housing model to the Chinese ‘shop house’. The plan echoes elements of a traditional Khmer wooden house: a small bedroom and a large family living room is distinct from other areas of utility, such as the kitchen and a toile,t by a small terrace. The hipped roof extends past the walls of the house to deal with rain and sunlight; stilts raise the rooms above floods and create a shaded outdoor living space.

I made friends with a university professor who goes by the name Mr. Sivann. Mr. Sivann, 26, teaches architecture at a local university, Pannhasatra University. Having previously served in the Cambodian Armed Forces as well as being deployed into UN hot zones, he was always ready to tell a tale.

The invitation came unexpectedly, he and a couple of family members were going to start a salt distribution business and were looking to find redistributors in Vietnam. I took the opportunity to join them.

6am in the morning, 6 hours drive later, and after a sumptous pho noodles fix, I requested to be dropped of at the independce palace built on the site of the former Norodom Palace. An unforgettable landmark for sure.

Architecturally it is surrounded by royal palm trees, the dissonant 1960s architecture of this government building and the eerie mood that accompanies a walk through its deserted halls make it an intriguing spectacle. The first Communist tanks to arrive in Saigon rumbled here on 30 April 1975 and it’s as if time has stood still since then. The building is deeply associated with the fall of the city in 1975, yet it’s the kitsch detailing and period motifs that steal the show.

Wooden Models Vann Molyvann in a Box

“The contractors here can’t do the job! Even if we hired them, they do not have the training, expertise or the know-how to execute some of the projects” said Mr. Hun Chansan is one of the founding principal and Design Director of Re-Edge Architecture + Design Co., Ltd. which was established in 2011. He spoke about how the need to bring in foreign contractors might not necessarily be just a business decision but also a practical one. According to him Cambodia still has much to catch up on in terms of training and the acquiring of professional expertise in the building industry. Till then, many of the works done would be carried out by foreign contractors especially from China.

“The thing is, Cambodia does not really recognize the role of the architect as well. The damage done during the Khmer Rouge was extensive and if you ask around, many do not know what an architect is,” he continues as we spoke about the agnecy of the architect in the rapidly developing city centre. “Twenty years, thats how long it might take to develop our own talent” he continued,

I had to understand how the constrcution industry here worked. Mr. Hu Chansan bemoaned the lack of agency that the architect had here and I’m pretty sure that it wasnt the cambodians that were doing the building.

So who did? Who are the parties that are involved, trying to get in and take advantage of the construction boom?

Mr Sivann tipped me off, there was going to be a huge construction exhibition held on Diamond Island. Here, all the would-be suppliers and contractors along with bigger indsutry players would gather.

I made my way down to Koh Pich Island, otherwise known as Diamond Island, to catch the exhibition. It was a congregation of various nationalisites and market players who were looking to get a slice of the construction pie in cambodia.

Water and cable technology from Singapore, concrete from South Korea and Thailand, AI and security monitoring from China, heavy indsutries and electrical machines from Denmark and interior design firms from the Switzerland were the few among the many stationed here.

International Markets Exhibition of Architectural Systems

“So who gets to build?” I asked one of the many staffs in suits.

“Well, we are a world-class concrete company that have done many projects in Vietnam and Thailand, so we are trying to break in to the market here”.

“Would you like a goodie bag? Are you an architect? We are looking for distributors here as our products are guranteed to be of high quality!”

“This camera can tell my age?” I looked at the screen where my face was captured on. Age: 25, Youth, Chinese, Male.

Watching while being watched Exhibition of Architectural Systems

My host happened to be heading up to thailand for a short family getaway as well as a celebratory trip for his son’s graduation. He invited me along but it was decided that maybe I could be dropped off at Siem Reap which was on the way.

On the way meaning a 6 hours drive. I was still attempting to accustom myself to the size of the land. Coming from a city state like Singapore, the endless roads in front of us quickly got old as I was more anxious in search of the toilet.

Siem Reap in many ways is a more tourist centric destination as compared to Phnom Penh. Hotels, bars, spas, exotic themes and neon lights were in full swing when I visited.

I was on a hunt for Vann Molyvann’s House but after 2 hours of fruitless searching on my own and countless of grab tuk tuks later, I realized that I might have made a mistake. He had two houses, one in Siem Reap which was his retirement house. The other, the one I was interested in, was actually located back in Phnom Penh.

Resigned to my fate but with no intention of wasting my time here, I decided to unceremoniously visit the Angkor Wat Temple Complex. Truly a sight to behold, the granduer of stone craved sandstones and the monumentality of the place made me quickly forgt the steep entrace fee of 37USD. Tour guides spoke fluent french, chinese, english, japanese and even russian.

I took an overnight bus back to Phnom Penh.

That yellow was something that you might not notice when you first arrive at cambodia, but soon enough you notice it everywhere as if there was only one paint supplier when it came to colonial buildings.

The Central Market was built in 1937 during the French colonial period, in Art Deco style, and is painted bright ochre. It consists of four wings dominated by a central dome, the design allows maximum ventilation. It is probably the cleanest and most airy market in Phnom Penh. The Market was recently renovated to restore its old glory. The renovation was financed by the French government and finished in March of 2011.

After an uneventful bus ride back to Phnom Penh, I decided to walk around the city to experience it on foot. About 30 minutes in, lugging around various camera gear made me start to regret this ambitious endeavour. For some reason, I became very interested in the ochre colour that seems to be the strongest mark of the french colonial rule in the city.

Bris Soleil

Art Deco | Jean Desbois

There was another island just across Phnom Penh. I wanted to trace out the skyline of Phomn Penh, or Diamond island specifically. I crossed a bridge that was built by the chinese and wondered if there was anything here that was local at all.

It was here I found a unique perspective and the distance that I needed to observe the city from afar. The tall glass buildings stood awkwardly next to shiny temples as if both were unable to convince the other of their need to exists.

Boats doubled as homes for the utter poor in Cambodia and were docked against a pier where other cambodians were having picnics and copious amounts of beer.

Right opposite the street, a slew of seafood restaurants bustled with life well into the night.

Vann Molyvann House Rotated Square Plans | Climatic Experimentation | Brick

It was hard to track this building down. Google says it does not exist but other sources say it does. Ultimately, I spotted it along Mao Tse Tong Boulevard nestled away between a midrise shopping mall and a restaurant.

The main structure is reinforced concrete, with brick facing. The double-roof concrete shell is a regulated structure, waterproofed and covered with flat terracotta tiles on the outside and wood on the inside. The walls are finished with red facing brick. The interior is dominated by the sweep of the roof, which seems to float above the living room thanks to a horizontal band of glass around the perimeter. Vann Molyvann’s wife Trudy says the double roof is wide enough to walk between the two layers. As in many of Vann Molyvann’s buildings, Le Corbusier’s Modulor was used as a design tool. A 1.13 meter grid was used for the floor plans, the height of the balustrade is 83 centimeters (instead of the standard 100), and the height of the windows in the living room 226 centimeters. The roof inspired the Battambang Public Works Office designed in the late eighties by Sieng Sang Em, who was Vann Molyvann’s draughtsman in the sixties.

The distinguishing feature of this unique design is the shell structure of the roof, which is an exercise in hyperbolic parabolic curves that required calculation from his brotherin-law, who was an engineer. The volume is almost cubic and divided into three levels, the open-plan living area on the second floor within the roof, the bedroom on the first floor and an office on the ground floor.

Vann Molyvann House Parabolic Hat

The Beginnings of Kitsch Isle

Koh Pich as an island already demands that we suspend our beliefs and assumptions due to its disneyfication of paris-esque kitsches along with other kitsches that are implemented in order to (Disneyfication of urban space is explored in Jeff Ferrell’s Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy). Disneyfication then implies the homogenization of consumption, merchandising and, emotional labour. This can be used more broadly to describe the processes of stripping a real place or event of its original character and repackaging it in a sanitized format.

Yet to begin with, Koh Pich Island was nothing more than an odd island that was hardly accessible except by boat and had a small populations of Cambodian fishing villages. In some cases, maps did not even acknowledge the existence of the 68-hectare land that stands in front of the tacky Naga Casino Complex. Its geographical location is crucial as it has decades of rich silt deposits along with the abundance and access to water makes it a prime, idyllic yet lucrative area for farmers.

Mea Sopheap, chief of sangkat Tonle Bassac commented saying, “the municipality wants to make Koh Pich into a commercial center of international standards”. China’s Gezhouba Water & Power group led the way with a feasibility study on bank protection and dredging around the island. Development firm 7NG, a subsidiary of OCIC (Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation), rendered bold development plans that included hospitals, high-rise office blocks, residential areas and universities.

The take over and eviction that soon happened was one of political aggression and a tale of unfair compensation. Many resident took the deal of $2.50 per square meter along with some basic food supplies such as rice. Those who sided with the municipality threatened those who did not with rumours of fighting and looting. When the NGO legal advocacy group PILAP took to the fight to court, private settlements included ‘thumping of tables and hurling abuse’ to the lawyers. When the PILAP showed up with their own real estate group in order to get a better measurement of the lands value, statistics and charts, they were met with armed plainclothes military policemen who told them if ‘any problem or strange things happen on the island, they are not responsible’. Despite the heated exchange and negotiation, PILAP and 7NG reached an agreement on the value of the land.

A quick tour of the island during the research travel revealed an interesting observation. Gone were the crowded urban fabric of Phnom Penh, the tuk tuk drivers that fought for passengers or the massive jams that descended during peak hours. Instead what was seen was a relentless construction of an almost fantasy island

The Fake Paris of Asia

filled with paris-esque kitsches. The Arc de Triophe flanked by rows of residential buildings seemingly plucked out of Paris. English gardens graced by boulevards led to smaller and more private residential areas that mimic the suburban sprawl of America. The cityhall building borrowed heavily from Rome as pediments of slightly off proportions sat on thick columns. There was no attempt to hide the kitsch, the only thing that reminded visitors that this was Cambodia was the central street being called Koh Pich Street. For the rest of the streets importation was fully underway. Elite Road, Yale Road, Stanford Street, Harvard Street, Newton Road, and a few other prestigious English names were displayed proudly on signages.

It is here that maybe NKA, Molyvann and all that his works represented (forwardness of the country, alignment of state production and cultural production, utilising of contemporary architectural language to an extreme where structure almost becomes ornament, can Molyvann be accused of kitsching ‘khmer’ tropes?) can be made relevant again in a subversive manner. In order to survive, it cannot depend on its qualities alone or its objective architectural qualities or its apparent cultural capital beyond attempts to historical preservation. The state has proven that its values do not align with that of the previous power. It must fit in within the new narrative of kitsch as value, camp as critique.

Koh Pich

Vann Molyvann Olympic Stadium| Sangkrum Exhibition Hall | IFLA Walkways

Design Process

Camp-in-progress

As a design method, I began by putting myself in the process of kitsching first, but as I am moving through the process of copying in a self-aware manner, techincally I am in the process of camp. By sampling, modelling and making physical models of Vann Molyvann’s architectural devices, I aimed to deconstruct his methods in order to transport them to another site.

Facades and roofs were 3D printed after modelling them digitally.

Facades were sampled from the IFLA building as well as the Sangkum Reastr Niyum Exhibition Hall.

Roofs such as the double folded concrete plates were sampled from IFLA. The concrete umbrella was sampled from the National Olympic Stadium in order to explore the architectural language that makes up its structure along with the water treatment. The vertically folded and pointy straw-hat roof from thel ibrary of the IFLA building is also of interest.

The site of intervention is tentatively on the two plots of land where currently a slew of outdated exhibition halls sit.

The architectural project then aims to utilize the mechanism of camp in order to critque both the claim to cultural agency as demonstrated by NKA as well as then ongoing cultural production in cambodia. As such it hopes to question the mechanism of kitsching and camping in post-colonial equitorial cities.

Vents MolyVents

One

The resultant tower stands at 188 meters in height. It just barely surpasses the tallest building on the island, the Marina Bay inspired condominium, in order to claim the highest wrung of the pecking order. From afar, its presence is undeniable.

It’s 3D printed facade materialized line by line on the assembly line in the workshop, ever serious and brutalistic in aesthetic as it shields the insides from the galring Cambodian sun while allowing air and ventilation into the building. Where it meets the hotel, it raises its fins to allow the balcony to extend into it. Yet it is splashed with a frenzy of colours that threatens to drip onto the side walk of grey concrete.

As a tower, it stands defiantly full of air rather than full of saleable floor area with its 4 cores stretching proudly into the crown. The scale of its parts are all slightly exaggerated, rooms are 4.7 meters high, the spaces between programmatic blocks are suspended on thick concrete legs. It’s crown seemingly acts as a disrespectful nod towards Mr. Molyvann himself as it is derived from shell of the IFLA library, just flipped around and dipped in gold.

The stadium is reminiscent of the recently sold National Olympic stadium, except it has its roof blown off to allow the elements in. 4 smaller internal cores feed the various floors and the stage hides smaller rooms beneath itself. Molyvann’s ventilated steps are seen here again as it sits against the angle concrete columns.

Will this be enough to win the contest of copies?

Angel by Day

Hotel | Office | Stadium | Tropical Facade

Devil by Night

Lit Facade | Neon Glow | Hour Hotel | Undertable Dealings

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