Savour a cultural cocktail

[Supharidh Hy]

Financial Times
Saturday, May 14 2005

Savour a cultural cocktail
By Sarah Murray

It's rush hour in Phnom Penh and I'm sitting on a plastic stool sipping a
beer as an army of mopeds speeds past on the street in front of me.
Colonial buildings bask in the golden rays of sunset and a light breeze has
gathered cool air from the fast-flowing Mekong to temper the sultry city
heat. But in that breeze is more than fine dust and motor fumes - these
days, a distinct whiff of renewal is blowing around the streets of
Cambodia's capital.

More than 13 years ago, when I first visited the city, it looked thoroughly
down at heel. Towering over painfully thin Khmers, United Nations
peacekeeping soldiers dominated the urban landscape, rattling down
pot-holed roads in large vehicles. The influx of their dollars played havoc
with the local economy, funding a collection of ramshackle casinos and
dingy brothels at the north end of town. Hungry western reporters hung
around bars waiting for the next regional conflict to start.

Since then, coups have shaken the country, poverty is still endemic and
corruption taints every corner of the economy. But thankfully those
reporters never got their war and, these days, with tourism flourishing,
Phnom Penh's citizens are making the most of a period of relative stability
and prosperity. Roads are being mended, street vendors are out in force and
one of my favourite cities is once again full of colour and life.

Set at the confluence of four waterways - the upper and lower Mekong, the
Tonle Sap and the Bassac - Phnom Penh is a small capital, but one with
grand aspirations, partly thanks to French architect Ernest Hébrard who in
1925 laid out plans for the city. Today, elegant public spaces that were
part of his scheme have finally lost the shabby, neglected look of recent
decades, and fresh coats of paint have spruced up the delightful French
architecture that gives the place much of its charm.

Each time I visit, there are changes. This time it's a fancy system of
traffic lights with electronic numbers that count down the seconds before
the switch to green or red. Of course, there's also a new king. King
Norodom Sihamoni was crowned in October last year in a ceremony that took
place behind the high walls of the Royal Palace. But while plenty of local
gossip focused on the king himself, much excited chatter has also been
generated by the glossy portraits of him erected around the city to mark
his accession to the throne. In a radical break with the past, they are
vast digital images rather than the traditional hand painted
representations.

Royal paintings are not the only art form undergoing a transformation. At
the National Museum - an exquisite colonial building marked by a profusion
of red hues and the dancing curves of pagoda-style roofs - funding has been
secured for the creation of a comprehensive inventory of its 14,000-piece
collection.

It's a valuable piece of work. The museum created by Georges Groslier in
1920 houses a collection of Khmer art that is unparalleled. Angkorian
sculptures in stone, bronze and wood sit beside ceramics, textiles and
ethnographic material in delightful open galleries where light, air and -
occasionally - birds flow freely around and out into a central courtyard
whose four ornamental lotus ponds add to the tranquil charm.

Most importantly, since looting and war have robbed the ancient temples of
Angkor of most of their sculptures, the National Museum presents a rare
opportunity to view the artistic richness of Cambodia's ancient culture.
This artistic richness is what I love most about Phnom Penh. And the fact
that the arts survived the brutality of the Khmer Rouge era makes their
existence all the more precious. Classical dance is perhaps the most
impressive example. Among Pol Pot's victims were about 90 per cent of the
country's classical dancers. And yet every morning up at the Royal
University of Fine Arts' north campus, young dancers again practise this
ancient and exquisite art. As well as its ancient Khmer heritage, colonial
architecture is another ingredient in Phnom Penh's cultural cocktail. A
hint of French colonial ambitions can be seen in buildings such as the
Hotel Le Royal. Now a superbly restored institution run by Singapore's
Raffles International, Le Royal was, when it opened in 1929, one of the
tallest buildings in the city. With its vast arched lobby area, octagonal
domed rotundas and a set of claw-footed bathtubs, it must have created
quite an impression.

For me, however, it is the Psah Thmei or New Market that is the most
extraordinary reminder of the French era. Resembling a retro spaceship, the
dome of this yellow art deco wonder soars majestically above the
surrounding neighbourhood, while four cruciform arms extend into a
sprawling mass of stalls selling everything from plastic buckets and nylon
clothes to exotic fruits and fresh fish.

But while colonial architecture is on the tourist map, another feature of
Phnom Penh's cultural heritage is far less well known - a heritage that is
in grave danger of disappearing. The 1960s saw an extraordinary flourishing
of Cambodian architecture, largely at the hands of Vann Molyvann, an
architect who like many Khmer intellectuals of his era, trained at the
Paris Beaux Arts.

If the French had grand plans for Phnom Penh, the 1960s urban vision for
the city was far more ambitious. As foreign funds flowed into the country,
cutting-edge modernist buildings such as the Institute of Technology, the
Languages Institute and the Royal University building - a Corbusier-
inspired structure supported on short pylons - were part of a vast
development leading out to the airport. And this scheme was just one of
many extensive plans, a lot of which never saw the light of day.

But while classical dance receives foreign funding and some of the colonial
architecture is being restored, Phnom Penh's modernist architecture is
suffering from neglect. Molyvann's Bassac Theatre, for example, is a
daringly innovative design whose louvered concrete openings bring light and
air into a space whose drama is heightened by a triangular water pool and
an angular layout emphasised by floor tiles in black, red and cream that
lead the eye down to the theatre's pointed end. Yet part of this
astonishing structure lies in ruins since a fire in 1994 and, without
funding, the building will deteriorate or, worse, will be demolished.

The trouble is that Bassac Theatre and other structures from the era sit on
land being eyed by developers keen to cash in on rising real estate prices.
So while I continue to watch much of Phnom Penh's transformation with
pleasure, the worry is that, for Cambodia's modernist heritage, prosperity
could be a dangerous thing. The only hope is that attention will move to
this most surprising and important element of the city's cultural life
before it's too late.[End]