Archinect - News

Renowned Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann dies at the age of 90

2017-09-29T09:34:00-04:00

Mr. Vann Molyvann was best known for combining modernist principles with ancient motifs, a style that came to be called New Khmer Architecture. He was admired by many Cambodians as the embodiment of integrity and vision in a country where art has often taken a back-seat to the upheavals of history.

Molyvann studied at École des Beaux Arts in Paris in the 1940s, where he learned the principles of European modernism from Le Corbusier's disciples. In 1956 he returned to Cambodia to be appointed as the chief state architect of the newly independent country. He designed and transformed Phnom Penh, the country's capital. After the coup of 1970 by the Khmer Rouge, Molyvann exiled and lived in Switzerland until 1991, when he came back to Cambodia and served as culture minister.

"Vann Molyvann was best known for combining modernist principles with ancient motifs, a style that came to be called New Khmer Architecture. He was admired by many Cambodians as the embodiment of integrity and vision in a country where art has often taken a back-seat to the upheavals of history."

Molyvann passed away at home at age 90 on September 28th, 2017.

Inside the famous Phnom Penh cinema that has become a living nightmare

2014-07-28T15:19:00-04:00

The Hemakcheat was once one of Cambodia’s most beloved cinemas and Meas Sopheap one of its star dancers. Today it is a notorious slum, and Meas one of hundreds who shelter there. [...] Hundreds of men, women and children shelter here, many on the ground-floor auditorium where they are shrouded in permanent darkness among hundreds of bats that screech and flap their wings constantly. [...] More waste falls from makeshift floors constructed above. The rotten stench of sewage is overpowering.

The Canadian Company Drowning in Phnom Penh’s Garbage

2014-06-09T13:22:00-04:00

In 2002, CINTRI, a branch of Canadian firm Cintec Environment Inc., was granted an exclusive 50-year contract to collect commercial and residential waste in Phnom Penh and keep the city’s main streets clean. The exact details of the company’s agreement with city hall have never been made public, but since the deal was inked, Phnom Penh’s population has swelled from just over one million to two million people. The population boom and its attendant urban sprawl seem to have caught CINTRI off-guard