Phnom Penh Post
A woman cycles past a
French colonial-era building near the main post office in Phnom Penh,
Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. Photograph: Pha Lina/Phnom Penh Post
Officials from Phnom Penh Municipal Hall pledged their support to UNESCO
in its efforts to preserve the capital’s unique 20th-century
architectural heritage in a meeting Wednesday, a government statement
and UNESCO officials said yesterday.
Anne Lemaistre, head of the UNESCO office in Phnom Penh, said that
while the proposals were still “just ideas”, she was optimistic that the
UN heritage body would be able to promote a Phnom Penh landscape that
doesn’t sacrifice the city’s architectural character.
“UNESCO has been working very hard for a very long time to preserve
two kinds of heritage: obviously the Angkorian heritage... but also the
20th-century heritage, both the colonial architecture and the New Khmer
architecture,” she said.
Plans discussed, said Lemaistre, included creating a protected
architectural zone around Wat Phnom and the former colonial post office,
implementing an “urban master plan” that includes a list of specific
protected structures and promoting the idea of a historic urban
landscape – one that would prohibit huge developments in certain areas.
“You can insert into a historic urban fabric [pieces of] contemporary
architecture, as long as this cultural identity of the city is
preserved,” she said, calling for a national decree protecting
20th-century buildings.
Hotelier Alexis de Suremain, who operates the Plantation hotel in a
colonial building, said that such a decree – which would take business
out of the equation – is the only way to protect historic structures.
“In a city where you have a strong protection on old buildings, the
value of the asset [the piece of land] is the value of the building,”
said Suremain, who leases the building that houses his hotel.
“In a city where you don’t have a strong protection, the value of the
building is not the value of the building; it’s the value of what you
could potentially build [on the land it occupies].”
That makes developing the land tempting, he added, noting that if he
owned his building, “a bank would come and offer me $20 million to build
an office tower”.
“What would I do?” he asked. “What would you do?”
To contact the reporter on this story: Stuart White at stuart.white@phnompenhpost.com
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