Video #1 - The White Building, Phnom Penh
Video #2 - The White Building, Phnom Penh
Video #3 - The White Building, Phnom Penh
Video #4 - The White Building, Phnom Penh
THE WORN STEPS led us up, from floor to floor. Off each landing, dark corridors stretched left and right, to the next series of stairwells. My friend Chhonn and i, made our way past women playing cards, someone by a hallway entrance with a tiny stall and also past children playing up and down the stairs. During the afternoon this was the picture of communal life – at night the mood shifted presumably to more murky and less safe activities. This time i was with my Phnom Penh friend on the second of two visits here.
Out on the street we passed a group of locals, relaxing in the shade. Men and women were drinking beer and having a lively conversation. When i stopped to look, they invited us over, so we obliged. Chhonn translated questions and answers that flew back and forth. All this added insight to our visit to the neighbourhood.
The White Building often surfaces in my memories of Phnom Penh. On those afternoon visits, it seemed so hauntingly interesting. As a tourist with no reason to be here, entering the building might have seemed a bit like slumming – hopefully it was really about learning and observing the life here. Initially, it was the iconic modern design that drew me to this place. The complex also seemed like such a microcosm of Phnom Penh life. Metaphorically too, the White Building was a crumbling witness to modern Cambodian history. These were perhaps the reasons that tugged me to this place.
Back in it's day the housing complex had been the brainchild of King Norodom Sihanouk. It was one of 1,300 such projects, large and small, that took place over two decades, here in the Kingdom's Capital. At the time, Cambodia was the most developed country to emerge from the former Indochine, due in part to Sihanouk's feverish planning. Two French trained architects, Lu Ban Hap and Vann Molyvann, were instrumental in developing this vision for a new urban life. Several years later, in 1963, the Bassac Municipal Apartments were inaugurated. This forward looking project succeed in bringing the language of modern architecture together with a Khmer heart and soul. With 468 apartments, the housing complex made use of open stairways, concrete screens and other features, that increased natural ventilation and added shade. The White Building was a stunning achievement and source of national pride, in a nation emerging from colonial servitude.
This multi-storey, low-cost housing community, was originally home to city workers and those working in the arts. Fifty years later, the White Building was a decayed and mildewed slum with over 3,000 inhabitants. It was also a microcosm of urban Cambodian life: for those engaged in regular work, others in cultural activities as well as some who were marginalized and living from from drugs and prostitution.
My friend Chhonn once said to me, "90% of Cambodians struggle," and that observation was never far from my thoughts, while travelling in his country.
About poor youth gaining strength through art forms, by Tim Johnson, a Canadian journalist living in Toronto:
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Sa Sa Art Projects is a not-for-profit artist-operated space in the White Building:
Cambodia's new Khmer architecture by Ron Gluckman, an American journalist:
An interesting video on the art scene in the White Building:
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