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Urban nights

Paolo Conte in his lectio magistralis for his laurea ad honorem suggests an interesting exercise: to imagine the time of the day drawn in a painting. What time is it in the Dance of Matisse? And what about the scream of Munch? Or the Mona lisa?
I think it is interesting to apply the same idea to cities. When is a certain city splendid, interesting, charming, unique? At what hour?
While working a little bit around different cities i realize that in my memories what i recall in urban space is not so much its feature but a specific moment.
These moments are often evenings because darkness increase intimacy not only towards people but also toward our surroundings.
For Tokyo, I remember walking back home through small similar irregular alleys. These formed a labyrinth that probably Borges would have liked. There, for the first and only time in my life, i completed an involuntary circle and after 2 h found  my self in the same exact spot, confused and speechless.

Beijing, despite all the destruction that was made in the last 30 years, has a specific moment in which it is splendid. It is around 1 am during winter nights. Inside the second ring road. At that moment, with a dark bright sky, one can see the shadow of the hutongs on both side of the alley. The branches of a tree will extend above the roofline. Silent and naked.  The moon is shining above. Silence all around and a thick cold air.

Phnom Penh has change a lot. Probably, according to most, in the better but I still remember that in 2010 most of the streets at nights were dark. That darkness was different. That darkness showed abandon. That darkness was a scar but it also showed possibility and hope. It always reminded me of the first scene of the movie Sur.

And one more tip: you might consider to hire personal bodyguard to feel safe.

 

 

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Nella bocca dell’imbuto

Amica K mi dice che è stanca del suo lavoro. Che sua madre ha lavorato per anni senza riuscire a mettere via nulla.
Che da casa al lavoro impiega un ora e mezza. Ora vorrebbe cambiare lavorare in proprio, con più libertà.
Amica C mi dice che dopo anni di lavoro  atempo pieno e di risparmi ha voglia di anda re qualche mese in vacanza. Magari vedere le montagne, la neve.

La Cambogia, come la quasi totalità del globo è stata inghiottita dalla macchina performante. Dalla rincorsa della ricchezza.
Qualche giorno fa un amico birmano condivideva su facebook la pagina “get rich or die trying to” (diventa ricco o muori cercando di diventarlo).

Cosi nei prossimi anni i sorpresi cambogiani scopriranno ingorghi e mutui, stress e scadenze. SOlo allora potranno finalmente sentirsi prigionieri come lo siamo noi. Allora forse, almeno quelli più negativi, penseranno ai film che vedevano da giovani, film occidentali dove tutti ridevano in case enormi. Forse si ricorderanno anche dei racconti dei loro genitori e dei loro nonni, fatti di semplice felicità. E forse capiranno di essere finiti in una dolce trappola, come tutti noi, senza essersene accorti.

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Sur, un tango sin palabra

The first week in phnom penh or in any other city of asia where public lighting is not counterwell planned, darkness was a strange encounter. At night small alleys would appear as monsters from another place.

The darkness of those streets would remind me the initial scene of Sur.

and also of vuelvoc al sur of piazzolla

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Sleuk Rith Institute, my view

These days I have not much to do and I have been reading and seeing the recent Zaha Hadid proposal for the Sleuk Rith Institute about the Khmer Rouge. Before continuing better to look at the institute official website, also the guardian wrote an article about it.

Images from the Sleuk Rith Institute official website.
In another country there would be one or several architectural magazines that would write a critical review of this project. Unfortunately Cambodia does not have any (and will probably not have for a while) and international magazines are probably not interested and do not have not even basic information about Cambodia. So. given my free time and in a impetus of self confidence I will dare to write few thoughts about it. I am not really quolified to do it but as Mendini stated 3 decades ago, this is the era of the universal dilettante.

Before beginning I think a positive thought should be given to the center for daring to do such a thing in Phnom Penh. Beside having probably not the best support from Hun Sen the team is trying to achieve something quite exception for Cambodia. My best wishes for this.

Now let’s get to the fun part ( at least for grumpy europeans like me).

Choice of the architect.

If is do not remember wrongly there was a competition amongst khmer architects 3-4 years ago. How come the winning design have not be implemented? Was there a need for an international architect? Why Zaha Hadid?

I guess the reasons are probably found in the funding policy. The funders (USaid, ironic isnt’ it?) usually want that their project receive enough media coverage. Who better than a starchitect to do that?
Choosing Zaha Hadid seems quite daring because her work it is usually (unnecessarily in my opinion) complex. In cambodia at the moment one has issues in sloping properly the floor of the toilet so I wonder how this will be implemented (probably by importing material, skills, management…etc..).

Site.
I have not see clear information about the site. It was mentioned in some article that it is in central Phnom Penh and has been donated by the royal family. It would be nice to see the design overimposed the existing context to better understand how it will relate with the city. The mean part of me would think that it does not matter because nowadays big studios design all over the places and team members often do not have a clue of the places they are designing in.

Brief.
We can read in an interview that the brief was for “a place of memory that could heal” .

Proposal.
The proposal consists in 5 volumes that, according to the architect, are a reference to Angkor Wat. This does not sound so convincing to me and reminds me of the little trick many brands use in Cambodia when they do not know how to call or to advertise a product: they simply call it Angkor or the place images of the temple (or even better Prae Vihear) in a commercial. No one will complain and commercial success is ensured.
As a personal feeling I do not get the “healing atmosphere” so much. If we place a logo over the entrance it would be a nice headquarter for Gucci. In addition the structure resembles, at least to western eyes, so much of gothic architecture.It would be interesting to hear what it recalls to a cambodian.

Green space.
The green area is definitely a positive aspect especially for a city like Phnom Penh that has not much new green areas planned and where existing ones get usually paved with yellow hexagonal concrete pavers (probably to store heat in case of a new glacial age).
I wonder if this idea of a close building is the most appropriate one for a project like this.

Interior layout and exhibition concept.
No information at the moment regarding interior spatial organization and exhibition concept. I feel this is usually a point where many museums fail because while the architecture is usually designed, the interior exhibition support and spaces are often left to technical offices or for later unclear development.
Also it is not clear what is the relation between the documentation center and the memorial part. So far it seems there is the popular approach of building the architecture and later finding what to place inside.

Material.


This is the first wooden building by Zaha Hadid.This is also the most controversial material of the country. Interesting choice. So will it come from Malaysia? Or will it be sourced overnight with a blitzkrieg operation in Ratanakiri? (as the head of a university in PP once mentioned: ” we carried those big logs at night from Ratanakiri”. Those logs are now an overdimensioned handrail on a questionable building).

A khmer stepping in.
One of the key aspect of a project is the impression that a building will make on its user. So I wonder how a survivor will feel like walking in it, what will a young khmer that only heard those stories  think..

Tropic..what?
When I was working in Cambodia I was quite upset that there is a relatively small amount of information about cities and urbanism in tropical weather. I would even say that a whole theory for tropical climate should be developed. This building seems another lost opportunity to address issues that are crucial to this weather (If we consider that this is one of the top ten studios in the world, it is quite disappointing. Maybe in the development phase something will improve). Beside the basics (heat, ventilation, watercaus management) it would be interesting to at least try to define what a contemporary building in the tropics could look like. Molyvann and others in the 60′ and in other countries did that very well. Unfortunately, at least according to what I hear around, those building are outdated because “it is not possible to live withou AC” and because dust has become an unbearable substance (the same people will not complain that much about the junk on the street, the little kid sniffing glue or other issues…but the dust! the issues is that if one is afraid of dust will shut all opening killing natural ventilation. at that point only AC is the solution).

The idea of modernity.
There a smaller aspect, compared to the previous one, that I think it is worth mentioning. This building being one of the very few decent building built in recent years will also represent what contemporary architecture is (I can think only of two buildings, Kantha Bopha Hospital bnear Wat Phnom that has very interesting use of semi open spaces and the new RUPP library on russian library with many details to suit the climate). So probably in the next years student architecture project will all look like gothic cathedral.

Implementation.

Obviously the power of today free market can make this project happen importing material and skills needed. Would this be the right approach? Without going as far as Gaudi with the Sagrada Familia which is probably the most ritual construction of contemporary times, what would be the appropriate way to build this building. We should not forget that this is a special building. It is not a new mall or a (supposedly) international university. This is the building that will try to tell and remember the most dramatic moment of cambodian history. I have not clear idea about this but I think that maybe construction, in some part should have some rituals ( when there was the cremation of king sihanouk the city became something very special…).

Easy to critic but …
After all this ranting one might that it is easy to criticize without proposing anything, so here are few ideas that seem intersting (without seeing site, brief, program a more detailed proposal is quite impossible).

Healing.
I feel that in the use of the word “heal” for a building like this shows the whole difference between wester and eastern culture. I dont think in Europe anyone would have used that. We want to remember. Even with roughness if possible (think of the holocaust museum by Libeskind). Healing on the other hand brings a whole different dimension to what a memorial and documentation center should be and probably tells us something about the khmer rouge time that is unique (some describe it as the only genocide of XX century done by an ethnic group on itself).
How could we create a place that is healing?
I think one of the answer could be by integrating nature ( which is a continuous source  of life and death) and the buildings.
This could be developed further by thinking of the visit as a promenade between different spaces (perhaps designed and connected with the museological approach) that are immerse in nature.

Images of Charles Correa Gandhi memorial museum: partially enclosed pavilions surrounded by green space. A simple solution that does not overcome the content of the museum.

Ritual.
This building is also a memorial. As such it probably needs a form that creates and encourage rituals. This space should not be approached as another building in Phnom Penh.
In addition it could have a strong visual and evocative dimension. Consider the vietnam war memorial in Washington DC.
With this idea in mind the collaboration with an artist could be very beneficial.
As mentioned before, the construction process could be rethought in order to include moments of “collective awareness” for what it is happening.

Place of meditation.
I would imagine this as a place of consideration and meditation. It would be good to have an acoustic buffer between this area and the city. It could probably work in antithesis to the urban space (congested vs widespread, loud vs silent, artificial vs natural).

Vietnam veteran memorial, Washington DC.

Open
At least a part of the area should always be open to the public but not as a generic open space. It should have special rules that make it a place of respect and memory.

A backdrop.


Maybe the overall logic of the project should shift from the idea of creating a building to the idea of creating a place. This means that maybe the overall program is fragmented in the area (how big is the site?). Architecture should not be the main focus of attention, it should work as a backdrop that enhance what the visitors is seeing.

Complexity.
As a final note. Because of the complexity of a building like this, the usual architectural approach could maybe be dropped. We probably need to think not only what will be built but how and by who, in what circumstances (will the construction workers have an insurance?), using what material…. A building like this contains so many path and symbols for Cambodia that each grain of materials will be telling much more that it usually does. (This makes me think that probably an “artistic” -i.e. dense with symbolism-approach might be a better solution).

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Genti

Essendo in Cambogia per poche settimane per completare alcuni lavori ed essendo quindi in uno stato d’animo quasi vacanziero mi sforzo a scrivere qualcosa rimanendo ben consapevole dell’assoluta non necessità di aggiungere altri bite a quaell’immonnezzaio che sta diventando il web.

Prima che mi dimentichi non tanto dei luoghi visti, che son assai ben documentati da foto, video, cartoline e libri, ma delle persone che ho incontrato mi convinco di scrivere poche righe in ricordo di chi ha fatto parte, con fortune alterne, della mia vita cambogiana.

Il colonello.
Il realtà è stato il mio general contractor per molti lavori. Mi piacque perchè a differenza degli altri che arrivavano con SUV o pick up dai nomi esotici (tipo Tundra o Savana) il colonello arrivo con una toyota camry grigia che non mostrava pretese. A volte arrivava alle riunioni anche in motorino, seduto dietro un tipo silenzioso di cui non ho mai capito il compito.
Nel tempo ho scoperto  che l’auto non è neppure sua ma è affittata dall’ambasciata del Qatar. Ho scoperto anche che siccome suo suocero è generale in qualche provincia est della cambogia, lui si è comprato il titolo di colonello. Ha volte ha anche la pistola in macchina, anche se non credo l’abbia mai usata. Una volta a Poipet l’ha pure dimenticata sotto il cuscino in una guest house dove alloggiava. Il colonello fuma tantissimo. E beve redbull o altri energy drink o caffè nero. In teoria sarebbe musulmano ma, a differenza dei quoi figli, non pratica molto.

La ciurma del colonello.
I costruttori sotto la guida del colonello sono molti. Lui afferma siano più di 100. Io dubito poichè ha solo due saldatrici per cui non mi riesco a spiegare come 100 persone possano lavorare con così pochi attrezzi. Lavoro dopo lavoro ho cominciato a conoscerli. C’è Mom il chirurgo, che sembra essere l’unico dotato di una certa sensibilità e che quindi fa tutti i lavori di finitura. C’è Ridolini, che lavora soltanto tra una risata e l’altra, cosa che non piaceva molto ad un cliente francese che si sentiva preso per il culo.
Ronaldinho è forse il miglior saldatore. Il nome è dovuto al cappello di paglia con una banda con il nome del famoso calciatore stampata. Quando gli chiesi se conosceva il brasiliano lui ha sorriso e basta. Come tutti gli altri ha un paio di denti in meno. Credo sia una specie di stemma dell’intera squadra. Ogni squadra ha un paio di capi squadra e poi una serie di operai non specializzati assunti localmente. A volte sono donne con abiti di mille colori, a volte uomini con pance degne di un buddha. A volte qualche giovane che poi sparisce appena ottiene un’offerta migliore.

A seguire

Madame.
Mamma noodle
Il maestro della zuppa di riso