Locating the Domestic in Vann Molyvann’s National Sports Complex

• Main Author: Roger Nelson
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art 2017-10-01
• Series: ABE Journal
• Subjects: domestic architecture; modern architecture; New Khmer Architecture; stadium
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/abe/11019

This essay concerns the construction and interpretation of post-independence architecture in Cambodia, taking as an exemplary case study the National Stadium in Phnom Penh, completed in 1964 and designed by Vann Molyvann. To date, most accounts of the Stadium—and of Molyvann’s work and modern Cambodian architecture more generally—have emphasized Angkorian stylistic references. Considered historiographically, this focus on the temples of Angkor constructs a narrative which is teleological, and nationally bound. My counter-reading centres instead on the trope of the domestic, which enables greater attention to coeval architectural forms and broader regional intersections. The essay is based in three related approaches to the Stadium, which correspond to three interlinked understandings of the domestic. The first considers the politico-historical context of the building’s construction, proposing the Stadium as emblematic of Cambodia’s policy of Cold War non-alignment, under Prince Sihanouk’s rule. This draws on archival work in Cambodia and the United States. The second is iconographic: it considers references to stilted wooden housing in the Stadium, as well as the repetition of architectural features from large-scale public buildings in smaller, anonymously-designed private houses. The third is a spatial and experiential reflection on the internal division of spaces within the Stadium, into smaller-scaled zones.