Phnom Penh: The Pearl of the Orient
Phnom Penh actually has a design. This is uncommon among cities. They either grew organically and haphazardly, streets added in every direction as needed, or, as is typical of much of America, they are grids strictly oriented to the points of the compass. There are a few scattered planned cities, or new towns, but they are rarely successful as places where people enjoy living. One does find diagonals or other interesting features in some Cambodian cities – I just returned from a few days in Kampot – but I’ve not seen that anywhere else.
In contrast, Phnom Penh is coherently, almost artistically laid out. The heart of the design is Psar Thmei. Six streets terminate there, giving your eyes a place to anchor. In my meanderings about the city, I become disoriented at times. I’ve often been able to avail myself of the market to know I was going in the right direction.
The building itself is an art deco spectacular. The dome, at the time of its inauguration, was the largest of its type in the world. That immense curved space, brightened with light coming in through thousands of decorative concrete blocks – almost like a necklace – gives a feeling of soaring. It’s a crown jewel.
Then there’s the great diagonal – Charles De Gaulle and Monireth – and the grid that follows the diagonal. It’s all arranged in a semi circular design with Psar Thmei offset from the center.
In addition to good design enhancing its livability, P P has other plusses in that regard. The first is that it’s a low-rise city. Far superior on the psyche; it is human scale. You don’t feel minimized, pressured, cowed by your surroundings as you would in a skyscraper city; you feel relaxed and comfortable. This also keeps it from excessive crowding. When a city gets past a certain size or density, livability is in reverse proportion to each additional citizen added.
Then there’s the sidewalks. They are wide enough to allow for many activities to take place outdoors, increasing social interaction. They also give breathing space; urbanites need respite from excessive density. In addition, the practice of rounding corner buildings, unique in my experience, once again increases the city?s feeling of spaciousness.
Concurrently, some level of density is important for the life of a city. Phnom Penh accomplishes this by filling block interiors with dense warrens of housing. They are all connected by alleys and arm’s width pathways and are only a few paces from the life and activity of the streets. This practice provides very quiet living space in the heart of the city. Human interaction is also furthered through smallness and absence of traffic. It’s amazing, especially in hot season when interiors can get oppressive, to see everybody hanging around outside, being social.
Another thing I really like about being here is the architecture. I know the new stuff is kitschy and overdone and not terribly evolved on the design front, but it’s so colorful, and loaded with graphics, and embossed design flourishes and full of ornate, non-rectangular balconies and other interesting non-linear sights. In the fifties and sixties, when buildings were intended to be plain and ugly as sin – referred to then as new modernism – Cambodia’s turned up just as ugly; but at least they sported a balcony for every dwelling.
This is a great thing, because everybody has easy access to the outside. And they use it; they hang out, they watch the streetside bustle, they keep an eye on things. Once again design encouraging interaction. Most colonials either had no balcony or a small dainty one – hardly usable compared to the amount of space in the newer ones.
Cambodian architecture is really excellent for its tropical setting; high ceilings let hot air rise and upper level venting allows for air to pass through. Still not like air-con, but survivable without it; not like a lot of the new stuff going up that’s designed exclusively for artificial cooling. They’re going to be in tough shape when the oil spigot starts to run dry; nearly unlivable in hot season.
It’s also unfortunate (only for natural cooling) that so many people feel the need to build closed lofts (for extra space) thus blocking all air passage. Eventually, should the city ever emulate the changes that have happened in western cities, it will become much less dense. When Americans’ income increased after WWII and gave them the choice, they left the cities to give those remaining there more space.
It’s hard to imagine that happening here in the developing world, at least in the foreseeable future; there will always be a surfeit of poor people needing to inhabit tiny, minimum cost, living spaces, but it will happen eventually.
One important factor likely to keep Phnom Penh low-rise is the high cost of elevators. Without a lot of additional wealth, the city can’t get any taller, and therefore it can’t get too much more crowded – peoplewise.
Traffic is another story. The city will be tempted to widen streets to make room for more cars. This is a self-defeating exercise. The experience of America has shown that the more roads you build the more people drive – in other words, the new roads themselves create additional traffic – and you can never keep up with new demand. That is not to say that street widening is never appropriate. Just that it?s no solution to the traffic problem and it tremendously detracts from livability. Imagine Sihanouk Boulevard with 8 lanes of traffic and 2 meter wide sidewalks, in place of the current 4 lanes and 10 meter sidewalks; a totally unfriendly and distasteful place to be.
The Phnom Penh we see within the map – it has expanded way beyond the central core shown there – needs to be kept much as it is; that is, no freeways or any major thoroughfares created. There should, however, be a circular freeway around the core to keep long distance travel off of city streets. Still, in a scenario with large numbers of additional cars on city streets, nothing could prevent gridlock. Only de-emphasis on private motor vehicles and a movement, as described in previous articles, towards walking, bicycling and public transportation can prevent a traffic morass.
Phnom Penh was once called the Pearl of the Orient, and could be again. Unfortunately, civic leaders, not just in Cambodia, are all too often oriented towards destroying the space, openness and relaxed feeling of a good sized city like ours by filling every possible space with ever larger buildings. The worst nightmare is the conversion of all the large and open public spaces in the city – such as central police headquarters – with dense new development. Density is important but requires corresponding, complementary open spaces.
Phnom Penh is a exceptional and often beautiful place, with an architecture and design all its own. I sure hope it doesn’t go the way of sacrificing it’s qualities for schlocky, destructive development. It’s too nice as it is.
Stan Kanh
