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  • Burma's Colonial Architecture Crumbles

    BURMA'S COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE CRUMBLES

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/w orld/burmas-colonial-architecture-crumbles/story-f n30266j-1225831282194
    feb 17 2010

    Photo: The Strand Hotel, built in 1901 by the same developers of the
    Raffles in Singapore, was saved from dereliction by a renovation in
    1993. Source: Reuters

    THE colonial buildings of the once-grand city of Rangon, Burma, are
    scattered about like tombstones in a neglected cemetery - unnoticed,
    and often unwanted, relics of a lost era.

    Yangon is home to one of the largest collections of undisturbed
    colonial architecture in the world, with some neighborhoods left
    almost exactly as they were when the country gained independence
    from Britain some 60 years ago. But the buildings, already crumbling
    after years of neglect under a repressive military regime, face an
    increasingly uncertain future.

    A government decision to move Burma's capital from Yangon to a remote
    redoubt named Naypyitaw in 2005 has left several of the most important
    buildings almost totally abandoned, accelerating their deterioration.

    Meantime, resurgent investment from China and other Asian neighbors
    is triggering interest in development - including the possibility
    of building shopping malls and apartment blocks where old structures
    now stand.

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    Buildings at risk include Secretariat, one of Southeast Asia's most
    important modern historical sites. It was here that Aung San, Burma's
    main independence hero, and father of famed dissident Aung San Suu
    Kyi, was assassinated by political rivals in July 1947, setting off
    a series of events that culminated in a military takeover in 1962.

    Although Secretariat, with its gaudy red-and-yellow exterior and
    turrets, was ridiculed by residents when it opened in 1905, it became
    a hive of government ministries and, ultimately, a regional landmark.

    Today, inhabited only by a few camped-out soldiers, the dilapidated
    structure is hidden from the public behind a forest of trees and
    chain-link fence. Photographing the building is prohibited. Some
    residents believe it is already beyond repair.

    A couple of blocks away, the multistory Railway Headquarters (1896),
    also of bright red brick, was built with rows of ornate windows framed
    with filigreed railings and matching awnings. Today, the awnings are
    collapsing and some windows are bricked in, while others are covered
    in reed mats or sacks. Weeds grow from walls and spill over ledges.

    The grounds are littered with metal--scraps and what look like pieces
    of equipment - nearly hidden by brush and vines.

    Preserving Yangon's historic buildings rates low among social
    priorities in Burma, which consistently ranks as one of the poorest
    and most-corrupt nations in the world. The government is accused
    of widespread human-rights abuses, including the imprisonment of
    political opponents such as Ms. Suu Kyi. Some foreigners refuse on
    principle to visit Burma, which is open to tourists, because of the
    regime's track record.

    Still, historians are hopeful that at least some of Yangon's buildings
    will be preserved.

    "It's very hard to go around what was once the British Empire and see
    so many buildings intact," says Ian Morley, an urban historian at the
    Chinese University of Hong Kong who calls the city's center possibly
    "the last example of a colonial core" still intact in Asia.

    "I don't mean to come off as a raving colonialist," he says. But
    "we need to be aware of where we come from," and the threats upon
    Yangon's surviving buildings "are very, very great."

    Burma's recent repressive history is one of the main reasons its
    colonial buildings are still standing. The military restricted access
    to the outside world after it came to power nearly 50 years ago,
    and in more recent years, U.S. and European sanctions prevented many
    Western companies from investing there. As a result, Yangon never
    went through the frenzied development that remade Bangkok, Beijing
    and other Asian cities.

    New development is still minimal. But parts of Burma's economy have
    picked up in recent years, spurring construction. Trade between China
    and Burma quadrupled in recent years, reaching more than $2.6 billion
    in 2008. While much of that money is being spent in other parts of
    the country, a handful of new apartment blocks have popped up around
    Yangon or are under construction. Crews are finishing work on a tower
    of 20 stories or more in the center of downtown that was started,
    but left unfinished, years ago.

    "You'll probably see a lot more apartments," says Brian Agland, Burma
    country director for the international relief agency CARE in Yangon.

    As for the older buildings, "you're starting to see a lot more decay"
    as the government spends more time in Naypyitaw.

    Burma officials have made promises in the past to preserve Yangon's
    colonial remains. The regime established a list of protected "heritage"
    sites in the late 1990s that grew to include roughly 200 buildings,
    including Secretariat as well as churches, schools and residences -
    largely in recognition of their potential as tourist draws. Local
    residents, though, say the government has for the most part ignored
    its list, sprucing up a few buildings while leaving most others to rot.

    During a recent visit, residents pointed to a block they said
    was supposed to be protected but now is surrounded by fences and
    signs promoting a future shopping mall. When asked about the site,
    a resident said she was told the historic buildings there were
    "accidentally damaged" and therefore no longer subject to protection.

    Attempts to contact Burma authorities over several weeks to discuss
    their plans for Yangon's buildings were unsuccessful. The regime
    rarely speaks to foreign journalists.

    Architectural historians who have studied the city say that lower-level
    government employees have expressed enthusiasm for working with
    outsiders to save the buildings, but calls to more senior officials
    typically go unanswered. Even basic information - such as when
    structures were built - is difficult to obtain. In some cases,
    records were destroyed.

    Burma's government has "pretty much villainized the buildings
    as colonial eyesores, as hateful reminders of the past," says one
    academic who has researched Yangon's architecture and, like many
    experts on the country, requests anonymity when discussing the regime.

    Some Yangon residents say they believe the government truly does want
    to renovate the buildings, preferably with help from foreign investors,
    turning them into hotels or other businesses. But Burma's tourism
    industry has struggled in recent years. And many of the buildings
    are in such disrepair that they would be far cheaper to rip down than
    rebuild. Some are empty, roofless shells, home to buckling staircases
    and sprouting trees. Open sewers feed into some courtyards.

    It's also hard, if not impossible, to persuade locals to restore
    buildings on their own, in part because they lack financing in Burma's
    cash-starved economy. Plus, some residents view the buildings as
    uncomfortable eyesores and prefer the advantages of newer buildings
    with modern amenities.

    The preservationists who do follow the buildings have focused their
    energies on publicizing them to foreign visitors in the hopes that
    international attention will spur Burma officials. Historians are
    also encouraging the many foreign institutions in Burma- especially
    international aid agencies - to take over and repair historic
    structures.

    The group CARE, for instance, moved into a two-story, early-1900s house
    in Yangon's Embassy District two years ago and restored some of the
    interior and two damaged verandas. "I just thought it had potential,"
    says Mr. Agland, the CARE country director. Now "we have big meetings
    out on the verandas."

    Other buildings that have been saved include the Strand hotel, built
    in 1901 by Armenian brothers whose chain included the famous Raffles
    Hotel in Singapore. With teak-framed windows, tiled floors and vaulted
    ceilings, it was for many decades a required stop for wealthy European
    travelers in Asia. But by the 1970s, guests described a building
    filled with rats and bats, with faucets that issued murky brown water.

    Refurbished with the help of foreign investors in the early 1990s at
    a cost of several million dollars, it has since hosted the likes of
    Mick Jagger.

    But such high-cost projects are risky. A Strand official says the
    hotel has barely broken even in recent years, since international
    sanctions were imposed. And while there's talk that Secretariat or the
    Railway Headquarters will be similarly restored with money from China
    or Singapore, few locals believe it will happen anytime soon, if ever.

    Built on an early Buddhist pilgrimmage site near a hilltop shrine
    called Shwedagon, Yangon was little more than a small town until
    the mid-19th century. The British seized the area in the 1850s as
    Britain conquered what was known as Burma, and expanded the city -
    which they called Rangoon - to become a strategic river port.

    Led by a superintendent who had worked on city planning in Singapore
    and an army engineer, Lieutenant A. Fraser, the British laid out the
    city on a grid and drained swampy areas. Population tripled to about
    135,000 in the early 1880s, and by the early 1900s, Rangoon was one of
    the most cosmopolitan cities in the British Empire, with streetcars,
    gaslights and public gardens. It boomed further over the next several
    decades with exports of rice, teak and other goods.

    In the city's heyday, engineers added entire neighborhoods of
    European-style buildings, blending Victorian architecture with more
    exotic flourishes from West Bengal and other parts of the empire.

    Wealthy traders built teak mansions topped with elaborate cupolas.

    Along Pansodan Street downtown, businessmen created a miniature
    version of lower Manhattan, with banks, insurance companies and
    trading houses graced by thick columns, pillars and arches. Later
    buildings incorporated Art Deco designs.

    The Rowe & Co. department store (1910), for example, became known
    as one of the ritziest shopping centers in Southeast Asia, with its
    patterns of red and yellow brick, topped with a tower reminiscent of
    Philadelphia's Independence Hall. Although still used today - as an
    immigration office - many of the windows are knocked out or covered
    with tarps, and dark black stains cover the exterior.

    Many of the grandiose British buildings confused or annoyed local
    residents. A famous local joke held that Rangoon's High Court (1911),
    with a clock tower rising above the nearby shophouses and plenty of
    the city's ubiquitous bright red brick, was designed by "a convict
    with a grudge against the judge." The building remains in relatively
    good shape, as it is still used for some court proceedings, and during
    a recent visit workers were seen repainting parts of the exterior.

    In one case - the Rangoon City Hall (1936) - a Burmese architect
    (with Western training) was called in to make the building more
    suitable to local tastes. He visited the ancient city of Bagan and
    other sites around the country to study pagodas and monasteries,
    elements of which he added to the city-hall design. The cream-colored
    building includes Burmese spires and mannered Asian arches, creating
    a unique West-meets-East mix, like a British ministry doubling as a
    Buddhist temple.

    Burma entered a period of tumult after independence in the 1940s,
    and new development came to a virtual standstill after the military
    took over. There was a brief flurry of new construction - including
    several high-rise towers - in the 1990s, when the junta liberalized
    Burma's economy to attract more foreign capital. But the miniboom
    ended abruptly with the 1997 Asian financial crisis and tough economic
    sanctions from the US and Europe.

    It's still possible the recent increase in Asian investment in Burma
    could help save some of Yangon's buildings, if companies decide
    to make use of them. Some of the surge in foreign-aid money that
    followed Cyclone Nargis in 2008 went to fix up houses like the one
    CARE now uses.

    For now, residents are sceptical. One bookshop owner in central Yangon
    says he doubts officials "will do their job" and protect buildings on
    the government's own heritage list. And without proper restoration,
    says another Yangon resident, "they will soon disappear."
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