The holistic ideals within his designs – managing water-flows, heat and wind, and connecting buildings stylistically to their surroundings – have been compromised, but there are remnants of his work all throughout Phnom Penh, and in much of the country, especially in provinces to the west. Many of these are lived-in, or played-in, structures and bear the marks of these human activities. Some have been modified, gutted, or even sold for parts, and others are waiting in the shadow of the wrecking ball.

The holistic ideals within his designs – managing water-flows, heat and wind, and connecting buildings stylistically to their surroundings – have been compromised, but there are remnants of his work all throughout Phnom Penh, and in much of the country, especially in provinces to the west. Many of these are lived-in, or played-in, structures and bear the marks of these human activities. Some have been modified, gutted, or even sold for parts, and others are waiting in the shadow of the wrecking ball.

While much has been lost, there is still plenty left to see of Vann Molyvann’s 100 Houses project. Tucked away in a leafy and largely affluent neighbourhood of the city not far from Phnom Penh International Airport, the vast majority of the homes have either been bulldozed or renovated but a handful reflect the original designs. Commissioned by the National Bank, the project was intended for its employees to live in and to purchase over time. Having grown up in a traditional wooden house in Kampot province – in an area that is now part of Preah Sihanouk – Molyvann was deeply influenced and impressed by the efficiency of traditional homes. The houses here were all built with one pond facing the west, for cooling and each had the same style of roof – steeply pitched on one side, inspired by a military cap – to allow hot air to escape. Most of the neighbourhood and the homes have been redeveloped, but many of the original roofs remain, and with the right vantage point you can see them lined up in rows in the distance. Mom Sinath, 68, who came to live in one of the homes with nine other families in 1979 and now owns the land, said this week she would like to expand her home, or knock it down, like those around her had done. “I used to hear about the name ‘Molyvann’ but I don’t really know much about him,” she said. “This house is too old so it’s hard to maintain.” Find them: Off Russian Boulevard in Borey Muy Roy Khnang

The original Pasteur Institute, this Molyvann design is more functional than inspirational but it is interesting to see how it has been adapted to a modern context. The original plot of land included a separate administrative building, which was destroyed. What remains is the former laboratory, which also had apartments for staff at the Institute. Now it is a bustling, though decrepit, building with dozens of families living on its three floors. Phoung Chea, 64, a retired Khmer teacher, came to live in the building after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. At the time, it was used as housing for state-owned factories in the area. “The Khmer Rouge locked all the doors so in order to get in people had to break doors and windows,” Chea said.



Everything was sold, even an old machine for making vaccines, he said. While the building has seen better days, the structure appears sound and the families have titles to the property after the residents appealed to the government in the mid-2000s. Its future is uncertain, however, as Chea says a real estate company has had its eyes set on the land for the last year and is attempting to buy out residents. Find it: Chroy Changvar Peninsula, at the end of the road heading past Mekong View Tower



Capitol Cinema

Originally built in 1955, Molyvann renovated this movie theatre in 1967 with his own distinctive style, including its jagged roof visible from the street and louvered walls for ventilation. After the fall of Phnom Penh, the theatre eventually became a snooker club – and at some point was a “VIP night club” as a sign hanging from the façade still attests. It remained a billiards hall until fall of 2016, when the fences came up around it. The building has been gutted, and the roof is largely already removed, but shopkeepers and residents nearby were unsure when it would be demolished. Centrally located, it is worth a visit for the façade and roof alone and may not be around for much longer. Find it: Street 148 and Street 19



Tuol Kork health centre

Several authorities on Molyvann that Post Weekend spoke with knew nothing of his connection to this run-down health centre in Tuol Kork. Ellis-Roeun of Khmer Architecture Tours said it was just a “rumour” that this was one of his first projects. However, staff at the centre tell a different story. While several employees said that it was designed by Molyvann, Dr Kun Pally also described a more detailed history of the building. Almost every Chinese New Year, she said, the youngest son of its former owner — who was a doctor for King Norodom Sihanouk — comes to the house from France to say a prayer. While he was studying abroad in 1975, Pally said, his parents and two siblings took a trip to the provinces for Khmer New Year. They never returned home, and none survived the Khmer Rouge years. Vietnamese soldiers later occupied the building, and in the 1980s Pally and a team were asked to open a health centre there, which now serves mainly garment workers and indigent people. Though it has fallen into some disarray, the building certainly carries a few features typical of Molyvann’s style but there is little evidence of what must have been a vibrant and stylish family home. Find it: Street 516, between Streets 339 and 347



Tuol Kork Parliament building

Among the maze of roads in Phnom Penh, one area catches the eye from above: five streets converging in the heart of Tuol Kork, now centred around a busy junction and a petrol station. It might instead have been the seat of Cambodian power. From 1958-59, Molyvann designed a new parliament building for the capital, collaborating on the complex structure with Japanese construction company Obayashi Corporation.

Like many of his works, the site plan was “reminiscent of the rigorous geometry of Angkorian temples”, says Masaaki Iwamoto, architect and assistant professor at Kyushu University, who found copies of Molyvann’s original structural plan in the Obayashi Corporation archives and reunited the architect with them in 2015. Iwamoto adds that the project probably fell through due to the cost of enacting its complexity and scale, but that few documents exist to provide more details on the project. A scaled model of part of the building was reproduced from an interpretation of the drawings and can be seen in front of the library at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. Would have been: Streets 273 and 355. Image: Drawing of unbuilt Cambodian Parliament, from the Exhibition "New Khmer Architecture and Japan", in March 2017 at National Museum of Cambodia. Supplied by Obayashi Foundation.



Former home on Mao Tse Toung

Though he spent much of his life away from it, Molyvann built a characteristically elegant and meticulously designed home on Phnom Penh’s Mao Tse Toung Boulevard. A concrete and brick structure, architects speak of its crowning achievement as its roof – a double roof, like so many of his buildings, but this time so widely spaced that “one man can actually walk through”, in his own words. Built in 1966 with the money he earned from private commissions, his time there was initially short-lived, with the family moving to Switzerland for safety in 1971. When they returned in 1991 it had, somewhat ironically, been taken over by the national land-registration administration. It was also “completely neglected”, Molyvann said in a 2005 interview, but the couple were soon given it back and made it their home again until moving to Siem Reap in 2014.

The ground floor is now occupied by an office supply showroom — meaning that visitors are free to nose around what was once Molyvann’s studio, look onto the modest garden framed with bamboo stalks, and walk around the driveway to see the building’s famed roof up close. Upstairs, Post Weekend found employees for Filipino design company Mushroom during their first week as the building’s new occupants. The open-plan office is spacious and airy, with Molyvann and his wife’s books and memorabilia replaced by rows of desks, but still loomed over by the dark and ruddy wooden roof gently sloping at various angles. “I was the most experimental I ever was, you see,” he said of the house during a Post interview in 2013. “I did not dare to impose crazy ideas on any of my government projects or for clients. It was a chance for me to play, but I was a little afraid.” He continued: “I wanted to see if this roof would be possible, if you could live inside a very modern, complex structure in Cambodia while keeping traditional features – such as the ventilation in the roof, and the lighting.” Find it: Mao Tse Toung Boulevard and Street 163



Institute of Foreign Languages