An architect and adviser to the Phnom Penh government is concerned the city may approve the demolition of a well-preserved French colonial building located between Wat Phnom and the capital’s riverfront.
The Clock Tower, as it is known, was built about 100 years ago, said the adviser, Marie-Paule Halgand, who works with the city’s Bureau of Urban Affairs. Though the clock is no longer installed, the building is “elegant” and a “landmark,” she said.
The building is owned by the Port Authority of Phnom Penh, which has applied to the city to build a four-story office building she described as “ugly” and “a shoebox” on the site.
“If they intend to build this, they will have to destroy the existing building,” Halgand said, adding, “Now it’s a political problem.”
City development guidelines forbid buildings higher than three stories along major thoroughfares. While the Clock Tower does not border such a thoroughfare, it is near Wat Phnom, one of the city landmarks that inspired the height restriction.
There are fewer than 100 buildings a century or more old in Phnom Penh, said Halgand, who has studied the city’s architectural heritage with funds from the European Union.
But many of them are in terrible shape or privately owned and inaccessible to the public, she said. The port building, located next to the Council for Development of Cambodia, is one of perhaps 20 public buildings of that vintage, and it is relatively well-preserved, she said.
It is also part of an area rich in valuable French colonial buildings, such as the municipal post office and district police headquarters.
Destroying it could hurt the integrity of the area, Halgand said.
The port has a site large enough that it could build a new building while keeping and renovating the Clock Tower, the architectural expert suggested.
Port Director-General Hei Bavy Thursday said the authority has not yet made a firm decision whether to go ahead with the building.
Halgand’s Asia-Urbs program is designed to establish a fund to assist building owners in preserving historically valuable buildings.
Currently there are no laws to protect such buildings, she said. Most builders in Phnom Penh do not bother to apply for building permits, and there are no public hearings before developments are approved, Halgan said.
“So [preservation] is always step-by-step,” Hagland said.
(Additional reporting by Nhem Chea Bunly.)
