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Today, I checked out one of the architectural tours run by KA Tours in Phnom Penh.  They do a nice job of it– interesting sites, informative guide.  I hope to catch another one of their tours. 

We made a couple of stops today: out at a villa (now a clinic) and an interesting, Modern-style house out in the Toul Kork neighborhood, as well as the 100 Houses development out on the way out to the airport.  The general theme of this tour, as their other tours, is the New Khmer Architecture of the 1950s and 1960s.  This time period, following Cambodia’s independence in 1953, was a particularly rich period for the arts in Cambodia.  Musicians, architects and others looked abroad for new ideas, while at the same time looking within in order to find new ways of expressing Khmer ideas and aesthetics.  This led to a new, uniquely Khmer artistic vision.  Probably the best known architect of the period was Vann Molyvann.  The unstability and civil wars of the 1970s put an end to this period, and many of the artists of the time were lost in the genocide.  

Of the three stops we made today, I only came up with decent pictures from the 100 Houses complex.  This is a block of 104 nearly identical houses was built between 1965 and 1967.  The houses themselves were designed by Vann Molyvann, who took the traditional Khmer house as a starting point.  He made changes in construction material (bricks rather than wood), roof design (like a policeman’s hat) and other details such as the size of windows and doors (larger, for better air circulation).  The houses were originally privately owned.  They have been put to a range of uses since then, including use by the Khmer Rouge (headquarters for Ieng Sary, Minister of Foreign Affairs), Vietnamese military (after they toppled the KR in 1979) and later the Cambodian Air Force.  Now, they are private homes again.  Many were damaged in the war.  Some have retained the original shape, others have been modified to some extent.

This is a screen-shot of a satellite image from Google Earth.  Notice the alternating placement of the houses.  This was to allow for increased air circulation, as well as allowing each house to look out onto garden space rather than another house.  Click on the image for a larger version which is easier to interpret. 

Pictured here is an example of one of the houses, currently used as a Christian church. 

Of course, what really caught my eye was the food production which was going on.  One family had their dooryard filled with tall planters made from old motorbike tires, as well as a few trees (and a flat tire repair business, which is not in this picture– could this be a method to re-use all those bad tires they must have collected over the years?).

My favorite for today was the novel trellis system pictured here… 

 They were growing some sort of squash in the razor wire which topped their front wall.  It was a luffa/chinese okra-looking sort of guy– there are lots of different ones, and I am not on top of them all yet.  The home owner was not around for me to ask.  Great use of use of space, just be careful at squash picking time!

Update 28 March 2007: The International Herald Tribune just posted an interesting article about New Khmer Architecture and Vann Molyvann in their travel section.  It is worth checking out for more background information.

This morning, Michelle Simon’s blog, Appetite for Profit, pointed me in the direction of an article by Christopher Cook over at Common Ground Magazine.  He put together a nice little reminder that changing our food system takes more than “voting with your fork”…

That consumers carry some sway over the food they are sold is undeniable. Food corporations’ newfound passion for organics is nothing if not a scramble after consumers’ greenbacks. At least partly due to consumer (and activist groups’) pressure, Nabisco reduced transfats in their Oreo cookies, and Kentucky Fried Chicken will soon be deep-frying its millions of chicken parts in non-hydrogenated cooking oils. Progress, to be sure, but it’s just nibbling at the fringes. Meanwhile, the companies get free PR, a fat-gorging nation’s health concerns are quieted — and the underlying corporate-run food system that creates so many serious health and environmental problems goes unchallenged. Witness the Wal-Mart-led corporate takeover of organics, which is already leading to less-than-sustainable industrial organic farms and a steady diluting of federal standards.

Voting with our forks, while a useful first step, falls distressingly short of the needs and possibilities of this historical moment. From contaminated industrial food, to intensely polluting factory farms, to the millions of pounds of toxic pesticides still showered on our produce and ever-proliferating genetically manipulated crops, our food system is in desperate need of fundamental change. We can’t simply shop our way out of this mess. We need a compelling, coherent alternative that channels today’s excitement about good food far beyond the grocery checkout line, to cast votes for public policies and investments that restructure how food is made, marketed and consumed.

As someone who occasionally toots his own horn about the percentage of his household income squandered at farmers’ markets, this article is a nice reminder that changes still need to be made on the policy side of things– refocusing national agricultural priorites, tweaking the coming Farm Bill and such.  I like some of his suggestions.  They demand a little more than just changing buying habits.  They demand engagement.