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SUMMARY:Finding a Home for Modern in Cambodia: Preserving Phnom Penh's Oly
 mpic Stadium and the New Khmer Architecture - Ian Dull
DTSTART:20120522T121000Z
DTEND:20120522T130000Z
UID:TALK37716@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Xinyi Liu
DESCRIPTION:Modernist architecture spread around the world in the post-war
  period\, and\, in developing and recently independent nations\, it was of
 ten used to represent a break with the past and the coming of modernity. B
 ut what does Modernist architecture represent today\, and how do we look b
 ack on 'modernity'? In Cambodia\, the 'Independence Architecture' of the 1
 950s and 60s was a venue for celebrating the state\, with no greater examp
 le than Phnom Penh's Olympic Stadium. The ensuing 30 years of conflict hav
 e reshaped the urban landscape\, and today\, surviving buildings of this e
 ra have been reused and altered\, and taken on new life. At the same time\
 , a new vision of modernity has taken hold\, and the city’s form is chan
 ging—to the detriment of its historic fabric. This paper explores how pr
 eservationists have approached preserving Cambodia’s Modernist architect
 ure\, specifically Phnom Penh’s Olympic Stadium\, and how the city’s c
 hanging population values its continued existence. I argue that both prese
 rvationists and Phnom Penh’s inhabitants have used the Stadium to contes
 t shifting conceptions of modernity and increasing dispossession in the ci
 ty. In a city of changing demography\, however\, the Stadium’s meaning i
 s quickly disappearing.
LOCATION:Entertaining Room\, Darwin College
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