Heritage site
National Olympic Stadium
The National Olympic Stadium, also called the National Sports Complex, is a sports complex in Phnom Penh designed by the architect Vann Molyvann. It was built from 1962 to 1964 and holds an outdoor stadium, an indoor sports hall and swimming pools.[1][2] Vann Molyvann counted it as his greatest work.[3]
History
The complex was built at the request of Norodom Sihanouk for the Southeast Asian Peninsular Games of 1963, which Cambodia did not hold because of political unrest.[1][4][5] Work began in 1962 and took 18 months, led by an international team of architects and engineers under Vann Molyvann.[1] Dezeen names the engineer Vladimir Bodiansky as a member of the design team.[6] Apart from advice from a few foreign experts, Cambodia paid for the stadium itself.[2]
Sihanouk opened the complex in 1964. At the opening he said that Cambodia had shown it could turn its ancient kingdom "into a modern nation".[2] In the 1960s it held national and international sports events, independence celebrations and welcomes for visiting heads of state.[1] In 1966 it held the Games of the New Emerging Forces, and in the same year the French president Charles de Gaulle gave a speech there praising Cambodia's neutrality and calling for peace in Indochina.[2]
Design
Vann Molyvann drew the plan of the complex from the temple ensembles of Angkor. The site was dug out all around, and the excavated earth was built up into the sloping embankments that carry the seats, while the water surfaces left around the complex recall the moats of Khmer temples.[1][5] The moats were also reservoirs for rainwater, so that the playing fields would not flood, and the complex was laid out on the cardinal directions.[1] Atlas Obscura describes channels that carried water from the roof to pools at the base, which also kept the crowds cool.[7]
The elliptical stadium was designed for 50,000 seated spectators, with room for 10,000 more standing along its rim, 12 meters (39 feet) up.[1] The Cambodia Daily gave the stadium 60,000 seats in 2002.[2] The main grandstand is joined to the indoor sports hall on the west side, which Dezeen gives as 8,000 seats; the swimming and diving pools lie to the east. Tennis and basketball courts and a water tower also stood on the grounds.[1][6] Angled metal sheets wrap the outside of the stadium, and the narrow gaps between them let in air and strips of light.[6]
Changes since 2000
Around 2000, part of the grounds went to a Taiwanese company, the Yuan Ta Group; sources differ on whether it was a sale or a lease.[3][1][7] The company renovated the stadium and in 2002 was due to hand it back to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. Its new fence enclosed only the buildings, cutting them off from the moats and open ground, and its drawings showed a shopping mall, a parking garage and a hotel on the two largest ponds in the north. Vann Molyvann objected that the company had no right to the stadium's land.[2] Shops and apartments were later built inside the grounds, and the moats were turned into building land.[1]
In 2012 the Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation said its development would not harm the stadium.[4] In 2013 the government approved its plans for condominiums, a hotel and a shopping mall on the land around the stadium, under a 99-year lease from the ministry that was being arranged.[8] By then, Next City reported, the stadium's drainage had been filled with cement and the area around it flooded in the rainy season.[3]
The Vann Molyvann Project writes that the World Monuments Fund placed the complex on its 2016 World Monuments Watch, to draw attention to the loss of its open space as a public resource.[9] Many people use the grounds every day, above all at weekends, to exercise, dance and watch football.[1] In 2019 the football federation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reported plans to renovate the stadium to the standards of world football's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), and of the Asian Football Confederation.[10]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 docomomo journal, Pen Sereypagna, New Khmer Architecture: Modern Movement in Cambodia between 1953 and 1970 (issue 57, 2017)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 The Cambodia Daily, Molly Ball, Olympic Stadium Developers Jeopardize Original Design (September 28, 2002)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Next City, Daniel Otis, Phnom Penh's Most Famous Urban Planner Sees a City on the Verge of Collapse (December 31, 2013)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 ASEAN Football Federation, No plans to demolish National Olympic Stadium: OCIC (June 20, 2012)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 M+, Model, National Sports Complex (1962–1964), Phnom Penh, Cambodia (museum collection record)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Dezeen, Eleanor Gibson, Modernist stadium in Cambodia captured in new photos by Virgile Simon Bertrand (September 13, 2016)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Atlas Obscura, Vittoria Traverso, The Architect Who Married Modernism and Ancient Khmer Style (October 13, 2017)
- ↑ Open Development Cambodia, Luxury Projects Set for Olympic Stadium Area (December 4, 2013)
- ↑ The Vann Molyvann Project, The National Sports Complex: Legacy and Vision (undated)
- ↑ ASEAN Football Federation, Phnom Penh's Olympic Stadium to undergo renovation (September 23, 2019)