ASIAN CITIES Esposito of Heritage a World Site Urban Development in the Margins Adèle Esposito Urban Development in the Margins of a World Heritage Site In the Shadows of Angkor Urban Development in the Margins of a World Heritage Site Publications The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a research and exchange platform based in Leiden, the Netherlands. Its objective is to encourage the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Asia and to promote (inter)national cooperation. IIAS focuses on the humanities and social sciences and on their interaction with other sciences. It stimulates scholarship on Asia and is instrumental in forging research networks among Asia Scholars. Its main research interests are reflected in the three book series published with Amsterdam University Press: Global Asia, Asian Heritages and Asian Cities. IIAS acts as an international mediator, bringing together various parties in Asia and other parts of the world. The Institute works as a clearinghouse of knowledge and information. This entails activities such as providing information services, the construction and support of international networks and cooperative projects, and the organization of seminars and conferences. In this way, IIAS functions as a window on Europe for non-European scholars and contributes to the cultural rapprochement between Europe and Asia. IIAS Publications Officer: Paul van der Velde IIAS Assistant Publications Officer: Mary Lynn van Dijk Asian Cities The Asian Cities Series explores urban cultures, societies and developments from the ancient to the contemporary city, from West Asia and the Near East to East Asia and the Pacific. The series focuses on three avenues of inquiry: evolving and competing ideas of the city across time and space; urban residents and their interactions in the production, shaping and contestation of the city; and urban challenges of the future as they relate to human well-being, the environment, heritage and public life. Series Editor Paul Rabé, Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) at International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands Editorial Board Henco Bekkering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Charles Goldblum, University of Paris 8, France Xiaoxi Hui, Beijing University of Technology, China Stephen Lau, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Rita Padawangi, University of Social Sciences, Singapore Parthasarathy Rengarajan, Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Gujarat, India Neha Sami, Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bangalore, India Urban Development in the Margins of a World Heritage Site In the Shadows of Angkor Adèle Esposito Amsterdam University Press Publications Asian Cities 6 Cover illustration: Vat Enkosei in Siem Reap Photo: Adèle Esposito, December 2015 Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 368 7 e-isbn 978 90 4853 405 0 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462983687 nur 740 © Adèle Esposito / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. For Nathalie and Charles Contents Abbreviations 11 Glossary of Khmer terms 13 Acknowledgements 17 Author’s Preface 19 Introduction 23 Ordinary diversity? A secondary tourist city in Southeast Asia 31 Building the city after conflict 35 Understanding the politics of heritage from the margins 41 Designing a research trajectory 44 The content and structure of the book 48 1 ‘Before you build a wall, think of what you are leaving outside it’ 51 The construction of core and marginal spaces in the Angkor region 1.1 The triad of heritage conservation 55 1.2 Angkor, an international icon 61 1.3 Shaping the legal and institutional heritage system for Angkor 66 1.4 Zoning a region shaped by Angkor’s legacy 71 1.5 Expanding the heritage system: From the monument to the landscape 76 1.6 Contracting the heritage system: From the landscape to the archaeological park 80 1.7 Fragile and malleable Siem Reap 88 2 The arena of urban planning and the idea of the city 93 2.1 Everyone wants a slice of the pie 96 2.2 Planners as cultural brokers 100 2.3 Spatial layouts and ideas of the city 104 2.4 The buttresses of planning 117 2.5 Projects 130 2.6 The power of action and the power of ideas 151 3 The city as developers’ playground 155 3.1 Our potential field is tourism 161 3.2 Reconnecting the disenfranchised links of the economic chain 173 3.3 An irrational property market 177 3.4 Negotiating the land laws 183 3.5 Invisible investment 191 3.6 A dismal attempt at beautification 197 3.7 Material effects: Processes and impacts of urban development 207 3.8 Urban transformation by the local people 225 3.9 The trajectory of Siem Reap’s urban transition 231 4 The architectural space 235 How contemporary design shapes urban identities and ideas of modernity 4.1 Angkor: From discovery to commodity 237 4.2 Emotional authenticity 243 4.3 Taming exoticism 246 4.4 Representing and planning the tourist space 249 4.5 All hotels want to be ‘Grand’ 256 4.6 The quest for the local 272 4.7 Spectacular heritage: The museums of Siem Reap 286 4.8 Thematizing urban heritage for consumption 293 4.9 Models and imitative trends: Towards a contemporary Cambodian architecture? 298 Conclusion 303 Heritage space and non-heritage space: A heuristic model 303 The trajectories of the ‘coloniality of power’ 306 The town, forgotten and yet central 308 Bibliography 311 Index 333 List of figures A Map of Southeast Asia and Cambodia 22 B UNESCO signpost indicating the boundaries of the Angkor archaeological park 29 C Total contribution made by tourism and travel to Cambodia’s GDP 30 D Siem Reap urban area in 2005 34 1.1 The archaeological parks of Angkor, as defined by the EFEO in 1925 and the Khmer Republic in 1970 60 1.2 The archaeological parks of Angkor, as defined by the World Heritage listing 70 1.3 Archaeological map of the Angkor region 75 1.4 IGN map 1962 reworked by ARTE (1995) 90 1.5 The Neak Ta Ya Tep, the spirit protector 91 2.1 Net official development assistance and official aid received by Cambodia between 1991 and 2015 97 2.2 Urban zoning as proposed by the Urban Reference Plan 108 2.3 Replica of a noria and wooden bridge in the Old Market area 109 2.4 Functional zoning as proposed by Groupe 8 in 1999 121 2.5 Functional zoning as proposed by JICA in 2006 122 2.6 Sample of inventoried building 129 2.7 Project for the Hotel City 140 2.8 The main axis, which passes through the land reserve of the tourism district and gives access to the archaeologi- cal park 141 2.9 The Grand Panorama Museum 142 2.10 Movable houses on the Tonlé Sap 150 2.11 The changing Chong Kneas landscape 151 3.1 Incoming FDI to Cambodia by country of origin and sector 195 3.2 Statistics of tourism investment compiled by the CDC, 1995-2009 196 3.3 Houses along the eastern bank of Siem Reap River 206 3.4 Maps of the applications for building permits for all types of project and for tourist accommodation and facilities issued between 2000 and 2009 207 3.5 10 January 1979 High School before transformation 208 3.6 Shophouses along Sivatha Road 210 3.7 The evolution of land use in the administrative district, 2009 and 2015 211 3.8 Somadevi Hotel, Sivatha Road 212 3.9 Shophouses surrounding the Phsar Leu Market 217 3.10 Urban landscape along National Highway No. 6 217 3.11 The hotel with the highest pinnacle in town 220 3.12 Road to nowhere: the main avenue of Borey Seang Nam 220 3.13 Shophouses at Borey Sokleap 221 3.14 Urban sequences along National Highway No. 6 223 3.15 The Charming Tourist City 225 3.16 Wat Bo: localization map, sketch and picture of the surveyed area 227 3.17 Taphul: localization map, sketch and picture of the surveyed area 230 3.18 Siem Reap province, district, and municipality 232 4.1 Ancient road discovered in the midst of the ruins of Pontéay Preah Khan 242 4.2 Replica of Angkor Wat temple at the 1931 colonial exhibition 245 4.3 Raffles Grand Hotel 262 4.4 A hotel that wants to be ‘grand’ : façade; bottom 262 4.5 A hotel that wants to be ‘grand’: internal courtyard 263 4.6 Internal courtyard of the Park Hyatt Hotel, ex-Hotel de la Paix 263 4.7 Reproduction of Angkor sculpture at the Angkor Howard Hotel 264 4.8 Reproduction of colonial architecture and atmosphere at the Victoria Hotel 264 4.9 The Heritage Hotel 271 4.10 Monks’ houses, Wat Bo 278 4.11 Angkor Village hotel 278 4.12 Mahogany Guesthouse 281 4.13 Mom’s Guesthouse façade 282 4.14 Reproduction of a village of the Kola, an ethnic minority originally from Burma, in the Cambodian Cultural Village 286 4.15 The Angkor National Museum 291 4.16 Grand Café: plan of the first floor, façade, and cross-section 297 4.17 The Hard Rock Café 298 4.18 Sala Lodge Hotel 300 4.19 Extension of the Somadevi Hotel by ASMA Architecture 300 Abbreviations ADHOC Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association AFD Agence Française de Développement AHA Angkor Handicraft Association AIMF Association Internationale des Maires Francophones APSARA Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of