A Modernist Architect’s Home Is Threatened by Modern Developers
Architect Vann Molyvann is known as the man who built Cambodia. Now his own home could become yet another generic skyscraper.
The children of Vann Molyvann, the Cambodian architect who died in 2017, are selling his home in Phnom Penh.
Photo Courtesy of IPS Cambodia
Amid the honking horns of a busy Asian capital lies an elegant residential oasis — a four-bedroom, parabolic-roofed architectural gem. Built in 1966 as the home-atelier of one of East Asia’s greatest architects, it is said to be a window into his soul.
The house of Vann Molyvann — the builder of Cambodia’s modernist classics — carries architectural importance on the scale of Frank Lloyd Wright homes. Yet it doesn’t carry their protections. Listed for sale in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, for $7 million, the home has no preservation law, conservation regulation or heritage designation to save it. A buyer would be free to tear it down and put up a new commercial building or shopping mall, just like the many nearby that have driven up land values along the busy boulevard it abuts.