Hiroshima House in Phnom Penh _A Realism Architecture

“Self-build (lifestyle technique as a self-expression), on the other hand, is the technique that tries to see the total (wholeness) in living, that is, in each human’s life.“6 _ Ishiyama Osamu

One cannot help but pause and notice a massive cooked concrete-brick edifice standing when passing by the west back side of Wat Ounalom Compound. Despite being brought to its completion for more than a decade since 2006, yet little known about this most peculiar architecture in the city. This article will cover its history and architectural significance through the reading of the architectural plans, essays, and featured interviews of the architect, Ishiyama Osamu (01/04/1944〜 ) from GA Magazine Special Feature: Sozai Kukan 01 (12/2000), GA Japan magazine no.47(11-12/2000) & no.84(1-2/2007) and Jutaku Kenchiku magazine no 398 (06/2008).

The Parallel tragedy of Hiroshima and Cambodia_The Beginning of Hiroshima House

After regaining political stability through its first democratic election in 1993, Cambodia returned to the international stage as a new nation. One of those opportunities was the 12th Asian game the following year, which was hosted in Hiroshima. However, Cambodia at that time had financial difficulty to support and send off its marathon athletes. With the initiation of Tokyo IOC Chairman Chihara Igaya and the help of Hiroshima People, “Gambare Cambodia Project” was established to help fund Cambodian athletes[1]. The visit of Cambodian athletes to Hiroshima had sparked conversation and reflection over the tragic past and post-war restoration between both parties[2]. Even after the Asian game, the sympathy toward Cambodia and its history continued among volunteers, one of whom, a Hiroshima bomb survivor Keiko Kunichika founded the Hiroshima-Cambodian Citizen Exchange Association in December 1994. 

[1] Gambare Cambodia Project members of the project Fundraising by selling Japanese rice curry during a flower festival in Hiroshima, Keiko Kunichika on the right.
Image from Hiroshima-Cambodia Citizen Exchange Association
[2] Cambodian Marathon Athletes were holding the national flag during a mission to Hiroshima.
Image from Hiroshima-Cambodia Citizen Exchange Association

In March 1996, during his lecture at a town planning symposium in Hiroshima, the architect Ishiyama Osamu was approached by the association and agreed to collaborate and design without fees for the project to build a house for exchange in Wat Ounalom Complex, which later visioned to be Hiroshima House. However, before Ishiyama’s participation, a year earlier, the project was already started. The foundation and first floor of the building were partially laid out and were used as a woodworking studio by the project’s early initiator, the priest Shibui [3]. The architect had to design on top of the existing structure in this 180 square meter plot of Wat Ounalom. “Hiroshima House was planned based on the exchange between Hiroshima which once turned into a ruin by the atomic bomb and the Cambodian people who experienced a massacre genocide by the pol pot regime, so these tragedies of the 20th century shall not be forgotten.“7 proclaimed as the vision and motivation by its builders. 

[3]: Local Newspaper Titled “Peace, Restoration Praying House”, Image of Priest Shibui and the structure before the architect, Ishiyama’s design. Image from Hiroshima-Cambodia Citizen Exchange Association

Volunteerism Architecture_Participatory construction as a Strategy and Self-build as a Narrative

“Lay a brick, one at a time like a human.“6 _ Ishiyama Osamu

Unlike conventional construction projects, Hiroshima House was started with only a vision without secure budgets and precise project timelines. It took 11 years, from 1996 until 2007, for the project to be completed. With the budget challenge and local building material limitation, the architect concluded why he had to choose brick masonry as a construction method simply because brick was the only most economical building material available at the time. “As a matter of course, anyone will consider brick masonry as the basis. There is no other way than when there are only five yens; a person will lay a single brick. And When there are hundreds or thousands of yens, a group of people will lay hundreds and thousands of bricks.“4 the architect saw the necessity of incremental architecture as an optimal solution to both low budget and fundraising strategy. Part of the construction budget was fundraised annually through participation fees by brick stacking tour events. Almost like a baby Sagrada Familia, The architect further integrated the participatory self-build masonry construction method and the restless continuity of construction as a historical narrative of this architecture.

[5] Hiroshima House Study model. Image from GA JAPAN no 47, 11-12 /2000, p.63
[6] Sketch by the architect of the Wat Ounalom Compound and the surrounding . Image from GA JAPAN no 47, 11-12 /2000, p.64
[4] Amateur volunteers were laying bricks, making walls, and railing.
Image from Ishiyama Osamu, A self-build world_make your own home and town, Chikuma Shobo, 04 /2017, p.239
[7] Written “...I knew that even an amateur could make molding frames and pour concrete. But its interestingness and pleasure cannot be compared with brickwork.” Image from Ishiyama Osamu, A self-build world_make your own home and town, Chikuma Shobo, 04 /2017, p.238

Architecture that mirrors history and reality

Hiroshima House’s architectural construction system is based on the simple core structure infilled by the non-structural facade, interior partition wall. Because of its convenience and simplicity, Le Corbusier’s Dom-Ino system [8] is broadly adapted in residential houses like flat-houses across Southeast Asia without the exception of Cambodia. Hiroshima House’s core reinforced concrete structure (column, slab, and roof) [9] was analyzed by Umezawa Structural Engineering laboratory and constructed by the local Som Corporation’s construction company. The incline columns branch out, reaching the double butterfly-shaped roofs inside the rigid outer column grid floor plan, creating a sensation of tamed trees inside an architectural box. Meanwhile, the non-structural elements (exterior and interior walls, railing, flooring) were gradually filled from July 2000 to their full completion in November 2006 by the participating volunteers from Japan, Germany, China, and some local people[10].

[8] Dom-Ino System by Le Corbusier. Image from Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret, OEuvre Complète 1, 1910–1929, Les Editions d’Architecture Artemis, Zürich, 1964
[9] Skelton Reinforced concrete Structure sharing the same principle to the Dom-Ino System
Image from Ishiyama Osamu, A self-build world_make your own home and town, Chikuma Shobo, 04 /2017, p.234-235
[10] Brick stacking tour events when volunteers were filling out bricks between the structure, crystalizing the interior space.
Image from Ishiyama Osamu, A self-build world_make your own home and town, Chikuma Shobo, 04 /2017, p.236-237

The exterior wall was layered with a repeating pattern of stacked Vietnamese imported bricks and thick unreinforced concrete. The raw, unornamented facade and interior suggested a construction seemingly frozen in time, or even perhaps more significantly the many ongoing narratives as its many builders intended to tell, the parallel tragic of the past between Hiroshima and Cambodia, etc. Because of the unit’s formative nature, the dimension and scale of this architecture could be traced back by just counting the bricks vertically and horizontally. In this way, the structure of the building could be said to sculpted the physical truth by its construction technique property. 

Many elements of the building share some resemblance to traditional form and symbol. This is especially clear in how the walls of the ground floor and two floors of extended mass on the north are stacked with steep angles, as shown in the section that is reminiscent of the sectional form of the traditional Khmer temple architecture. To answer the contextual condition of the site, Ishiyama took reference from local religious belief and lifestyle to symbolized physical architecture elements, such as double butterfly roofs from buddha feet, the rainwater collecting tank from the lotus flower. We could also find some deliberate placement of ornament like Isosceles triangle(Tympanum or Hor-Jeang) on the northern mass. He mentioned this in an interview with Jutaku Kenchiku Magazine, “Because we are building in the sacred site of the Buddhist temple, so we want to assure Cambodian Buddhism architecture in here.“4  

In the original design of the building, the center well-hole opens to the top, purposely designed to allow light and cross ventilation. The double butterfly, however, after completion, this uncapped and large opening had proved to pose many climatic-related issues as well as roofscape conflict to the adjacent religious complex. During the inauguration ceremony, the chief monk of Wat Ounalom requested a traditional roof to cover the original butterfly roofs. Despite seeming disappointment among his lab members, Ishiyama welcomed the interventional request, “Why not? Design the roof, too, as the chief monk requested“4 [11]. Watanabe Taishi, assistant professor at the Waseda University and a planner of the project, mentioned, “Construction of Hiroshima House took more than a decade. Consequently, there was a time lag in the designer himself. In that duration of the planning, many people were involved. In the end, it is our obligation to express everything that was there. That is our historical responsibility to Hiroshima House.“4   

[11] In 2007, Roofscape conflict was resolved by the placement of a multi-layer traditional roof on top of the original double butterfly roof immediately after the inauguration ceremony in 2006

Hiroshima House is always valiantly showing what is visible as everything there was, almost like a mirror that reflects the history and a conditional set of the architectural culture of the current past. Hiroshima House is an architecture that bravely embodies the stories of the people who envisioned, built, and utilized it. Ishiyama remarked, “Architecture is not everlasting, but for some moments in history, it could function as a resting place for memories of the people.“7 

*Plans are redrawn from GA Japan magazine no.84(1-2/2007)

An Urgent need for creative adaptation

Nowadays, Hiroshima House is mainly used as a primary school for kids who cannot afford public school. Unfortunately, many functions and spaces could not be realized like the architects, and many of its builders envisioned. From observation, this is primarily due to the posing climatic problem of the design and unmatched planning with local people’s lifestyle. Thanks to its unique site context,  situated on the sacred land of the Buddha, Hiroshima House is protected from the potential market-driven destruction like other unfortunate modern architectures in Phnom Penh. However, a lack of maintenance and creative adaptation of the space to new functions could pose a severe threat to its existing future.

Ishiyama Osamu_Architect who builds for the outsider

Ishiyama Osamu (石山 修武) was born in 1944 in the southern part of Japan. After graduating from Waseda University Graduate school in 1968, he started his own design office. Ishiyama is well-known for his bold philosophical approach to architecture. Along with some of his fellow post-modernists, he searches for meanings of architecture practice not as a design to consume, the norm of consumerism and mass production of the modern society, but as a process to reflect life. Some of his remarkable works are House for a pioneer, Setagaya Village, House for a homosexual couple, etc.   

Hiroshima House Specs

Architecture area: 534 m2
Total floor area: 1526.3 m2
Height of each floor : 1F/3.9-4.0m, 2F/3.6-3.75m, 3F/5.0-5.12m, 7.6-7.82m
Top height: 23.2m
Design Duration: 03/1996 – 10/2006
Construction Duration: 11/1996 – 11/2006
Structure System: Reinforced concrete with brick masonry
Foundation: Strip Footings
Architecture Planning and MEP: Ishiyama Lab (Ishiyama Osamu, Watanabe Taishi, etc)
Structural Design: Umezawa Structural Engineering, lab
Construction Management: Som Corporation

References

  • 1. Ishiyama Osamu, Futagawa Yoshio, “ひろしまハウス in カンボジア (Hiroshima House in Cambodia)”, GA JAPAN no 47, 11-12 /2000
  • 2. Ishiyama Osamu, “素材ノート, 連載第１回：まずカンボジアから（Serial note on Material 01: Starting from Cambodia)”, GA Special Feature Sozai Kukan 01, 12/2000
  • 3. Ishiyama Osamu, Futagawa Yukio, “悲劇なリアルな記憶を継承するひろしまハウス（Hiroshima House inherits tragic and realistic memories)”, GA JAPAN no 84, 1-2 /2007
  • 4. Ishiyama Osamu, “共に自己表現する建築たち (Self-Expressing Architecture)” ,  Jutaku Kenchiku no 398, 06/2008
  • 5. Watanabe Taishi, “「人間と建築」の歴史について考える＿ひろしまハウスの現場を通して(Reflecting on the history of 「Human and Architecture」through Hiroshima House’s construction site ” , Jutaku Kenchiku no 398, 06/2008
  • 11. Kunichika Keiko, “語り残す―戦争の記憶― カンボジアの復興支える国近京子さん (Leave a story-memory of the war, Kokuchika Keiko, who supports the reconstruction of Cambodia) ”, Kyodo News, July 2015
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyP-DXGQ5Ag

article by Chhiv Exthai