Drop by
Opening of The Absence of Architecture exhibition, part of the In Transition event at the Meta House (6 street 264, Phnom Penh) tonight at 6pm.
Here is the accompanying text:
“The Absence of Architecture
In 1962, 10.3 percent of the population was living in the cities in Cambodia. In 2008 it is 15.7 percent. There is no reason it’ll stop increasing: land evictions and rural migration, symptoms of a fast developing country, are continuing unabated. This trend, combined with a steady economical growth and political stabilty over the last decade, sent the long underevaluated real estate prices soaring, triggering a scramble amongst experienced or overnight speculators. Hundreds of hectares of ricefields in Phnom Penh’s suburbs were sold, often several times in the same month. Farmers bought a new motorbike and lost their land, their livelihood.
The result is emptyness: empty lots of land surrounded by hastily erected walls symbolizing greed and fast money. They are short term visions. They are shallow dreams. There is no creativity except the creation of material wealth. Urbanistic and architectural concepts are minimal: straight lines, an occasional curve, some flowers on a roundabout. They are the expression of a market based economy at its best, where individual well-being largely supersedes over common interest. They are areas of unsophisticated power.”
