AsiaLIFE

When most people move home they leave their house where it’s standing, not so Darryl Collins, co-author of ‘Building Cambodia: ‘New Khmer Architecture’ 1953 to 1970’. When he moved from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap he took his newly acquired wooden house with him – piece by piece. Then he reassembled it. Words by Johan Smits and photos by Thomas Angus.

A Cambodian couple recently made the headlines when they sawed their house in two because of a divorce dispute. But Darryl Collins wasn’t divorcing when, in 2006, he had an entire house moved from a small island off Kampong Cham to the outskirts of Siem Reap.The house in question, a Cambodian wooden home, was in danger of being torn down by its then-owners.“I wanted to preserve this fine example of traditional domestic architecture,” says Darryl, an Australian art historian and admirer of Khmer architecture.

Finding the Right House

When his architect friend Hok Sokol, one of his co-authors on ‘Building Cambodia: ‘New Khmer Architecture’ 1953 to 1970’, first came across the house in 2003, there was no talk of tearing it down. But a few years later, when it became too difficult for the head of the family who lived there to negotiate the stairs, Sokol was offered the house.“It’s a Chinese-Khmer house and that family had been living in it for three generations,” Darryl explains. “They were a family of timber merchants so they were able to select good wood when they built it – five different kinds of it. It has lasted extremely well.”

At the time Sokol knew that his friend Darryl was looking to move, and when Darryl went to look at the house in Kompong Cham, it was love at first sight.It’s easy to see why. Darryl’s new home measures 17 metres in length and 9 metres across, and some of its 24 wooden columns rise more than nine metres into the sky. Not that this labour of love was easy. It took Darryl and Sokol about 11 months to have the house dismantled, transported and rebuilt in Siem Reap. “Sokol drew plans of the house on his computer. All the columns and cross-beams got lettered and numbered, like a giant jigsaw,” Darryl explains.

The Removal Men

As the house was located on an island, the two friends had to wait for the rainy season before they could pull it down piece by piece and carry everything onto small boats that would bring their load through canals to the edge of the island. “It was an enormous effort,” Darryl recalls, “but the carpenters did a terrific job.” From there the load was transferred onto two larger ferries, then onto a big truck and finally onto hand-carts in order to reach its destination – a plot of land overlooking a small canal in Siem Reap. The same team of carpenters who dismantled the house reconstructed it again within a month.

“Some things we had to change,” Darryl explains. “The kitchen was in too bad a condition to be saved.” But only some small alterations have been made to make the house suitable for modern living. It hasn’t lost anything of its former majestic grandeur. A large wooden panel separates the main space from the study, bedroom and mezzanine. It is decorated with elaborate hand-carvings, as are the outside window shutters and doors. Darryl’s own interior decoration only adds more elegance to the already magnificent structure of his new dwelling.

Two splendid works by Khmer painter Leang Seckon dominate one side of the main panel, while books fill several wooden bookcases that are thoughtfully placed in the different spaces. The entire house with its dark, oiled wood exudes atmosphere. It makes you wonder why we live in brick and mortar houses.“The entire palace in Phnom Penh was made of wood, until the French period when bricks, concrete and cement came into play,” Darryl says. “The idea of more permanent structures for the capital city came in the nineteenth century. Since then elements of wooden architecture have been slowly disappearing.” But according to Darryl there are still fine examples of wooden houses in the countryside. The question is to find them.

The Final Verdict

So how has Darryl’s living experience been since he made his move? “Many people said that I was going to find it difficult to live in this house because of the slated floor,” he says. “The gaps would let in all sorts of bugs and mosquitoes. I have been in Cambodia for fourteen years and am used to a fair bit, but still, I also thought it would be a problem.” Moreover, apart from the bedroom, the house is without air-conditioning. However, in reality, Darryl says that his experience has been wonderful. “I haven’t encountered any problems with mosquitoes because of the airflow through the house,” he says. “They fly out as fast as they fly in. It’s perfectly suited to tropical living.”

What do his neighbours think of the strange newcomer who beamed up the wooden country house next-door? “Their reaction was surprisingly quiet,” Darryl says. “But they both have wooden houses, so in the end it must not be that unusual for them.”