Wisdom Quarterly; Alex Palmer National Geographic (natgeo.com, Nov. 12, 2014
Rangoon, Burma's former capital, with golden stupa in the distance (Chien-Chi Chang). |
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The Race to Save Burma's Architecture
As the nation opens up, preservationists are rushing to document and retain cultural icons from old (Colonial British-era) Rangoon, Burma, renamed by the dictatorship Yangon, Myanmar, which also relocated the capital to mysterious Nay Pyi Daw.
RANGOON, Burma - When Barack Obama visits Myanmar for a security conference today, he is unlikely to notice the vacant lot at 233-235 Upper Pansodan Street,
in the heart of Yangon's chaotic downtown. But to the residents of Burma's largest city, the fate of the gracious structure that once
stood there is emblematic of the nation's recent burst of "progress."
Construction site becomes playground. |
Then in 2013, three years into Burma's unprecedented political and economic opening up, the building succumbed to a force that proved too great to resist: development. (See "Myanmar's Tourism Boom Endangers Fragile Ecosystems").
Construction workers took sledgehammers to it, until all
that remained was a gaping hole in the downtown streetscape. Makeshift
wooden scaffolding on the site portends the future: a bland 12-story
condominium. More
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