FRENCH COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE ( 1893-1953)
In contrast to the situation in neighbouring Viet Nam and Cambodia, the French colonial government in Laos had little money for infrastructural development and was therefore unable to fund the construction of large French-style buildings on the same scale that it did in Hà N?i, Sài Gòn and to a lesser extent Phnom Penh. However, French colonial architecture still made a modest impact in most major towns and cities.
Prior to the arrival of the French, Vientiane comprised ramshackle collections of mainly wooden or bamboo stilted houses with thatched roofs, grouped around the overgrown ruins of former temples and palaces. The first major French building to be constructed in the city was the Résidence superior (1900), strategically sited within the former royal palace compound.
This was followed by the nearby headquarters of the service of public works (1907, now the Embassy of France in Laos), the staff of which subsequently set to work on a Plan d'alignement to straighten the existing roads in the capital and make them run perpendicular or parallel to the Mekong River. As part of this plan a new main road called l'avenue de France (now Thanon Lane Xang) was opened up, leading out of the city in a north easterly direction parallel to the ancient Thanon Nongbone. By around 1920 a sewage system and a basic electricity grid were in place.
During the last 30 years of French rule a number of larger-scale construction projects were implemented, including the Bureau de la résidence (1915, now the offices of the Ministry of Information and Culture), the Lycée Auguste Pavie (1920, now part of the School of Medicine), the Hôtel du commissariat (1925, now the Lao National Museum) and the Eglise de sacré-coeur (1930).
The colonial government buildings were also constructed throughout this period in other urban centres such as Luang Prabang, Thakhek, Savannakhet and Pakse.
In addition to government buildings, the French also built two-storey brick and stucco villas with pitched tile roofs and wooden shuttered windows in every major centre of population to accommodate the colonial administrators and their families. However, as elsewhere in the Indochinese colonies, provincial French design was modified to suit the hot and humid tropical climate through the addition of balconies, verandahs and internal corridors. Construction was entrusted mainly to migrant Vietnamese labourers, who also built their own two-storey shophouses in designated areas.
The design of the colonial villa in turn began to influence subtle changes in the design of Lao urban dwellings. From the 1930s onwards, in major centres of population, the traditional Lao twin gabled wooden stilted house increasingly gave way to inventive architectural hybrids such as European-style villas on stilts, or stilted wooden houses with their lower levels enclosed by masonry walls. Many excellent examples may still be seen today throughout the country, and particularly in Luang Prabang. Perhaps the most memorable piece of colonial-era architecture in Luang Prabang is the Royal Palace, built by the French for King Sisavangvong between 1904 and 1909 to replace the former royal palace, which had been burned down in 1887 by a joint Tai Khao-Chinese Black Flag force under Sip Song Chu Tai leader Kham Hum The building was intended to cement Franco-Lao relations and thus features a blend of French and Lao architectural styles. The roof is of traditional Lao design, topped at its centre by a gilded spire. Above the main entrance, approached via a flight of Italian marble steps, is the royal three-headed elephant crest, which symbolises the three kingdoms of Laos; French fleur de lys emblems adorn the pillars on either side. The interior decor also features an intriguing mix of European and Asian design elements.
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