Kitsch | Kcamp | Khmer
Atmosphere and Agency
Supervisor - Mr. Erik L'Heureux
This thesis is about exploring the systems of architectural production and its role in the ongoing cultural production in equatorial cities during its post-independence. It explores the relationship between kitsch, camp, and fakes as processes in architectural design. The architectural consequence the thesis includes a built architectural project or a physical urban intervention that utilizes camp-kitsch-aesthetics as a relevant cultural agency within the contemporary architectural means of production. In this case, it is a tower situated in diamond island (Koh Pich Island). A copy, a critique or a mere monument? On one hand, the tower seeks to extend that exaggeration of form and motifs and on the other hand, it takes itself less seriously due to this exaggeration. As such the doubleness allows for the critique of Vann Molyvann legacy as well as the current state of capitalistic development in Cambodia.
Photographs courtesy of Ong Chan Hao