A Window To The Past

The push and pull between modernisation and conservation is familiar to many centres in Southeast Asia. As cities around the region continue to develop, how can they successfully integrate these often-clashing demands?

- Fiona Macgregor

In the centre of Yangon, Shwedagon Pagoda stands as a gleaming symbol of Myanmar’s ancient heritage. So important is this holy structure that local building legislations ensure no high rises can be constructed within its environs for fear that its luminescent presence will be obstructed.

But in recent months, an equally eye-catching, if more prosaic, element has been noticeable in the thoroughfares that pass the historic stupa. Dozens of banana-hued new buses are lined up waiting to play their part in a badly-needed public transport upgrade: a sign of modernity set against Shwedagon’s stately gilt.

While interest in the conservation of built heritage is growing in Southeast Asia, few of the region’s main urban centres can claim to have achieved a wholly successful balance between the often-clashing demands of moulding a modern city while integrating architectural traditions.

And in no city in the region is this push and pull more delicately poised than in Yangon. Often cited as one of the last bastions of “Old Asia”, the city is known for its rambunctious markets, ornate temples and grand colonial architecture. As the biggest city in Myanmar and its commercial hub, however, it is also ripe for development, while its creaking infrastructure is in dire need of modernisation.

The question is how successfully the city can be shaped in the face of so many competing factors, and how planners can take on-board lessons from other regional hubs.

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears,” says Luca Bonifacio an architect and visiting professor at Yangon Technical University, quoting the Italian journalist and author Italo Colvino. “But what marks the development of modern cities is sanitation and transport.”