lines on paper: 16 Mar 2023 Thursday Hiroshima House

The breeze-block framed entrance of the Hiroshima House

2019. Kok Ming and I turned down a side street from the Foreign Correspondent's Club in search for a late lunch, when we came upon the brick facade of the Hiroshima House. There was no one about, the place looked deserted but curiosity got the better of us. We set our lunch plans aside to quench our appetite for interesting spaces, which this place was bound to have.

The open doorway led into a large atrium space 3-storeys high, we could see that it was capped with a concrete butterfly roof. The interiors were dominated by the bare concrete structure that supported the corridors surrounding the atrium, and the bare brickwork of the internal walls. From the second floor a long flight of stairs cut across the atrium to reach the roof deck.

As we wandered further in, we heard the sounds of children reading; a class was being held in English, and Khmer. A teacher came out and wondered if we needed help, we asked if she could tell us more about the building and what the children were studying. She did not tell us much about the building, and seemed more interested to tell us about the volunteer work that she and her team were doing with the local street children. They have been conducting English classes to about 20 to 30 local kids; classes are free of charge and the children are given a mid morning meal each time they attended class.

She asked if Kok Ming and I would like to come and speak to the class about our hometowns the next day. Dutifully we agreed and showed up the next day to chat to the class about MRTs and orang utans, universities and Universal Studio, but mostly to answer questions about our daily lives and routines. Their ages range from 8 to 14 years old, curious, 'bright-eyed and bushy-tailed' and not shy to pose questions for these two old men to decipher and answer the best we could.

The angled concrete columns around the central atrium, someone wondered if the architect was tracing the lines of falling bombs.

History of the building

The idea behind this building started in 1994, during the Asian Games in Hiroshima - atomic bomb survivor Keiko Kunichika was inspired by a Cambodian athlete's desire to see his country as Hiroshima had after the Second World War. The Association for the Exchange between Hiroshima Citizens and Cambodians was founded.

Japanese architect Osamu Ishiyama designed the building, which was named after the houses built in Hiroshima by American peace activist, Dr. Floyd Schmoe. The building in Phnom Penh was built by volunteers from Japan began building 'brick by brick' from 1995 until its opening in 2007. The original concrete roof was later capped with a traditional (and architecturally ungainly) Cambodian roof requested by the chief monk of Wat Ounalom, a temple complex where the Hiroshima House sits.

Many of its original functions such as an orphanage, woodworking studio and accommodation could not be realised as the architect and builders envisioned. This is likely due to a mismatch in the original planning with local lifestyle, and building features with local climate. Currently, a lack of maintenance and creative adaption of the spaces to new functions pose the greatest threat to the building's future. Fortunately, it is situated within a temple complex and (at the moment) protected from market forces.

The columns telescope upwards to support a concrete butterfly roof over an open air-well

Classes are free of charge and the children are given a mid morning meal each time they attended class.

Despite the harshness of the materials, the interior is cool and breezy. The children play football in the central courtyard, their shouts echoing up to the roof deck.