Burmese Teak Farmhouses: Inside Efforts to Preserve a Centuries-Long Building Tradition
Rural teak farmhouse in Kywe Chin Village, north of Nay Pyi Taw, 2017. Photo by Timothy James Webster.
date & time
Location
World Monuments Fund's work at Traditional Burmese Teak Farmhouses has been made possible, in part, by support from Tianaderrah Foundation / Nellie and Robert Gipson and The Endangered Wooden Architecture Programme (EWAP), Oxford Brookes University, funded by Arcadia, a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge.
An inside look at ongoing work to document Myanmar’s rapidly disappearing vernacular wooden architecture.
Constructed out of teak wood, with bamboo walls and thatched roofs, elevated farmhouse buildings embody one of Myanmar’s unique vernacular building traditions.
However, in recent years, the combination of modern building materials, the rising price of teak, and recent political turmoil have caused teak farmhouses to disappear at rapid rates. Limited research has been done on the mechanisms driving them, and little documentation of the disappearing farmhouses exists.
Join us for an inside look into ongoing efforts to fill this gap by documenting Burmese teak farmhouses’ architectural typology, symbolism, and usage. World Monuments Fund Regional Director Jeff Allen, Project Manager Waraporn Suwatchotikul, and architect U Aung Soe Myint will explore how documentation can help us consider the cultural values of this vernacular building tradition in a new light.
Watch Network members were invited to join a special Q&A session with our speakers following the webinar. For more information, please contact watchnetwork@wmf.org.
About On My Watch
Launched in 2020, On My Watch is a series of conversations inviting architects, urban planners, preservationists, local stakeholders, and WMF project managers to explore the political, cultural, and technical issues around the preservation of at-risk cultural heritage sites on the World Monuments Watch around the world.
Learn more and explore past events.
Burmese Teak Farmhouses: Inside Efforts to Preserve a Centuries-Long Building Tradition
Rural teak farmhouse in Kywe Chin Village, north of Nay Pyi Taw, 2017. Photo by Timothy James Webster.
date & time
Location
World Monuments Fund's work at Traditional Burmese Teak Farmhouses has been made possible, in part, by support from Tianaderrah Foundation / Nellie and Robert Gipson and The Endangered Wooden Architecture Programme (EWAP), Oxford Brookes University, funded by Arcadia, a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge.
An inside look at ongoing work to document Myanmar’s rapidly disappearing vernacular wooden architecture.
Constructed out of teak wood, with bamboo walls and thatched roofs, elevated farmhouse buildings embody one of Myanmar’s unique vernacular building traditions.
However, in recent years, the combination of modern building materials, the rising price of teak, and recent political turmoil have caused teak farmhouses to disappear at rapid rates. Limited research has been done on the mechanisms driving them, and little documentation of the disappearing farmhouses exists.
Join us for an inside look into ongoing efforts to fill this gap by documenting Burmese teak farmhouses’ architectural typology, symbolism, and usage. World Monuments Fund Regional Director Jeff Allen, Project Manager Waraporn Suwatchotikul, and architect U Aung Soe Myint will explore how documentation can help us consider the cultural values of this vernacular building tradition in a new light.
Watch Network members were invited to join a special Q&A session with our speakers following the webinar. For more information, please contact watchnetwork@wmf.org.
About On My Watch
Launched in 2020, On My Watch is a series of conversations inviting architects, urban planners, preservationists, local stakeholders, and WMF project managers to explore the political, cultural, and technical issues around the preservation of at-risk cultural heritage sites on the World Monuments Watch around the world.
Learn more and explore past events.
Waraporn (UANG) Suwatchotikul
Architect and Southeast Asian Architecture Historian
Waraporn Suwatchotikul is an architect and Southeast Asian architecture historian. She holds a B.A. in architecture and an M.A. in History of Southeast Asia architecture from Silpakorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. She joined WMF in 2017 as an architect and project manager at the Wat Chaiwatthanaram Conservation Project, and in 2023 also became field project manager at the Burmese Teak Farmhouse Documentation Project. She is a “Heritage Partner” member of The Siamese Heritage Trust (SHT), The Siam Society Under Royal Patronage, the organization active in conserving heritage in Thailand and the region.
U Aung Soe Myint
Architect
U Aung Soe Myint is a Yangon-based architect with over 25 years of experience in architectural design and project supervision, devoting his life to learning, researching and practicing architecture. Much of his professional experience is concerned with eco-architecture and considerations for recycling building materials and incorporating found objects into his creations. He loves painting and sketching, taking photographs, creating new designs and collecting artworks and Burmese memorabilia. Some of his previous private practice projects inspired World Monuments Fund to pursue the Burmese Teak Farmhouse Documentation Project.
Jeff Allen
Regional Director, Southeast Asia
Jeff Allen is a heritage project planner who joined World Monuments Fund as a consultant on the Future of Babylon Project in 2009 and a staff member in 2013. He specializes in managing field projects that contain community components, especially those aimed at building the capacity of local heritage professionals to encourage project sustainability. He carries a project portfolio mainly partnering World Monuments Fund with U.S. State Department Ambassadors Fund for Culture Preservation assistance. Prior to his experiences with World Monuments Fund, he worked in the field for 15 years on several long-term projects in the Middle East and Asia.
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Traditional Burmese Teak Farmhouses
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