The Phnom Penh Post
CITY authorities have warned that residents of the iconic Bassac apartment block in Chamkarmon district could be forced to vacate the building if it is deemed "unsafe" by municipal housing experts.
In a letter dated last Thursday, Governor Kep Chuktema described the 1960s-era apartment complex as "ruined" and said residents might be forced to relocate.
"To avoid danger, City Hall orders all villagers who are living [in the building] to stop repairing the building or adding onto the existing building without permission from expert officials," the letter said.
Residents should also "prepare to leave the building to find a new place to live" once experts made a final announcement about the state of the structure, it said. It did not say when such a decision was expected.
The grime-streaked apartment block, designed in the early 1960s by Russian architect Vladimir Boliansky and then-municipal planning director Lu Ban Hap, is one of the few remaining examples of the Khmer modernist architecture that transformed the capital during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Today, the Bassac structure – better known as The Building – is home to about 2,500 families, many of whom have lived there since moving into the abandoned edifice in the 1980s.
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