Townships

This simple, elegant school building lies in a sorry state today, although the Singaporean government plans to renovate it. Its history is not well known but tells of a time when, despite all its post-independence problems, Burma’s future looked bright. Technical education for the young generations was a top priority of the new government and, thanks to extraordinary investments at the time, this high school became the country’s pride and joy and the top vocational institution in Southeast Asia.

The school is a large, low-rise complex, with the main building standing just off Natmauk Road. The British architect, Raglan Squire, does not say much about it in his autobiography—perhaps because he thought the school paled in comparison to his Engineering College, today’s University of Medicine-1. Interestingly, the most detailed description of the project is found in Soviet publications of the time, perhaps because the American “class enemy” was involved in plans for the school. (The Soviet Union would eventually send some of their best designers to Yangon to build the Inya Lake Hotel and the Institute of Technology.)

The semi-circular roof elements and curved entrance canopy lend the street-facing main building an almost playful appearance. It contained the main assembly hall, designed for 600 people. Its parquet floor was made from local teak wood. For ventilation purposes, the windows were covered with louvres instead of glass. Other windows in the complex were simply covered with metal mesh. This simple design was perfectly suited to the climate. And to ensure that such openness would not lead to excessive noise pollution, the ceilings in classrooms and workshops were fitted with acoustic plates. Most inside walls were painted with distemper paint, only a few with oil-based paints. Some concrete surfaces were not painted at all.

The rest of the complex adheres to a simpler and more sober form. The two wings containing the classrooms are raised on stilts, with car parks and a common area right beneath the western wing. Like the loggia-like corridors on the first floor, this was a way to accommodate the strong heat and regular torrential rainfalls during the monsoon. The fourth wing, completing the structure towards the north, housed vocational workshops, remnants of which are still visible. Further north were the hostels for boarders. Behind those, further north still, are two tall interconnected eight-storey tower blocks, seemingly housing boarding students as well. They are unusually high for Yangon’s architecture of this period. The whole school complex was mostly built using reinforced concrete.

Be sure to admire the several large mosaic murals within the main compound, if you are able to enter. They portray idyllic and optimistic displays of traditional life in an independent Myanmar. Besides Squire’s Engineering College (where, according to his autobiography, the murals were created at his behest), similar artwork also adorns the Government Technical Institute in Insein, the Institute of Technology and the University of Education. As most of the Technical High School lay abandoned at the time of writing, it is a small miracle that these important 1950s artworks remain in such good shape. Some of the artists involved in this initiative—Kyi Winn, U Khin Maung, U Nann Waii, Bagyi Aung So and U Thein Han—are among Myanmar’s most celebrated artists of the 20th century.

The Technical High School opened in July 1956. It was built with Burmese government funds and cost 2.5 million US dollars (or more than 20 million US dollars in today’s money). The Ford Foundation paid for instructors from Dunwoody, a Minnesota vocational college, to help develop a curriculum. About 600 students, half of them boarders, combined artisanal vocational training with high school diploma programmes.

The school was resolutely state of the art. The Ford archives reveal that the decision to support the school was the matter of some debate: could a project so ambitious, catering to a relatively small number of students, be replicated on a national scale? The Foundation’s final report on the project tries to acquit itself thus:

“It was undoubtedly an extravagant undertaking—many Burmese admitted as much, and none expected that it would be duplicated on such a scale elsewhere in Burma. But the school was designed to enhance the reputation of technical education in Burma [… and] viewed in that light, the decision to commit such relatively great resources to a single school may not have been so unwise.”

Later the high school was used as a branch of the Radiation Protection Department, an organisation under the Department of Atomic Energy.

The Singaporean government has committed funds to renovate the school and return it to its original use as a vocational training centre. A tender was issued in late 2014. If successful, this project could help create awareness of post-independence architecture in discussions of the city’s built heritage—a subject usually monopolised by the city’s colonial buildings. And perhaps soon, the school may again produce very successful graduates. As Myanmar’s economy roars ahead, skilled technicians and engineers may become in high demand.

Off a short, sloping driveway stands this stately villa from the early 1920s. Judging by its overall appearance, the building was probably commissioned by a European—what we do know for certain is that a wealthy Chinese businessman, Chan Chaw Paing, acquired it shortly after its completion and added a number of Chinese characteristics. Chan Chaw Paing’s wife was none other than Lim Chin Tsong’s daughter. (Read more about the larger-than-life tycoon in the section about the Lim Chin Tsong Palace.) The villa was largely built from stone and steel and is hence in decent structural condition today. Goethe-Institut, the international German cultural organisation, has leased the property as a base for its growing activities in Myanmar. A full-scale renovation is planned, which will see the building restored to its former glory while becoming a multi-functional cultural space. It will also host a courtyard restaurant.

The residence is set back from the street, at a good distance from the noisy thoroughfare. The exclusive feel of the villa is accentuated by the large porte-cochère in front of the main entrance. Inside the building, one finds details revealing the second owners’ roots. There are Chinese characters on the entrance’s half-round transom. The teak room dividers are also clearly Chinese. Above the porte-cochère, a generous balcony overlooks the leafy yard and beyond the tall palm trees, the tip of the Shwedagon Pagoda comes into view. On the second floor, a light well provides natural lighting to the spacious hallway connecting all rooms.

The villa is a typical example of a wealthy residence built in this period. Colonial Rangoon was booming in the 1920s, leading to a lot of construction activity. Not much is known of its owners’ later life. It can only be speculated that Chan Chaw Paing and his wife left Yangon with the onset of the war, before or during the Japanese invasion in early 1942. This was the case of many other ethnic Chinese residents who often crossed the land border into Yunnan province. Thousands decided to return to Burma after the war. They rebuilt their communities in Chinatown, where about a quarter of the housing stock was destroyed during war-time bombing. Many, however, did not come back. Perhaps they were lost in the vagaries of war, or found their fortunes elsewhere.

The real historical significance of the Villa Goethe stems from its use at the end of the war and the immediate post-war period. General Aung San and the Thakins, or nationalist Burmese leaders, chose this building as the headquarters of their Anti-Fascist Organisation (AFO). The AFO was renamed the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) after the war. It became the main political party working for Burmese independence. Under the leadership of General Aung San, it united the various factions into which Burma’s independence fighters had by then split. It is said that General Aung San even lived in the building for some time, in the annex at rear of the building. After his assassination, followed by independence, the AFPFL became the young country’s main political party. Its leader U Nu was the country’s prime minister for much of the immediate post-independence period. The group’s headquarters were here, on what was then Churchill Road (now Kaba Aye Pagoda Road and its southern prolongation called Komin Kochin Road). The place remained a centre of Burmese political life until the liquidation of the AFPFL under General Ne Win in 1962.

Around 1968, the building became the State School of Fine Arts and served as such until 2003. From that point, the former AFPFL headquarters was used for occasional art exhibitions organised by the Ministry of Culture. But the building gradually fell into disrepair and Cyclone Nargis in 2007 caused further damage. Thanks to some basic repairs led by the Myanmar Artists and Artisans Organisation, art continued to be shown here.

The Goethe-Institut was offered the property by the Ministry of Culture during negotiations on a cultural agreement between Myanmar and Germany. The house’s historic aura, inviting location and beautiful grounds seduced the Institut immediately. The lease agreement was approved by President Thein Sein’s cabinet in early 2015.

The building was inaugurated by German President Joachim Gauck during a state visit in February 2014. The Goethe-Institut in Yangon offers German language classes at all levels and facilitates cultural exchanges between Germany, Myanmar and the world. With this new venue in the old villa, the institute also aims to provide young Burmese artists with a space for innovative forms of expression and creative experiments. It also offers training programmes and support for young people in the fields of music and film, as well as workshops about the use of media in education.

This book was made possible thanks in part to the Goethe-Institut’s generous support.

The Bogyoke Aung San Residence is a beautiful teak villa dating back to the early 1920s. Today it is a museum commemorating the father of Burmese independence. It is well preserved and a fine example of the houses built by the wealthy in what was then a suburb of Yangon, east of Shwedagon Pagoda. Down the street from the German Embassy, a covered outside stairway leads to the two-storey house, protecting visitors from the torrential monsoon rains that inundate the city for part of the year. The villa features a wide veranda on its front and an elaborate turret on the side, facing the entrance. Upon entering the museum, the visitor arrives in the dining room, adjoined by the reception and living rooms. The bedrooms and library are on the second floor, as is a small Buddhist altar room. The museum displays family memorabilia and photos from Aung San’s short but tumultuous life.

Aung San was born in 1915 in Natmauk, in central Myanmar. He left for Rangoon to study English Literature and History at the University of Rangoon and quickly became a prominent student leader. In 1938, he quit his studies to join the Thakin, a Burmese nationalist group founded in the early 1930s.

The following nine years of his life are a remarkable tale of cunning, courage and vision. He visited the Indian National Congress Assembly in Rangarh in 1940, where a protest against India’s forced participation in the Second World War galvanised India’s independence movement. While travelling in China in 1940 to seek assistance from Chinese communists, he was picked up (some say, apprehended) by the Japanese authorities and sent to Tokyo. Japan wanted to bankroll the Burmese nationalist movement and rout Britain out of the country, offering military support and assurances of independence. Aung San accepted. Between 1940 and 1941, Aung San and his now legendary “Thirty Comrades” received Japanese training and assistance in Hainan, China. With Japan’s support, they became the Burma National Army, fighting alongside Japanese forces and growing in numbers as they invaded their own country from Thailand. In 1943–44, as the Japanese occupation strained under British counter-incursions, Aung San grew disillusioned with Japan’s military ability, distrustful of their promises and unhappy with their treatment of Burmese forces. In 1944, he turned his back on Japan and threw his lot in with the Allied forces. Aung San’s finest hour was perhaps his visit to London in January 1947, when he negotiated the terms for Burmese independence with British Prime Minister Clement Attlee. But Aung San was never to reap the fruits of his hard work. On 19 July 1947, while he was sitting in the Secretariat with his provisional cabinet and no doubt running over preparations for Burma’s official independence in January 1948, gunmen barged into the room and mowed everyone down with sub-machine guns. The entire cabinet was killed.

The residence became a museum in 1962, the same year the first Martyrs’ Mausoleum, later bombed, was inaugurated. Military dictator Ne Win, who was one of the “Thirty Comrades” himself, wanted the national narrative to place more emphasis on Aung San’s companions, including his own role. Following the pro-democracy protests co-led by Aung San’s daughter, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 1988, the military junta decided to repress “the cult” of Aung San and neglected the building for years.

After a major five-year renovation that saw walls strengthened and roofs and stairs repaired, it reopened to the public in 2012. Visitors can again walk freely inside the villa. The grounds feature a statue of Aung San doing gardening work. The small pond is where Aung San Suu Kyi’s older brother drowned in 1953. This tragedy prompted the now-twice bereaved family to move to the famous house on University Avenue. This is where “the Lady” lives, and spent much of her life under house arrest.