Architectural Conservation Working Paper Series No. 01
January 2020
CHALLENGES OF CHALLENGES OF TEAK ARCHITECTURE TEAK ARCHITECTURE CONSERVATION IN CONSERVATION IN MYANMARMYANMAR
RUDY R. CHRISTIAN
The Architectural Conservation Lab (ACL) is a research group at the Architecture and Sustainable Design pillar of the Singapore University of Technology and Design. The Lab focuses on cross-disciplinary collaboration related to the conservation of significant buildings, monuments and sites. The Lab develops new techniques to investigate the documentation and conservation of physical form and fabric of the built environment as well as develop creative design and policy solutions for contemporary conservation challenges.
© Copyright is held by the author or authors of each Working Paper.
Architectural Conservation Working Paper Series cannot be republished, reprinted, or reproduced in any format without the permission of the paper’s author or authors.
Papers in this series are preliminary in nature and are intended to stimulate discussion and critical comment. The Editor accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed, which rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be produced in any form without permission. Comments are welcomed and may be sent to the author(s).
Citations of this electronic publication should be made in the following manner: Christian, Rudy, “Challenges of Teak Architecture Conservation in Myanmar,” Architectural Conservation Working Paper Series, No. 01, January 2020, www.asd.sutd.edu.sg
Series EditorYeo Kang Shua
8 Somapah Road, Singapore 487372www.sutd.edu.sg
BIOGRAPHY
RUDY R. CHRISTIANPresident Christian & Son, Inc
Rudy R. Christian is a founding member and past president of the Timber Framers Guild, founding member and past president of Friends of Ohio Barns, founding member and past Executive Director of the Preservation Trades Network and is a founding member of the Traditional Timberframe Research and Advisory Group and the International Trades Education Initiative. His experience includes national and international speaking engagements and instructing educational workshops as well as publication of various articles about historic conservation. An article entitled “Conservation of Historic Building Trades; A Timber Framer’s View” was published in the APT Bulletin, vol. XXXIII, No1 and his collaborative work with author Allen Noble entitled The Barn; A Symbol of Ohio has been published on the internet. In November 2000 the Preservation Trades Network awarded Rudy the Askins Achievement Award, for excellence in the field of historic preservation.
Rudy’s educational background includes the study of structural engineering at both General Motor’s Institute in Flint Michigan and Akron University in Ohio. He and his son Carson have also studied historic compound roof layout and computer modeling at the Gewerbe Akademie in Rotweil, Germany. He and his wife Laura Saeger Christian were adjunct professors at Palomar College in San Marcos, California and are approved workshop instructors for the Timber Framers Guild.
Rudy’s professional experience as President of Christian & Son, Inc. includes reconstruction of the historic “Big Barn” at Malabar Farm State Park near Mansfield, Ohio and relocation of the 19th century Crawford Horse Barn in Newark, Ohio. These projects featured “hand raisings” which were open to the public and attracted a total of 130,000 interested spectators. He also led a crew of timber framers at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival, Masters of the Building Arts program in the recreation and raising of an 18th century carriage house frame on the Mall in Washington DC. Roy Underhill’s “Woodright’s Shop” filmed the event for PBS and Roy participated in the raising. Christian & Son’s work includes working with a team of specialists to relocate Thomas Edison’s #11 laboratory building from the Henry Ford Museum to West Orange New Jersey where it was originally built, and the restoration of the Mansfield Blockhouse a hewn log structure built by the U.S. military in 1812. During the summer of 2006 Rudy, his son Carson and his wife Laura were the lead instructors and conservation specialists for the Field School at Mt. Lebanon Shaker Village during which the 1838 timber frame granary was restored. Since May 2015 Rudy & Laura have been working as consultants to the World Monuments Fund in the restoration of the Golden Palace Monastery in Mandalay, Myanmar. In the summer of 2017 they reconstructed the historic timber frame belfry at Glendale Cemetery in Akron, Ohio in collaboration with Stan Hywet Hall, and recently completed restoration of the timber frame roof system of the 1721 Jean Hasbrouck House on Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, New York. Traditional Building Magazine publishes Rudy’s blog “A Place for Trades” http://traditional-building.com/Rudy_Christian/
5
CHALLENGES OF CHALLENGES OF TEAK ARCHITECTURE TEAK ARCHITECTURE CONSERVATION IN MYANMARCONSERVATION IN MYANMAR
AbstractThe country of Myanmar [Burma] is rich with historic architecture, the vast majority of which is linked to its history of ruling kingdoms and nearly complete adherence to Buddhism. Magnificent palaces and religious structures have been built of both masonry and timber for millennia, but as would be expected, little of the wooden architecture remains. While the most notable examples include numerous wooden monasteries throughout the country, wooden bridges and farmhouses also permeate the landscape and the fact that so many remains can be attributed to the forests, rich with teak, that once covered the region.
The tropical environment, and the wood-eating insects and fungi it supports, impact wooden structures in Myanmar in ways that the masonry architecture is relatively impervious to, but the advent of 19th century colonialization followed by 20th century military conflict and the resultant military rule have contributed significantly to the deterioration of all of the architectural heritage of Myanmar. This presentation/paper addresses the history of the loss of Myanmar’s wooden architectural heritage, recent and current attempts at its conservation and the challenges that will be faced as outside interests and the populous and government of Myanmar work towards both saving the country’s extant wooden heritage and creating a conservation ethic for the future.
RUDY R. CHRISTIAN
6
IntroductionConservation of wooden structures is challenging in any natural and cultural environment, but it is more so in Myanmar, also known as Burma, for a number of significant reasons. The primarily tropical monsoon climate supports both wood-eating fungi and wood-eating insects, which can quickly destroy a wooden structure; left uncontrolled, these natural pests are responsible for the majority of loss of the wooden built environment in Myanmar This loss has largely been of minimal importance to the people of Myanmar, however, whose culture and history are based on semi-nomadic agricultural practices, often warring city-states and kingdoms, and Buddhist philosophy.
Little written history exists in Myanmar beyond the Royal Chronicles of Myanmar and the Buddhist manuscripts etched on palm scrolls stored in many of its magnificent pagodas and monasteries . The 124-year colonial period further obscured knowledge of early building practices, and the heavy-handed rule of the military that followed meant that knowledge of ancient ways of building which was once passed from one generation to the next effectively vanished. Attempts made in the recent past to conserve historic wooden buildings have largely been based on modern building methodologies rather than ancient knowledge.
During the British occupation, many reports and documents were created relating to the archeology of Burma, the name was given to Myanmar during the colonial period by the British, but these documents were primarily for internal use by the British government and its agents in India and Burma. Although a great deal of documentation was conducted on the archeology, geology, climate and extent of natural resources, little if any research went into recording the ways of building or how they were passed on from one generation to the next. The eventual realization that maintenance of Myanmar’s extraordinary built environment was critical if it was to be preserved lead to the creation of the Archeological Survey of Burma, but its focus was on the thousands of ancient masonry structures throughout the county, and little effort or expense was afforded to the nation’s historic wooden architecture.
Of major impact to the survival of the teak architecture of Myanmar were the British Empire’s harvesting and selling off much of Myanmar’s teak forests. For centuries, teak had been revered as a prime durable timber for use in building residences, religious and royal buildings during the reign of many kings and kingdoms, but when teak became a highly profitable export for foreign invaders, the loss of access to the teak trees themselves had a major impact on the trades and the magnificent buildings they created. This impact was exacerbated by the introduction of Portland cement-based masonry and its use in both masonry structures and the foundations of wooden structures rapidly accelerated their degradation.
7
HistoryEvidence has been discovered revealing homo erectus existed in Myanmar at least 750,000 years ago and homo sapiens as early as 75,000 BCE. The existence of wooden buildings also dates to quite early times. The use of wooden piles, vertical wood columns made from the trunks of trees (Fig. 1), as foundations can be traced back to Neolithic times (Fraser-Lu 2001) and the use of stone footings, dates back to the 11th century BCE. Evidence ancient stone footings which supported timber foundations can be seen today in the village of Minnanthu just outside the city walls of Old Bagan (Fig. 2). These footing stones, which set directly on the ground, are somewhat unique in that the majority of other evidence of historic stone footings locates them roughly 5 feet below the surface (Fraser-Lu 2001). The existence of channels projecting outward from the pockets cut in the stones used to locate the timber piles at the Minnanthu Village site may indicate the use of earth oil, or some other form of liquid preservative, as a way of protecting the vertical timber columns from fungal and insect deterioration.
The incredibly well constructed and highly decorated ancient stupas and pagodas extant throughout Myanmar stand testament to the existence of exceptionally skilled tradespeople having worked in Myanmar for many centuries. Although examples of wooden architecture as old as the work in masonry no longer exists, due largely to the tropical monsoon climate, the quality of the remaining structures that are two centuries old and older that do exist indicates that many generations of skills development must have occurred prior to them having been built. An argument can therefore be made that highly skilled woodworkers have existed in Myanmar for millennia.
Historically, access to quality timber was never an issue in the jungles of Myanmar. Although many less suitable trees existed throughout the forests, an abundance of teak trees grew in many areas and transport was simplified by the river systems that exist in the country. The sparse population of the early Myanmar meant forest resources were little impacted by wooden building construction. The traditional farming practice of swiddening, which the British later referred to as toungya cultivation, is a relatively nomadic form of agriculture in that a farmer would clear a small area of forest and burn the felled trees to produce ash which would then be used to enrich the soil. When the soil no longer produced good crops, the swidden would be abandoned and the process would be repeated in another area of the forest.1
1 The Forest System of British Burma. A report addressed to the Chief Commissioner of British Burma. (Reorganization of the forest system of British Burma. Minute by ... A. Eden, Chief Commissioner, etc.-Report on the conservancy and management of the forests of British Burma, etc. [By W. J. Seaton.]).
This agricultural lifestyle meant the housing requirements of farmers did not include permanent buildings and evidence indicates that early agricultural buildings were often built using bamboo and palm. Poles made of small diameter understory trees supported bamboo poles used to create the main structure which would then be roofed with palm leaves and walled in with woven palm leaf or bamboo mats. (Fig. 3) The use of bamboo and palm leaves for housing meant the trees of the forests were not dramatically impacted by housing construction. What did impact the forests, and particularly the teak trees within them, was construction of more permanent housing for merchants, royalty and the wooden palace buildings and monasteries. Although no written records exist, it can be argued these building requirements also had minimal impact on the availability of teak trees.
8
Figure 1 Massive earth fast teak wood piles form the foundation of Bagaya Monastery in Inwa (Ava)
Figure 3 Reproduction of early forest farmhouse at archeological museum near Loikaw.
Figure 2 Stone footings which supported timber piles (columns) of early building at Minnanthu Village near old
The Colonial PeriodMyanmar lies directly on the trade route from China to India who have had trade relations since the 1st century CE. There can be little doubt that merchants traveling along the Silk Road would have become aware of the existence of the valuable teak forests in Myanmar. When British merchant ships began establishing trade routes in the far east, the need for quality timber to repair as well as build their merchant ships meant that teak would become a valuable trade item. This led to some very early forest management practices in Myanmar and in 1757 King Alaunghpaya declared teak a “royal tree” (James 2005). This not only served as a way of controlling teak exports, but ensuring these precious trees were available for royal and monastic building purposes.
When the British invaded Tenasserim in 1824 one of their primary goals was to take advantage of the country’s vast forest resources. Rather than work with the established government to utilize the already established, and very comprehensive, forest management policies, what became known as laisse-faire forestry took place and independent contractors were permitted to log the forest with no real control other than having to pay the British government for the logs.2 This meant that by 1855 the teak forests of Tenasserim were irrevocably damaged. In addition, the increase in steamship traffic on the Irrawaddy River, carrying passengers and cargo into and out of the country, meant that local indigenous people had harvested so much fuel wood to sell to the steamship captains that the forest within 20 miles of the river was seriously impacted.
The effect that these events had on the tradespeople in Myanmar was devastating. The pre-colonial forest management policies in Myanmar had already challenged carpenters and woodcarvers who relied on teak as a resource that was basic to their trade, but the arrival of the British had exacerbated the problem. Things only became worse in 1856 when The Burma Forest Department was formed which declared teak as a reserved tree effectively further cutting off access to teak by the local trades.3 This caused significant unrest among the populace and can be considered a contributing factor in the insurgency that became rampant in the 20th century and still exists today in Myanmar. Access to and ownership of Myanmar’s natural resources, forest resources in particular, has dramatically influenced the ecology of the political environment for centuries.
A less obvious impact of colonialism was the change in the dynamic of demand for skilled trades. In Imperial Myanmar skilled tradespeople were in great demand to build the palaces and monasteries of the kings and their subordinates. Although a moderate amount of work was also done for wealthy merchants, the tradition of building with teak column foundations, most likely based on early forms of permanent residential housing in the villages (Fraser-Lu, 2001), was employed in monastic and royal wooden building construction. When the age of empires came to an end the only remaining need for this traditional form of building was in the construction of monasteries and buildings on monastic compounds, and the demand initially for those types of buildings was dramatically altered by the destabilizing economic influence of the British occupation. In effect, the access to high quality teak logs disappeared while at the same time, the need for them became greatly diminished.
It can now be surmised that the knowledge of traditional teak construction ceased to be passed on from one generation to the next when there was no demand for skilled tradespeople who employed that knowledge. This was less true of the woodcarvers, who had a highly developed form of education where apprentice carvers would develop their skills through seven levels of advancement, each more detailed and intricate than the previous. Some of the last work done at the highest level of mastery can be seen in a few buildings in Mandalay including the Mahamuni Pagoda (Fig. 4). Today most carvers work to level 5 or below as the demand for their work is primarily in the export market where Chinese hotel chains and other commercial clients who will only pay for the work of the intermediate skill level wood carver buy it.
10
2 Arboriculture, The History of State Forestry in Burma, December 24, 20163 Ibid
Figure 5 Shwe Nandaw Kyaung (monastery) originally built as part of the grand palace of Mandalay and relocated in 1878.
Figure 4 Early 20th century carved wooden lacework at Mahamuni monastery in Mandalay
Many people involved in conservation work today have come to realize that one of the most effective ways of restoring and maintaining a traditional building is to work with people who have similar traditional skills as the original builders. The loss of traditional carpentry skills in Myanmar would have had the unintentional effect of the loss of the people with the ability to maintain what existed. When the British completed their takeover of Myanmar with the removal of King Thibaw from the grand teak palace of Mandalay, vast numbers of royal buildings and monasteries were occupied with soldiers and officers. Little expenditure was made to maintain the structures and by 1902 the obvious dilapidation of much of Burma’s built heritage lead to the formation of The Archaeological Survey of Burma. It is interesting that none of the members of the new organization were trained in archaeology.
On page 17 of the Report of the Superintendent, Archaeological Survey, 1924 it states that “…repairs carried out as occasion arises they will give the Palace a lease of fifteen or twenty years more of life which is about the limit which experts are agreed to give it.” The report describes what funds have been allotted for care of the palace and eight of the monasteries in Mandalay including Shwe Nandaw Kyaung (Fig. 5), which was originally the private chambers of King Mindon Min, who built the palace in 1852. His son, King Thibaw, had the building removed and given to the local monastic order following his father’s death. The annual funds for maintenance of the entire palace and grounds was 3600 rupees, which in today’s adjusted value would be 795.75 USD. The annual allotment for the eight teak monasteries in Mandalay was 1000 rupees in total which would equate to 221.00 USD or 27.62 USD per monastery in 2018 dollars.4
Anyone who has visited the teak wood monasteries of Mandalay would find it disconcerting at best to realize how little effort was being made by the British to maintain them, but an excerpt from the superintendent’s 1925 report would leave them speechless. The report states that “In paragraph 7 at page 5 of the Annual Report of this Department for the year ending 31st March 1919 a reference is made to the appointment of two trustees to certain monasteries in Mandalay with a Government subsidy of Rs 1000 a year made to the trustees for the maintenance of the buildings subject to the approval of the Superintendent Archaeological Survey being obtained to any repairs being carried out. As these buildings are wood and tenanted and therefore in constant risk of being burned down the Government of India now consider that they will not be justified in maintaining them out of Imperial revenues and they have accordingly discontinued with effect of the 1st April 1924 their annual contribution
of Rs 1000 towards the maintenance of these buildings which have in consequence been removed from the list of protected monuments in Burma…”
It is important to realize that the colonial period did not mean tradespeople were no longer in demand in Myanmar. As the British takeover of the country expanded many people found the opportunity to find employment working for the British army in the cities, which brought about a surge in growth and subsequently a surge in the demand for housing. It is estimated that the population of Myanmar was approximately 4,000,000 people when the British arrived in 1824 and 18,500,000 when they left in 1948. During that same period of time the population of Yangon, which was estimated to be 10,000 in 1824, had increased to over 1,300,000.5 As the British government established itself in Yangon (Rangoon in the British lexicon) a need for numerous government buildings and housing for officers and staff employed many tradespeople, but the types of buildings being built were no longer the elegant teak and adobe structures of the Konbaung period but types of architecture that was strongly influenced by the British and today are considered historical as Colonial architecture. The tradespeople had to change the way they worked to meet the demands of both rapid growth and changing architectural style. (Fig. 6)
4 Report of the Superintendent, Archaeological Survey of Burma, 1924, page 485 1999/2002 “populstat” site: Jan Laymeyer
Figure 6 Thaka-wun Kyaung in Mandala is an example of Western influence on the design of wooden monasteries.
Post-Colonial MyanmarAnyone who has studied, or even casually read about Myanmar will be aware that the period following the British occupation was calamitous and eventually completely repressive to the populous. World War II was particularly hard on the country and saw the complete destruction of the teak palace of Mandalay and the burning of numerous teak monasteries which had previously housed British soldiers. What there was in the form of a new government and economy had little impetus to rebuild Myanmar’s lost heritage and the tradespeople who remained to do so would have little if any connection to the traditional building forms that existed prior to colonization or any form of education or experience in the ancient ways of building them. Even if that knowledge had survived, the world in the which the tradesperson existed had changed dramatically from the pre-colonial Konbaung period in which the great palaces and monasteries were built, and the forests that built them had changed as well.
The effect that colonization had on the health and density of the forests, and teak in particular, varies depending on both location and what period is studied. As previously stated, the British Army’s earliest forays into the country caused significant and irreversible damage, but by the middle of the 19th century “scientific forestry”, an approach to forestry developed in Germany and France in the early 19th century, was being put into practice and trees were being planted to replace what was logged.6 The planting did not include the full spectrum of tree species, however, which had been cut during logging operations in favor of single species planting. Unfortunately, this monoculture methodology did not return the forests themselves, but created crop trees to later be sold for profit or utilized by the British naval and merchant fleets. When the British left Burma in 1948, the management of both the remaining natural forests and tree plantations fell to the new Burmese government.
The short lived, and short sighted, collaboration of the Burmese and Japanese armies to drive out the British saw the over land and air invasion of the country in 1942 by the Japanese army further decimating the landscape and forests which became battlegrounds. After the British and Japanese armies left and Burma gained independence in 1948 stewardship of the forest resources would have been of little importance in light of the drive to return the country to a democracy. This effort ended in 1962 in a coup d’état by the military leadership. At this point the forests and timber plantations effectively became the property of the regime and cutting and selling of both plantation and natural forest resources took place in a closed environment that restricted access by the public to timber or the profits that were made in the sales of it. No record of replanting exists.
No effort was made by the controlling military to publicly establish a forest management plan until 1995 when “The Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry has formulated the Myanmar Forest Policy and recognized the importance of the Myanmar forests in enhancing national socio-economic development and ensuring ecological balance and environmental stability.”7 This policy saw the establishment of Myanma Timber Enterprise, a private military logging company which replaced Timber Corporation, the company created in 1989 when the economy was reformed to a market-oriented economy. Prior to that “Hardwood marketing was nationalized in 1963 and all private-owned sawmills were also brought under the State control in 1965 under the socialist economic system.”8
References to the use of “cement” in Colonial Burma in the conservation of adobe structures can be traced back to the earliest reports of the Superintendent of the Archeological Survey. Portland cement was in use in England since 1824, the same year the British invaded Myanmar, when Joseph Aspdin patented the process of making it from fine clay and limestone. By the turn of the 19th century the improved manufacturing technologies made cement a viable product for use in construction and inevitably it would have been applied in conservation work as well. Although no records have been found of the quantities of cement the British would have imported from England, it was likely it was not used inlarge quantities due to its weight and the limited infrastructure to support its distribution to areas beyond Yangon, Bagan and Mandalay.
14
Portland cement was first manufactured in what was then the colony of Burma beginning August 14th, 1937 with the commissioning of the Burma Cement Company near Thayet Myo on the Irrawaddy River. Direct access to Portland cement would greatly enhance the rate of economic growth in the late industrialization of Myanmar, although it can be seen as having little benefit to the local people. Access to large amounts of Portland cement would be key to the growth of the port city of Yangon, but it would also mean that the traditional methods of adobe masonry construction would become threatened. The use of cement-based mortars can be taught to the most inexperienced of tradespeople, but the damaging effects of its use on buildings built with soft adobe bricks would be a lesson that would be learned by traditional masons over time.
Today, the problems of using modern building materials in the conservation of historic buildings are beginning to be understood worldwide. Damage to soft adobe bricks by the use of hard cement mortars becomes obvious fairly rapidly, and in the extreme can cause catastrophic damage like was recently seen in Bagan during the August 2016 earthquake when large sections of recently “restored” masonry toppled to the ground causing further damage to the 6th and 7th century stupas and pagodas. The effect that the introduction of Portland cement in Myanmar had on teak buildings is more insidious in nature. The damage to many ancient teak structures was done when the Department of Archeology, under the direction of the socialist military regime, used Portland cement and modern hard fired brick to “repair” the timber foundations of a significant number of monasteries across Myanmar.
When the Myanmar military regime took control of the country it assumed ownership of all property by the socialist state. This included the uncountable adobe stupas, pagodas and monasteries as well as the teak monasteries. The monks and abbots were given permission to continue to live in the monastic compounds, and use them for practicing Buddhism, which arguably is a unifying element which has held Myanmar together during the upheaval of colonialism and the ensuing military takeover, but the compounds and buildings within them became the property of the state. The majority of these structures were in a very dilapidated state and many had been abandoned and either burned or dismantled for building materials and cook wood. The ones that were still inhabited by at least one monk or abbot remained, but Buddhist law says monks and abbots cannot touch or raise money, so their ability to maintain the structures fell to donors.
6 Arboriculture, The History of State Forestry in Burma, December 24, 20167 These are statements taken directly from the Myanma Timber Enterprise website www.myanmatimber.com.mm8 Ibid.
It has long been the Buddhist tradition for both royalty and people of means to build monasteries as a way of earning great merit towards reaching nirvana. The practice of earning merit through maintenance or conservation of existing monasteries is mostly absent however, which in combination with Buddhist law has created a circumstance that has led to the deterioration of many teak monasteries from the Konbaung period preceding empires which also engaged in the construction of teak monasteries and royal structures. The assumption of ownership by the military regime significantly worsened this circumstance and by the late 19th century many of the remaining teak structures were at risk of collapse.
Although little in the way of records or documents exists to substantiate its activities, the Department of Archeology [DOA] remained in existence through the calamitous period beginning with Myanmar’s independence. As with the British, the military regime was faced with attempting some sort of preservation or risk losing the vast majority of Myanmar’s architectural treasures. This assignment fell to the DOA which was not staffed by people with any conservation background. Any knowledge of practice or selection of materials they held was inherited from their work under British authority and was put to use under the direction of military personnel who had been assigned to run the department. With few tradespeople in existence with knowledge of traditional ways of building, the practice of using modern methods and materials continued under the military leadership. One example can be observed on the treatment of the teak column foundations of the monasteries.
The timber column foundations of many of the teak monasteries had suffered over time under the weight of the monastery they supported. During the heavy monsoon rains the ground around the columns could become saturated causing it to soften and the weight of the structure above would cause the columns to begin to lean. When the DOA was given the problem of how to stabilize the buildings, potentially in the light of the government’s intent to open the country to tourism, the decision was made to pour concrete slabs below the monastery and encase the columns, or cut the columns off just above ground level, excavate below them and install a masonry foundation which the columns were attached to with steel straps. In many cases both options were done in combination. Although the appearance is of a concrete foundation, typically it was built of brick and parged with Portland cement.
Although this approach permitted the monastery columns to be returned to vertical and minimized the effect of monsoon softened earth, it created new problems which would rapidly accelerate the deterioration of the columns. By placing the end grain of the cut off columns directly on masonry, it introduces water into the base of the column whenever the masonry becomes wet. Additionally, the brick piers are typically parged after the column was in place creating a recess in the parging for the water to collect in. The continued wetting and drying cycles in an oxygen rich open-air environment invited and supported fungal activity. Additionally, the brick piers are semi porous and are prone to cracking under the weight of the monastery. This creates direct pathways for subterranean termites, which are a voracious pest in Myanmar, to travel through the foundation and infest the teak which had lost much of its resistance to termite attack due to the heightened fungal activity.
Another example of how the teak buildings are threatened actually comes from a practice which predates the British invasion and likely goes back centuries. It isn’t known when crude petroleum oil was first discovered in Myanmar, but it can likely be measured in centuries. With no knowledge of or need for refining, the people of Myanmar attempted to find uses for it that even included medicinal applications. One use they did determine was good was coating teak buildings with “earth oil” to protect them from the sun as well as fungal and insect attack, and in limited way this was a correct practice. It also explains the dark brown color that teak buildings in Myanmar exhibit. The oil does serve as a sun block and does resist fungal activity, but it has little effect on termites beyond their not infiltrating the surface that has been coated. They will however built mud tracks over the earth oil to reach any untreated wood and enter the end grain of the columns where no treatment can be applied.
One of the problems of earth oil results from its continued application. Over the years the oil builds up on the surface and entraps dirt. It also creates a relatively moisture proof film which serves to both keep moisture from getting in and entrapped moisture from getting out. Ultimately the delicate carving on many of the wood sculptures and panels becomes less visible and the wood begins to deteriorate in the non-breathable environment making cleaning of the surface an extremely difficult practice to perform without causing damage to the carving. The columns in the foundation react negatively over time as well due to the improved environment for termites created inside by the trapped moisture. This was less of a problem before the foundation columns were cut off because the ends of columns were originally buried deep enough to be below the depth of subterranean termite activity.
16
Conclusions and RecommendationsIt can be argued that the challenges to the conservation of teak architecture in Myanmar exist because there are few experts, or even very knowledgeable people, either inside or outside of Myanmar that have addressed the subject comprehensively. This creates an environment where it is best to look at the various aspects of this challenge in general terms before trying to address individual or specific subject matter. It is also important to realize that the lack of both conservation methodology and philosophy is a combination of both the circumstance and culture of a nation trying to find its way forward from once being one of the richest nations in the world both in natural and cultural resources to currently being one of the poorest. The evidence of this is in the endless astonishing Buddhist monuments that cover the countryside and fill the cities of Myanmar.
It is difficult to ascertain whether the economy or the educational system suffered more under the last two centuries of upheaval in Myanmar. Today they are both struggling to recover, but lack of a quality educational system for generations of Myanmar people can be seen as making it difficult to undertake an economic recovery. The scope of the effect of this on the development of conservation policies is difficult to grasp. To further complicate the matter, the government of Myanmar prior to colonization had no known policies in reference to conservation and the Buddhist belief that nothing is permanent has meant the country’s populous has never been motivated to develop a conservation ethic. This is not to say that there is no maintenance of historic architecture, rather that there is no long term planning of how to conserve Myanmar’s vast architectural heritage.
It seems clear that education needs to be a key element in creating an environment where conservation can become part of Myanmar’s future. Education in general needs to be improved, but education in the trades, including a focus on the traditional trades, is crucial to creating a workforce that can undertake the work of conservation once the policies have been established. A training school for abbots is said to have been established in Yangon to teach building maintenance and traditional arts and crafts (Fraser-Lu 2001) but this school no longer exists, and no other is known to have replaced it. It can be determined that for future conservation initiatives it would be of value to support such a program and to re-establish trade schools across Myanmar where young people and practicing tradespeople could learn both modern and traditional building skills. Education of the general public is also an important aspect of the development of a conservation ethic. There are efforts underway to involve
the press in reporting the successes in conserving historic architecture, but for the most part this has come through NGOs undertaking conservation projects in the country.
Access to high quality teak timber lies at the heart of establishing a successful conservation program for Myanmar’s teak monasteries and historic teak farmhouses. At this point in time that will be very difficult to do. In essence, teak is a form of currency in Myanmar as it has been an extremely important commodity for centuries and the way bringing that commodity to market has taken place over the last two centuries has been detrimental for the country and its forests. So much illegal logging, and logging controlled by the military and logging connected to corrupt officials has taken place since the British left Myanmar that over 35% of the forest cover that remained at that time has been lost. Because of this uncontrolled logging the recently elected democratic government placed a one year ban on logging in April 2016. Attempts are being made to improve the illegal logging situation, but this will take time. What would be of value is if a policy could be put in place that protected enough teak trees that were of the highest quality that could then be made available for the conservation of Myanmar’s teak architecture.
Solving the problem of donors not taking an interest in contributing to the conservation of Buddhist monasteries as a way of earning merit cannot be mandated by the government. The process would need to take place within the monastic hierarchy and disseminated to the population according to Buddhist tradition. The fact that monks and abbots cannot touch or raise money would not stand in the way of donors working through the normal channels of funding if it were to be seen as a value to monastic architecture to pay for its maintenance as a way of earning merit, but this can only work if the government relinquishes control of the work that is done. That is not to say that the government should not have a say, rather conservation policies for best practice need to be established and standards of workmanship determined in order for a clear understanding of what is expected to take place. This is not an easy mandate in a country where no real conservation policy has ever existed.
17
The principle stumbling block to establishing any sort of national approach to conservation in general in Myanmar is the fragmented government that currently exists. Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, is independent of the government and yet is in control of many aspects of how the government functions. High levels of corruption still exist and the funding necessary to undertake solving many of the country’s infrastructure and building code enforcement issues does not exist. Any conservation work that needs done on historic buildings that still remain under state control ends up being the responsibility of the DOA which remains under the leadership of ex-military officers and little effort is being made to improve the department’s funding or policies to deal effectively with the conservation demands.
The question therefor must be asked “Why delegate conservation work to an archeology department at all?” Archeology and conservation are two different fields and require different skill sets. There is already more archeological research to be done in this ancient country than the DOA can effectively undertake as it stands and adding conservation work to their duties can be seen as having little practical sense. It may be prudent that the government of Myanmar to establish a Department of Conservation [DOC] free from any influence from Tatmadaw. If local people could be trained in basic conservation philosophy and methodology, the numerous NGOs that are, or would like to be, working in the country would undoubtedly be willing to share in both the development of best practices and the costs of doing so. A newly formed DOC could form a positive working relationship with the US and other Embassies, something that has failed to materialize with the Tatmadaw controlled DOA.
Were the establishment of this new department to take place, it is quite possible that the local monastic orders would take an interest in being involved in establishing conservation policies for both teak and masonry monasteries, which has not been the case with the DOA who they have come not to trust. In short, the country of Myanmar is at a turning point and many of its citizens are hoping for a permanently better future. The national climate is ideal for creating a fresh new environment where all of the parties involved, with an interest in the conservation of Myanmar’s magnificent architectural heritage, can participate in working towards the common goal of learning how that can be done. As stated earlier, no single person, entity or organization has a real understanding of what will work best in this ancient country, but many people have an interest in seeing that happen and should be provided the opportunity to work together towards that end.
BibliographyFraser-Lu, Sylvia 2001. Splendour in Wood: The Buddhist Monasteries of Burma, Orchid PressJames, Helen 2005. Governance and Civil Society in Myanmar: Education, health and environment, RoutledgeCurzon Taylor & Francis Group18
