I've traveled to Laos to have Beer Lao and Laotian food. I went to Vientiane and took a stroll around the beautiful capital. The photo shows Patuxai (can be spelled Patousai, a.k.a. Anousavary) which is one of the most popular places to visit in Vientiane. I think I saw something similar in Paris, but Patousai was more quiet and imperial. I love the place, because I was able to go to the top and able to see Champs-Elysees of Laos from there. I'm not an expert, but Laos is a former French colony and I often felt like a small touch of France from something else, or somewhere in Laos.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Patuxai has a small touch of Charles de Gaulle
I've traveled to Laos to have Beer Lao and Laotian food. I went to Vientiane and took a stroll around the beautiful capital. The photo shows Patuxai (can be spelled Patousai, a.k.a. Anousavary) which is one of the most popular places to visit in Vientiane. I think I saw something similar in Paris, but Patousai was more quiet and imperial. I love the place, because I was able to go to the top and able to see Champs-Elysees of Laos from there. I'm not an expert, but Laos is a former French colony and I often felt like a small touch of France from something else, or somewhere in Laos.
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Patuxai (Anousavaly) Monument, symbol of the Laotian unit.
ReplyDeletePatouxai - The true of Lao's Architecture Engineering Design and Arts
A Truly Art of Works Architected and Designed by an inspiring capable Laotian “Tham SAYASITHSENA” recognised among world western foreigners and neighbouring countries as mistakenly believe the monument was designed by the French. In actual fact it was designed by an Architect Lao citizen.… I’m very proud of it as I’m also an Laotian borned…The Arts are strongly inspired from the famous 15th centuary’s Stupa the “THAT LUANG”. The Patouxai have four Archway entries, the French “Arc de Triomphe” have two Archway entries. Definitively Architecture and Design’s wild, it’s not a copy or modeled of the French “Arc de Triomphe” in design. By coincidence and how GENIUS it is, the Patouxay Arch looks very “Prestigious and Ambitious” with wonderful Lao Arts, and stand resemblant in shape to the French “Arc de Triomphe” when looking far from distance. A part from that, the front main avenue “Lane Xang” adds up to the prestige, give the avenue a view looks harmonious to the French avenue the “Champs Elysee”. In many eyes of million foreigners tourists visitors , this place fell like the famous French “Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysee” place in Paris. Amazingly the Patuxai photos appears in almost every important Stock Photo Art Galleries Website poster for sales proving that is also one of the most prestigious monument in the world.
Saddly, the Government doesn’t seems to express very much interests to this monument, dispite of many thousand visitors every year, and let this Prestige down in front of themselves and the country. The description painted on the southwest corner shows in few lines reflects both Lao’s endearing honesty and naivety to ‘First World’ preoccupations like marketing. One sentence said: “From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete; showing of brutal honesty”. There is nothing to award or honor, showing no respects to this Lao citizen who has given so much to the country a world well known of Lao’s Arts, Architecture and Design. His name didn’t even appeared in the information sign to prove the authenticity of the Art Architect and Design.
Here are other facts links and comments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxai
http://blog.gotlaos.com/2010/03/patuxay-monument-revisited-in-vientiane-laos.html
http://www.welcome2asia.com/laos/attractions/Patuxai.htm
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Patuxai/138468256177140?sk=wiki
http://www.shutterstock.com/s/%22patou+xai%22/search.html
http://www.superstock.com/stock-photography/City+of+victory
http://static3.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?similar_photo_id=29182102
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/107002/Patuxai-Arch-a-memorial-to-Laotian-casualties-of-the-war
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/patuxai/
http://video.answers.com/visit-the-patuxai-archway-in-vientiane-laos-517174162
http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/tripwow/ta-00a0-a5ca-60af
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlicwe_patuxai-great-attractions-vientiane-laos_travel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ6TLtIV3xY
http://www.laosplan.com/vientiane/Patuxai/Patuxai1.php
http://www.zazzle.com/patuxai_vientiane_postcard-239104687650603427
http://www.vietvisiontravel.com/laos/photo_gallery/vientiane/patuxai_gate_of_triumph/
http://picturesfromearth.com/travel/laos/patuxai-vientiane/
http://www.superstock.com/stock-photography/Patuxai
http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/patuxai.html
"Patuxay Monument Revisited
ReplyDeleteWalking along Lane Xang Avenue in Vientiane from Horkham Palace to the That Luang stupa, one comes across various interesting attractions and shopping areas but it is impossible to miss the eye-catching Patuxay Monument .
Patuxay is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Vientiane , and is also popular with local residents who like to walk around it and its adjacent garden for exercise during the cooler hours of the evening.
Some people mistakenly believe the monument was designed by the French. In actual fact it was designed by a Lao citizen named Mr Tham Sayasithsena.
In 1957 Mr Tham's design was selected from among many drawn up by the Royal Palace Office in Luang Prabang province, Public Works Department, Housing Department, Building Construction Department, Military Engineering Department and individual private designers. He received the grand sum of 30,000 kip when his design was chosen as the best.
When I visited Mr Tham, 95, recently, he explained some interesting aspects of his design, which led me to visit the monument to explore it in depth last week.
The monument features four archways, opening to each point of the compass. The east and west archways open onto Lang Xang Avenue and were designed to be used for parades on days of national significance.
Adjacent to each of the four outside corners of the monument are ponds constructed to represent the longitudinal cross section of the bud of a lotus flower.
On each corner of the monument there is a statue of a Naga king, standing at attention with crest raised and mouth open to spray water into the ponds below. The Naga king is one of the mythical symbols of the Lao nation. The cascading water symbolizes nature, fertility, welfare and happiness.
The lotus shaped ponds represent the sacred flower which Lao people use to offer their respects to the beloved heroes who have performed deeds of bravery for the nation.
On each corner of the upper level of the monument there are small towers decorated with carvings of foliage. The towers also have places where decorative lights can be installed during important celebrations and ceremonies.
There are two concrete staircases winding up the inside of the monument, leading to each floor and viewing areas on the upper levels. There are also, as yet incomplete, elevators on two diagonal corners for those who can't make the climb. Climbing the staircase and arriving at the first floor, visitors come across a space used as an office for staff responsible for management, security, maintenance, restoration, and sanitation at the monument. There are also stalls selling antiquities, souvenirs, cultural products and refreshments.
ReplyDeleteThe second level is a highly significant place, intended to be a museum of Lao heroes and heroines of all eras, with statues and portraits of valiant kings, and great heroes and heroines. This is a place where Lao people can remember the great battles and stories of courageous kings and national heroes.
Reaching the upper level visitors arrive at a wide-open air platform. This is where the towers mentioned earlier are located, each designed in traditional Lao architectural style and featuring a spiral shaped tip.
Each tower is located at the top of a staircase or one of the two lifts. There is also a fifth larger tower located in the centre. It has a staircase leading to a viewing platform with a telescope where visitors can enjoy panoramic views of Vientiane and beyond.
The five towers denote the precepts of peaceful coexistence adhered to by nations around the world, bringing happiness, security, freedom and justice to people everywhere. They also represent the principles of Buddhist Dhamma - of the middle path filled with thoughtful amiability, flexibility, honesty, honour and prosperity.
Mr Tham said the monument is still only 90 percent complete. Construction took place between 1957 and 1960, at a cost of around 63 million kip. At that time the exchange rate was 35 kip to US$1.
Patuxay is one of many sites that Vientiane authorities maintain for tourists and residents alike to enjoy.
Next year it will be colorfully decorated with flowers and lights for the 450th anniversary of Vientiane as the capital of Laos ."
By Xayxana Leukai – Vientiane Times
(Latest Update November 2 , 2009)
The History:
ReplyDeleteA monument will not take its true rise that if it expresses an unconscious collective. When, defying time and space, its force symbolic system sticks so much to the image of the city which its architectural beauty creates with it only a shock compared to all that surrounds it. What symbolizes very well Patuxai, a Triumphal arch Mekong version, which for recent that it is (1962), is not less already completely integrated of it into the image of Vientiane, provisional capital of the ASEAN.
Vientiane, that shows through as of the first glance, incontestably kept its small air of deep France, an atmosphere of softness and user-friendliness which differentiates it from the start of these odds and ends which became the majority of the modern Asian cities incorporating itself today around immense motorways. This type of development will not have course here where the means are less and the model so openly different. Of liking or force, Laos preaches its own values, its secular culture, its version of the accession at modern times. It is all this ambient particularism which makes of Patuxai an architectural work intended to cross time.
Realized according to the project of the architect Tham Sayasithsena who had made his studies in Paris, it was set up between the end of the colonial period and the beginning of the war of Vietnam, in order to honour the memory with the unknown soldier died for what was at the time a fragile kingdom, though already plain under only one and even administration.
Paradoxically, Patuxai (or Arch of the Victoire) would never have been born, at least in its current form, without the gift by the Americans of 6000 tons concrete taken on the surpluses generated by construction of the new tracks of the airport of the capital…
Loan to face eternity, it acquired its truly national dimension when the population of Vientiane gathered there in mass, as the Parisian ones at the time of the storming of the Bastille did it, to reverse the mode on December 2, 1975, date official of the advent of the Democratic Popular Republic of Laos (event which each annçe commemorates an immense procession where, by interminable lines of nine, the inhabitants of the capital pay homage to the Fatherland).
Unspoilable view
ReplyDeleteLocated at the top of Lane Xang (the avenue of the million elephants), the Elysées Fields of the city, Patuxai throne in the middle of its clean “park of Tileries” (arranged in 2004 thanks to a gift of 15 million dollars of Popular China to commemorate the first session of the ASEAN) such invincible concrete Samouraï under its armour open on the four corners of the horizon and placed under the constant guard of eight dragons. Directly inspired by Taj Mahal, its architectural harmony rests on figures 3, 7 and 8; reference express to its Buddhist implication. Each tower measurement 24 meters (3 X 8) on the basis of square itself of 24 meters.
The unit comprises 7 stages and culminates exactly with 49 meters (7 X 7), in accordance with the guns of the architectural style lao, to start with famous PhaThat Luang. Large the stupa is as deeply anchored in the unconscious collective lao as are it, for our part, our more beautiful cathedrals.
For the visit, it will cost you 2000 kips of it if you are Laotian and 3000 if you are tourist (0,25 euro), for the climbing of 162 steps leading to the various rooms before arriving at height of the first panorama. You for the pleasure offer the 27 last by climbing the spiral staircase which leads to the top of the central tower. You will discover there any Vientiane with 15 kilometers with the round, the large rectilinear arteries which converge there, the curve of Mekong, a package of antennas GSM, a myriad of red roofs and the perfect geometry of this famous park to the fountains “its and lights”.
While going down again, take time to traverse the various galleries external decorated with innumerable so particular Buddhist sculptures of the tendencies with Laotian art, Bai If on the topic of the petal of lotus borrowed from That Luang, and the Nagas snakes, another emblem if it is country. Finished 90% of the consent even of its creators, the memorial of Patuxai answers incontestably its vocation of national union and would deserve some installations and a rough-casting with height of its genesis. Visit not to miss, this temple of independence is the emblematic expression of the inhabitants of the country of the million elephants, the heart of the people lao.
Alain Sapanhine
Meanwhile, we had been advised to view Vientiane’s Victory Arch. Gary van Zuylen had called it “the world’s largest vertical runway.” It was made of six thousand tons of concrete, originally donated by the U.S. government for a landing strip; instead, the Laotians turned it into a large, square monument that looked like it had dropped out of the sky and lodged incongruously at the center of the roundabout at the end of Lane Xang Avenue. It was intended, we learned, to turn the city’s broadest avenue into a tropical Champs Elysees, billed as a cross between the Arc de Triomphe and the Taj Mahal. “The Arch is a splendorous concrete monument and it is praised not only by the Lao people, but also by foreigners who have visited Vientiane, “explains a thirty-five-page commemorative booklet, “Victory Arch: Construction Significance Prestige” written by its designer, Tham Sayasithsena. The monument was an international critical success.