A unique student design project launched several years ago in two Texas A&M undergraduate architecture studios came to fruition last April with the grand opening of the new Cambodian Land Mine Museum and Relief Facility in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
The project, creating conceptual designs for the new land mine museum facility, was initially undertaken by students in professors Julie Rogers' and George Mann's design studios. For many of the students, the assignment quickly evolved into a cause they would work passionately for years to help realize.
The existing land mine museum, established in 1999, was an impressive, albeit makeshift and under-funded operation ran by Aki Ra, a former child-soldier who, from the age of five, participated in the laying of land mines for the Khmer Rouge, Vietnamese and Cambodian armies. Ra has since devoted his life to removing the estimated 5-7 million mines still hidden in the Cambodian soil, using little more than a wrench and a hammer.
Though modest, Ra's museum successfully cast a spotlight on his country's insidious land mine problem, and many who visited it, including Texas A&M architecture instructor Julie Rogers, were moved to support his cause. Another Ra supporter, Canadian photographer Richard Fitoussi, established the Cambodian Land Mine Museum Relief Fund (CLMMRF) to advance public awareness of the land mine problem, support Ra's mine removal efforts, and provide relief to the many Cambodians whose lives had been forever tragically altered by the abandoned mines.
It was Fitoussi, as founder and CEO of CLMMRF, who approached Rogers and her fellow architecture professor, Mann, seeking student designs for a new museum facility. Impassioned by Ra's story and Fitoussi's photographs, the students not only provided designs for a new museum, they helped raise funds to make it a reality, staging a March 2004 fun run and selling student-designed T-shirts promoting the cause.
Years later, when the museum project foundered because the Cambodian government opposed its construction on the proposed site, the students rallied again with a sustained letter-writing campaign that garnered the support of several prominent politicians, diplomats and world-renowned celebrities.
Their efforts paid off.
The Cambodian government ultimately agreed to a land swap, trading the proposed museum site for a parcel of land nearly twice the size.
Last April, after years of planning, fundraising and political brinkmanship with the Cambodian government, the Texas A&M student-designed Cambodian Land Mine Museum and Relief Facility opened its doors amid a flurry of fanfare that included Cambodian government officials, international diplomats, celebrities and CLMMRF organizers.
The new site, located in a rural area about 15 kilometers from Siem Reap, is highly visible to tourists. It sits on the route to the 10th century temple of Banteay Srei and several other ruins that make up the World Heritage site of the Angkor Wat Archeological Park.
The museum features displays of Ra's incredible collection of mine shells and bomb casings along with archives chronicling the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge and the genocidal horrors of Cambodia's infamous "Killing Fields. The complex includes children's dormitories, a school and library and even a clinic to assist land mine victims.
Information about the museum and photos of the student-designed facility and April 21 ribbon-cutting ceremony are available on the CLMMRF website at http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/
