Contested Modernities – Postcolonial Architecture and the Construction of Identities in Southeast Asia | ISBN 978-3-931435-64-6

Project

U Maung Maung Gyi

S. 148–149

In 1922, the Legislative Council in British Burma was recast as a partially elected body for the first time. For its meetings, a modest pavilion was erected in the courtyard of the Secretariat, the seat of British colonial and administrative power in Burma since the late 1880s. Another 52 years would pass until the parliament, then called the People’s Congress, received its own building.

The first democratic government after independence under Prime Minister U Nu failed due to a variety of conflicts—not least over the design of the future parliament building. Ironically, the construction of the People’s Congress did not take place until after the military seized power in 1962, establishing the one-party dictatorship of General Ne Win. Four teams of architects, including U Shwe with the Rangoon Institute of Technology, were invited to submit a design, with U Maung Maung Gyi’s group winning the bid.

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The Tradition of Modernity

A Mausoleum for Aung San in Rangoon