Burmese Teak Farmhouses: Inside Efforts to Preserve a Centuries-Long Building Tradition

Constructed out of teak wood, with bamboo walls and thatched roofs, elevated farmhouse buildings embody one of Myanmar’s unique vernacular building traditions. However, in recent years, the combination of modern building materials, the rising price of teak, and recent political turmoil have caused teak farmhouses to disappear at rapid rates. Limited research has been done on the mechanisms driving them, and little documentation of the disappearing farmhouses exists.
World Monuments Fund Regional Director Jeff Allen, Project Manager Waraporn Suwatchotikul, and architect U Aung Soe Myint explore how documentation can help us consider the cultural values of this vernacular building tradition in a new light.
World Monuments Fund's work at the Traditional Burmese Teak Farmhouses has been made possible, in part, by support from Tianaderrah Foundation / Nellie and Robert Gipson and The Endangered Wooden Architecture Programme (EWAP), Oxford Brookes University, funded by Arcadia, a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge.