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34-554: In late 1923 and early 1924, the construction of a 55-room hotel in Phnom Penh was proposed, with Ernest Hébrard as architect and the help of Jean Desbois for the design. A visionary planner, he played no small part in turning a Cambodian-French colonial outpost into a bustling and dynamic metropolis. The Phnom Penh proposal also outlined the construction of 40-room hotels in Siem Reap and Hué (Vietnam). The tourist potential of

68-657: A French architect , archaeologist and urban planner , best known for his urban plan for the center of Thessaloniki , Greece , after the great fire of 1917. Hebrard studied at the École des Beaux-Arts , and in 1904 won the Grand Prix de Rome, allowing him to study at the Académie de France in Rome, located in the Villa Medici. It was here that he chose to study Diocletian 's palace at Split , eventually leading to

102-556: A project for the building of a university in Salonika, and in 1931 he returned to Paris, where he died at the age of 58 two years later. This article about a French architect is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a French archaeologist is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 ( Greek : Μεγάλη Πυρκαγιά της Θεσσαλονίκης, 1917 ) destroyed two thirds of

136-464: A settlement for 300 families, and built the Union of French Ladies , a smaller camp for 100 families. Together they transported 5,000 people by train for free and relocated the refugees to Athens , Volos and Larissa . The Greek authorities set up distribution points providing free bread to 30,000 individuals. The American, French, and British Red Cross distributed food among the homeless. Nearly half

170-684: The Bank of Athens , parts of the Saint Demetrius church , the monastery of Saint Theodora and another church, the Saatli Mosque, 11 other mosques, the seat of the chief rabbi with all its archive, 16 of the 33 synagogues, and the printing-houses of most newspapers. Thessaloniki had the highest number of published newspapers in Greece , but after the fire most did not manage to rebuild their businesses and publish again. Approximately 4,096 of

204-696: The Cambodian Civil War . In April 1975, the Red Cross sought to establish the hotel as a neutral zone, however, with the Fall of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge emptied the hotel and its grounds. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, it was reopened as ‘Hotel Samakki’ (Solidarity Hotel). This name was used until HM King Father Norodom Sihanouk was reinstalled in 1993, when

238-713: The National Technical University of Athens , and his work is well known in the architecture schools of Greece. In 1921, he was appointed the head of the Indochina Architecture and Town Planning Service, based in Hanoi , the capital of French Indochina , at first charged with planning the hill station of Da Lat in Annam, Vietnam's middle province. He participated in the planning new districts or urban improvements of several other cities in

272-534: The 1912 publication of a monograph containing what is still regarded as the most accurate image of the original appearance of the Palace. At the Academie, he was a few years behind Henri Prost , later famed as the planner of Casablanca , and together with other members of the reformist Musée social , he developed an interest in the possibilities of town planning. During WW1, in 1916, Hebrard had been conscripted as

306-568: The 7,695 shops within the city were destroyed and 70% of the workforce was unemployed. The people affected by the fire totaled approximately 73,447. The Pallis Report identified the homeless by the three religious communities of Thessaloniki : 52,000 Jews , 10,000 Orthodox and 11,000 Muslims . The care for the fire victims started immediately: Greek authorities constructed 100 houses to shelter 800 families. The British authorities established three settlements with 1,300 tents, where they accommodated 7,000 homeless. The French authorities set up

340-531: The Angkor ruins had not gone unnoticed. Included in the initial proposal were preliminary estimates for buildings and furnishings for five sites. Costs were presented in the currency of Indochina at the time, the ‘piastre’ or Indochina dollar. It is evident that the highest priority was given to the future hotel for Phnom Penh. An integral part of Hébrard’s plan was to partially fill in a canal that encircled Phnom Penh’s European Quarter, plant extensive gardens, extend

374-535: The Central Committee for Donations was organized, with a line of sub-committees for the collection of donations and the distribution of money and goods. After the destruction of the city, insurance companies sent their agents to survey the damage. There were rumours that Germans or French had caused the fire by arson, but these were disproved. The total amount of insurance contracts was about 3,000,000 golden pounds. The majority of insurance companies within

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408-774: The Director of the Archaeological Service of the Army of the Orient based in Thessaloniki, and so was present when the majority of the city was largely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1917 . The Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos forbade the reconstruction of the city center until a modern city plan was approved. He commissioned Ernest Hébrard for the work, which the architect conceived and developed with

442-559: The French engineer and architect Joseph Pleyber, the architects Aristotle Zachos and Konstantinos Kitsikis, the port planner Angelos Ginis and the city’s mayor Konstantinos Angelakis. Delivered to the General Administration of Macedonia on 29 June 1918, the plan was to redevelop the city along European lines. It went through many changes, but established improved transportation routes, squares and other amenities to support

476-487: The aid of the Greek architects Aristotelis Zachos and Konstantinos Kitsikis , as well as British designer Thomas Hayton Mawson and fellow Frenchman Joseph Pleyber . The plan did away with the medieval and Ottoman street layout, imposing instead a plan of formal boulevards, in a symmetrical pattern about a central axis, carefully composed around the most important ancient Byzantine churches and mosques. Hébrard taught at

510-510: The burned areas and for the future expansion of the city. His designs are still evident in the city, most notably Aristotelous Square , although some of his most grandiose plans were never completed due to a lack of funds. French navy official Dufour de la Thuillerie writes in his report that "I saw Thessaloniki, a city of more than 150,000 people, burn". Thessaloniki was one of the largest and most modern cities in Europe by Balkan standards at

544-561: The center and the Upper City when a spark from the kitchen fire fell in a pile of straw and ignited it. Due to both lack of water and indifference, the initial fire was not put out. Eventually, an intense wind carried the fire to the neighboring houses, and it continued throughout central Thessaloniki. As the centre of operations for Allied Forces in the Balkans during World War I , Thessaloniki had no fire service and its water supply

578-437: The center of the city. In the early morning of the next day (6/19 August), the wind changed direction and the two fronts of the fire destroyed the whole commercial center. At 12:00, the fire passed around the grounds of the church of Haghia Sophia without burning it, and continued eastward up to the road of Ethnikis Amynis (former name: Hamidie ), where it stopped. On the evening of that day the fire completely died out. There

612-611: The city as it was. They intended to create a new city instead, according to an urban plan. The Minister of Transports Alexandros Papanastasiou was given the lead and founded the "International Committee for the New Plan of Thessaloniki". He appointed as chairman the French architect and archeologist Ernest Hébrard , who supervised development of the plan. Other members included the British landscape architect Thomas Hayton Mawson ,

646-519: The city filled with thousands of French and British soldiers, numbering up to 200,000. The 1913 census recorded a population of 150,000 people. According to the findings of the investigation by the Court of Thessaloniki, the fire began on Saturday 5 ( OS , Julian Calendar ) /18 ( NS ) August 1917 at roughly 15:30, by accident at a small house of refugees at Olympiados 3, in the Mevlane district between

680-461: The city of Thessaloniki , the second-largest city in Greece , leaving more than 70,000 homeless. The fire burned for 32 hours and destroyed 9,500 houses within an extent of 1 square kilometer. Half the Jewish population emigrated from the city as their livelihoods were gone. Rather than quickly rebuilding, the government commissioned the French architect Ernest Hébrard to design a new urban plan for

714-547: The city to the other side of the Tonle Sap River, create a new central market and, construct a new hotel to be managed by the Society for Grand Hotels of Indochina. The official opening, attended by HM Sisowath Monivong (reigned 1927-1941) and a host of expatriate guests took place on the evening of 20 November 1929. The party included a lavish buffet, dancing and performances by an orchestra brought especially from what

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748-614: The city was essentially maintained: the larger part of the population were Sephardi Jews , followed by Greeks , Turks , Bulgarians , Roma and others. As soon as World War I began in 1914, Greece officially maintained neutrality. With authorization by the Venizelos' government, Entente Forces had landed troops in Thessaloniki in 1915, in order to support their Serb allies in the Macedonian Front . In August 1916, Venizelist officers launched an uprising that resulted in

782-539: The city's Jews, having lost both homes and shops, soon emigrated to western countries, mainly France and the United States, while some emigrated to Palestine . Pericles A. Argyropoulos, the major government representative, founded the Administration for Victims of Fire for the care of thousands of fire victims; and the government approved credit of 1,500,000 drachmas for the first needs. Simultaneously,

816-605: The establishment of the Provisional Government of National Defence in the city, essentially dividing Greece into two sovereign states, one represented by Eleftherios Venizelos , and the other by King Constantine . After King Constantine abdicated in June 1917, Greece was reunified again and entered officially the war with the Allies side. Thessaloniki soon became a transit center for Allied troops and supplies, and

850-454: The fire and attempting to create Fire Safe Zones , accidentally exploded entire blocks and exacerbated the fire. The fire destroyed 32% of Thessaloniki, about 1 square kilometer. The burned region was between the roads of Aghiou Dimitriou, Leontos Sofou, Nikis, Ethnikis Amynis, Alexandrou Svolou, and Egnatia (from Aghia Sofia). This region is reported in official documents as "burned zone" ( Greek : πυρίκαυστος ζώνη , pirikafstos zoni ) and in

884-482: The hotel has changed several times through the years. Originally Avenue du Maréchal Joffre, it became Pologne Street (Street 92) and is now known as Rukhak Vithei Daun Penh. The hotel itself has had several name changes. From its inception in 1929 it was named ‘Le Royal’. Between 1970 and 1975, during the Khmer Republic period, it was known simply as ‘Le Phnom’ and was a popular refuge for journalists covering

918-402: The hotel reverted once again to ‘Hotel Le Royal’. William Warren, Jill Gocher (2007). Asia's legendary hotels: the romance of travel . Singapore: Periplus Editions. ISBN   978-0-7946-0174-4 . 11°34′35″N 104°55′06″E  /  11.576271°N 104.918248°E  / 11.576271; 104.918248 Ernest H%C3%A9brard Ernest Hébrard (1875–1933) was

952-586: The popular narrations simply as "the burned" ( Greek : τα καμμένα , ta kammena ). The extent of material damage within Thessaloniki was calculated to be worth 8,000,000 golden pounds. Included among buildings that were burned were the Post Office, the telegraph office, the town hall, the water supply, and gas company headquarters, the Ottoman Bank , the National Bank of Greece , the deposits of

986-489: The region were British. The insurance company, North British and Mercantile Insurance , had to compensate 3,000 insurance contracts. The Court deemed the fire was caused by accidental reasons. Under the pressure of Greek and foreign authorities along with the Court, all of the insurance policies were completely paid. Only a few days after the fire, the Venizelos government announced that it would not allow reconstruction of

1020-508: The region, including Hanoi itself. He also designed a number of prominent buildings, including the eclectically styled Martyr's Church, popularly known as the Cửa Bắc Church , in central Hanoi in the late 1920s (completed c1931 ), but he is particularly noted for a series of government buildings that worked to incorporate elements of vernacular design from French Indochina into modern structures. They include : In 1930, he presented

1054-504: The time of the fire. By European standards, the city's planning was chaotic and the unhygienic conditions that prevailed in the poorer areas were described as "unacceptable" by the government in Athens . The city's harbour was one of the most important centres of trade in the region. In 1912 the city, along with the biggest part of Macedonia and Epirus , was incorporated in Greece after almost 500 years of Ottoman rule. The population of

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1088-661: Was not enough water for firefighting because (to serve their camps and hospitals in the suburbs of the city) the Allied forces controlled water reserves, which were reduced due to the drought of that summer and the high water consumption of the growing population. More significantly, the city government did not have an organized fire brigade ; a few firefighting teams were privately owned by insurance companies that protected only their subscribers. The private firefighters were found to be unorganized and equipped with old or no equipment. Additionally, Allied detachments, while trying to stop

1122-579: Was requisitioned by foreign soldiers – which, along with the intense wind, is why the Great Fire attained historic proportions. Initially the fire followed two directions, to the Residency via the road of Agiou Dimitriou, and to the market via the Leontos Sofou road. The Residency was saved by its employees, who hurried to help. The wind strengthened and continued to spread the fire towards

1156-455: Was then Saigon. The Director of the hotel between 1929 and 1931 was M.L.F. de la Pousardière. On 22 December 1931, L’Echo du Cambodge announced the departure of M La Pousardière and a new direction for Le Royal under the supervision of M. Jean Baluteig. Today, the street immediately alongside the hotel bears the name of the King, Preah Monivong Boulevard. The original name of the street in front of

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