The City Of Angkor

 

We have seen that the city centre of Angkor had become increasingly focused on the royal avenue between the two great reservoirs. Suryavarman 11 chose to build his temple-mountain well to the south of this core, several hundred metres beyond even the earlier centre around the Bakheng. Doubtless this was partly to provide room for the vast enclosure, for the long sides of its outer rectangle of moated walls are each 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) long. A decorated causeway crosses the moat from the west and passes through a towered entrance pavilion that echoes the profile of the temple within. Inside the walls, the causeway stretches on above an expansive courtyard, which contains woods and pavilions and square lakes, towards the towering five peaked stone mountain of the temple.

 

The plan of the building is far more complicated than anything before it. A rectangular outer gallery contains a grid of inner ranges and two large courtyards on the flanks. Within this, the slopes of the square mountain begin to rise-first to a terrace with a square gallery around it, then very steeply in smaller steps with other galleries. On top of the symbolic mountain, the galleries form a square with a cross within it, so that there arc four more roughly square courtyards between the five curving pinnacles of silvery-grey stone. The high central tower, over the inner sanctuary of VishnuSuryavarman, soars to a height of 65.5 metres (215 feet), but the titanic scale of the design should not be allowed to distract us from the subtlety of the architectural achievement. Long ranges arc most satisfyingly punctuated by strong towers, stone masses contrast with spaces punched through the solid forms, areas of florid and large-scale sculpture are set off by others where the stonework is only lightly decorated or even left to show its own fine texture. It is this sculpture that gives many people the most pleasure as they wander along the galleries or through the succession of courtyards.

 

The Bayoun
 

Crystallotus Home | E-zine

Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.