Step back in time at the 1920 Hotel, the address with charm and character, set in one of the best preserved shophouses buildings in downtown Siem Reap. Ideally located in the center of town, our 10 rooms distributed along our 3 floors and ground floor, blend contemporary design with history. 

Just footsteps away from Preah Prom Rath pagoda, the Old Market, the riverside, Pub Street and a wide range of restaurants, bars and shops, the 1920 Hotel provides you with comfort and intimacy right in the middle of this buzzing town.

The exact building date of our hotel is relatively unknown. What is certain is that shophouses in Siem Reap were initially built around the 1920´s, hence our name. Originally designed and used as a commercial building during the French protectorate period, the 1920 Hotel is still today part of a row of shophouses. 

Our Khmer owners have carefully remodeled the building to add style and character. With a playful façade, wooden louver shutters and hanging plants the building oozes the charm of a bygone era. Today’s 1920 Hotel is a more contemporary style hotel, providing comfort and elegance with a dash of panache recalling the colonial times. The well-appointed rooms offer something for all budgets. Choose from Deluxe, Premier or Suite room, all decorated with tiled floors, special copper finishing and painted with pleasing white and grey tones. Color is added as a contrast by the furniture and art.

All rooms feature High Speed Wi-Fi, large Flat Screen TVs, Electronic Safety Box, Minibar, Tea & Coffee making facilities on the day of your arrival. Designed to be bright and airy, rooms all have ceiling fans and air-conditioning. A quality mattress, fine bed linen and a range of bathroom amenities will ensure your stay is a comfortable one at 1920 Hotel.

Please consider that there is no lift in our hotel.

1920 HOTEL: RESPECT AND ENHANCEMENT OF ITS ORIGINAL FEATURES

* THE TRANSITION FROM A SHOPHOUSE TO A HOTEL

The archetypical shophouse is a two- or three-storey building with shop premises on the ground floor and living accommodation above. The ground floor is set back a little from the road while the upper storey projects forward in line with the edge of the street to create a covered verandah in front of the shop.

This is how we sense the 1920 Hotel was initially conceived. Traditionally, the shophouse was built as the home of a merchant and his family. Today, it has been internally modified to create a unique space to host our guests.

 

* A LONG AND NARROW PLAN

The street frontage of a traditional shophouse was quite narrow but the buildings often extended backwards from the street a fair way. The typical frontage was around 6 meters, with an average depth of around 25 meters. This characteristic ground plan has its origins in ancient China where house taxes were calculated according to a building´s width.

 

* THE IMPORTANCE OF SYMMETRY

As in so many Asian architectural traditions, a correct orientation in relation to the environment and the proper alignment of built structures, in a ritual sense, are of the utmost importance in Chinese architecture.

The shophouse form is ultimately based on the traditional Chinese courtyard house, which ideally was symmetrically planned along a north-south axis. The 1920 Hotel is no exception to this rule with the main hall, considered the most important or prestigious structure, facing north.

The north-south alignment was a climatic adaptation to the rigours of winter in China´s more northerly climes, but it also had ritual connotations deriving from the Chinese view of the universe as an integrated whole in which every aspect of the natural world is interrelated in a hugely complex system of opposing and complimentary forces

 

* THE FIVE - FOOT WAY

The front porch or verandah, open at either end, is a quintessential feature of shophouse architecture. Referred to as a “five-foot way” because this was the minimum width required by the building regulations, the idea was to provide a continuous covered walkway on both sides of a street, protecting pedestrians from both the sun and the rain.

 

* WINDOWS

Shophouse windows are subject to an almost infinite number of different decorative permutations. The most common starting point was some sort of arrangement involving Classically-derived architraves and pilasters, with jalousie shutters, as those found on the first floor of our hotel.
 

 

* COURTYARDS AND SKYWELLS

Courtyards are also a very important feature of traditional Chinese architecture. Be it a temple or a palace, a mansion or farmhouse - all have, at their centre, a courtyard or yuanzi. Shophouses are no different in this respect, except that the the courtyard here is very much reduced in size, often comprising little more than an airwell. On the contrary, this airwell has been drastically increased at the 1920 Hotel to convert light and freshness into one of the main features of the hotel´s new design.
 

 

* FLOOR TILES AND PAVING STONES

Following the shophouse tradition, we have chosen locally-made floor tiles to use on our ground floor and in all our rooms. Our actual tile patters could be identified as a modern version of the floral and geometric rich encaustic tiles that were imported from Europe and were so popular in Victorian England from the 1860s onwards

Reference: Singapore Shophouse. Text: Julian Davison. Photography:
Luca Invernizzi Tettoni. 2010. Talisman Publishing Pte Ltd

Online articles:
- Transformation of Shophouses in Phnom Penh, Cambodia: In the Aspect of Spatial Organization - Sokly Yam, Seo Ryeung Ju. Department of Housing and Interior Design, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea http://fer.or.kr/journal/view.php?number=4361

- A History Tour of Phnom Penh's Buildings – Ron Gluckman
https://www.forbes.com/global/2010/0412/throwback-cambodia-architecture-tourism-phnom-penh-history-tour.html
 

* Article:

Le compartiment chinois est-il chinois?. - Viaro, Mario Alain. Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale. 1992, vol. 27/28, p. 139-150 - https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:25079