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I first interviewed Vann Molyvann in August 2003. A journalist colleague had warned me that he was not the easiest person to interview, so I had braced myself.

Molyvann was larger than life. Physically, he was lean and nearly 1.8 metres tall, although he gave the impression of being much taller. His demeanour reflected who he was: an exceptional man who had spent a lifetime at the decision-making level of government, conceiving huge urban-development projects in Cambodia and abroad. And a man who had returned to Cambodia in 1993 to oversee the restoration of Angkor Archaeological Park’s millennium-old monuments, neglected during the country’s three decades of war.

I would interview him several times over the years, and each time it would be special.

That first time, I knew only that Molyvann had designed some landmarks in the Cambodian capital such as the Independence Monument and Olympic Stadium. It was only when the book Building Cambodia: New Khmer Architecture 1953-1970 came out in 2006 that I grasped the extent of his contribution to the capital’s landscape. The book, written by Darryl Collins and Helen Grant Ross, would be a revelation for many foreigners as well as Cambodians.

The landmark publication would make his work known to a whole generation of Cambodian architecture students. It was standing room only at a conference he gave on the subject that year at the Institut français. Born well after the Khmer Rouge regime and the civil war that split Cambodians in the 1980s, all those students were concerned with was to learn about this movement that Cambodian architects had named “New Khmer Architecture”.

• Tags: architecture, Cambodia, Cambodia Daily, Issue 9, Michelle Vachon, Vann Molyvann