A building accentuated by huge Greek-style pillars in the Aung Myay Thazi Housing Complex, Kamaryut township.

FIRST-TIME visitors to some of Yangon’s wealthier suburbs are likely to be confused by the profusion of Greek-style pillars adorning – and sometimes obscuring – the front of many houses.

While the pillars themselves are obvious, the reasons for why so many house-builders choose to have them erected are not so. Greek pillars seem to be about one thing – showing people how much money you earn, especially with the Myanmar preference for building homes on main roads, where they are most obvious.

U Win Khaing is general secretary of the Myanmar Engineering Society and suggests that pillars in front of buildings are ingrained in Myanmar’s history.
“Ancient architects in Myanmar made buildings with huge wooden pillars in front of them; people can still go and see examples of this at the Mandalay Palace and Thudamma rest house,” he says.

However, traditional pillars share little with today’s residential versions. U Myint Thein, managing director of Thein Construction Co, says historical links to today’s Greek-style pillars can be seen in much more recent history.

“We can see some older buildings – like the Myanmar Port Authority Building on Pansodan Street downtown or the Yangon Technological University at Gyo Gone in Insein Township – that have enormous pillars,” he says.

“I think these pillars make the buildings look quite grand,” he says providing insight into why some people want stone pillars to front their houses.

Another Yangon-based architect, U Than Tin Aung, says pillars at the front of houses rarely have any structural value and are more about style.

“Buildings don’t actually need these pillars in-front of them at all, although houses with large overhanging porches or balcony’s might need some additional support,” he says.

U Than Tin Aung, a former guest lecturer at the Mandalay Technological University, says the trend for massive decorated pillars started in the pre-war era.

“In the pre-war era, builders and developers started constructing porticos and porches with large pillars, copying styles they had seen in other countries,” he says, adding that pillars were in these styles.

However, he says the desire for large and ornate Greek-style pillars started much more recently.

“People really started to building with modern-looking porticos and porches supported by huge pillars around 1999 or 2000 if my memory serves me right,” U Than Tin Aung says.