French Embassy, Phnom Penh

The French re-opened their Cambodian embassy in 1996 in a new building, which is clearly the city's outstanding piece of contemporary architecture. The embassy, with its flat roof and rendered white facade, is set on magnificent grounds on the same site that housed the former embassy until it was sacked by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. When the communists took the city, 1,400 Cambodians and foreigners sought shelter in the compound. Under threat that the Khmer Rouge would overrun the embassy, the French agreed to hand over more than 600 Cambodians to the new authorities. Many of them were never seen again.