Khmer Architecture

Khmer architecture is the building tradition of the Khmer Empire, which dominated much of mainland Southeast Asia from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries from its center in what is now Cambodia, built chiefly in sandstone and laterite as temple mountains representing Mount Meru, the sacred mountain at the center of the cosmos in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. Khmer temple complexes are typically laid out as a series of concentric enclosure walls and moats surrounding a central tower or group of towers, a plan meant to symbolize the mountain ranges and cosmic ocean believed to encircle Mount Meru itself, with long galleries carved in extensive bas relief depicting religious narratives and scenes of court and military life. The tradition's supreme monument is Angkor Wat, built under King Suryavarman II in the first half of the twelfth century, originally dedicated as a Hindu temple to the god Vishnu before gradually being adapted for Buddhist worship in later centuries, and still recognized today as the largest religious monument in the world by land area. Angkor Wat's five central towers, arranged in a quincunx around the tallest central spire, became the defining silhouette of Khmer temple architecture and remain a national symbol of Cambodia.