Ministers' Building
| Yangon Secretariat | |
|---|---|
| Native name ဝန်ကြီးများရုံး | |
|
The Secretariat building in the early 1900s. Over the course of the building's later life the complex's grand cupola and 10 of 18 ornate towers on its left and right wings were demolished. | |
| Location | Botataung, Yangon, Yangon Region, Myanmar |
| Coordinates | 16°46′32″N 96°9′57″E / 16.77556°N 96.16583°ECoordinates: 16°46′32″N 96°9′57″E / 16.77556°N 96.16583°E |
| Built | 1905 |
| Designated | 1996 |
  Location of Yangon Secretariat in Myanmar | |
The Ministers' Building (Burmese: ဝန်ကြီးများရုံး; also called the Ministers' Office; formerly The Secretariat or Secretariat Building), was the home and administrative seat of British Burma, in downtown Yangon, Burma.[1] Built in the late 1800s, the structure is more than 120 years old. It was where Aung San and 6 cabinet ministers were assassinated on 19 July 1947, now commemorated as Burmese Martyrs' Day. The building is currently on the Yangon City Heritage List and completely abandoned. It occupies an entire city block, bounded by Anawrahta Road to the north, Theinbyu Road to the east, Maha Bandula Road to the south and Bo Aung Kyaw Street to the west.[2]
The central building was completed in 1902, while the complex's eastern and western wings were finished in 1905, at the cost of 2.5 million kyats.[3] Until 1972, the complex was called the Government Secretariat.[3]
In 2011, amid national discussions on converting Yangon's colonial-era buildings to attract tourism, there are tentative plans to convert the Ministers' Building into a museum, not a hotel.[4]
In February 2012, 7 local companies and 3 foreign companies submitted a proposal to the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC) to convert the Ministers' Building into a hotel and museum.[5]
References
- ↑ Burma Under British Rule By Joseph Dautremer, p. 151
- ↑ Htar Htar Khin (31 October 2011). "Tourism official spurs old buildings debate". Myanmar Times. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- 1 2 Chan Myae Thu; Aung Khin (2011). "Myanmar to lease colonial-era Ministers' Office in Yangon for business purpose". Eleven News. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- ↑ Min Thet (28 October 2011). "Ministers' Office building will not be transformed into a hotel". Mizzima News. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
- ↑ "ဝန်ကြီးဌာန ရုံးဟောင်းများ၊ မြေကွက်များတွင် ဟိုတယ်နှင့် ပြတိုက်ပြုလုပ်ရန် နိုင်ငံခြား ကုမ္ပဏီသုံးခုနှင့် ပြည်တွင်း ကုမ္ပဏီခုနစ်ခုတို့ MIC သို့ အဆိုပြုလွှာတင်ထား". Weekly Eleven News (in Burmese). 1 February 2012.