Archive for 2008
February 28, 2008 at 12:00 am · Filed under Architecture, Thailand
Walked out of Nakhon Pathom’s train station and it was squarely right front of us. The scale of the chedi is huge compared to the rest of the town, which, after all, is named after the chedi.
It appeared small for “the largest chedi in Thailand” from the train station, where I first saw it.
And we started walking towards it … and walking … and walking.
And when I realised (visually) it hasn’t gotten any bigger, this thing must be massive!
The chedi is approximately 120 metres high.
The sheer size of it is hard to tell, even up close like this. If you care to imagine, those irregular specks on top are not dirt but pigeons. (To architects, the tiles are about 150mm x 150mm for scale).
Like all chedis, there’s no “inside” per say. So we walked around the also unassumingly large colonnade. The whole atmosphere is really, urm, ORANGE though it’s not captured on camera (thank you, JPEG algorithms). And the colour really lends itself to the calming serenity, kind of like, a perpetual quiet sunset feeling.
Then you see a statue that looks a little “CHINESE”?
Sure enough, Phra Pathom Chedi also claims to be the oldest temple in Thailand (trans: Pathom means “of the beginning”). So it has a lot of history going for it (apparently since the 4th century) but what you see today is initiated by King Mongkut in 1853.
So the statues are ballast stones from Chinese ships that sailed here a few hundred years ago. What?
Well, why use boring rectilinear stones when you can carve elaborate statues just for keeping ships bouyant? After we load our ships with much heavier cargo, we’ll just dump these elaborate-looking statues onshore!
Calling the chinese opulent?? Who dares to be so insolent…
January 13, 2008 at 9:26 am · Filed under Architecture, Thailand
I have something to confess …
I have this uncontrollable urge to immediately condemn any form of “classical” European style in this part of the world.
I know, I know but you’ll be surprised with the prevalence of bungalows with Greek columns, Tudor facades and “Some Exotic Asian” roof, not only in Thailand but in all parts of Asia.
You may also be surprised that most of these houses are not products of 80′s Post-Modern historicity but comes from an unbroken lineage of rags-to-riches clientele who felt compelled to be Euro-centric once they consider themselves “upper-class”.
Looking at Hua Lamphong train station …. I have a feeling this culture goes WAY back.
This train station is built in the Italian Renaissance style in the early 20th century by a Turin-born Mario Tamagno. So at least it was designed by a European, but at that time I’m sure he would have felt the bubbling excitement of Art Nouveau and/or Art Deco.
But thanks to a genuinely Euro-centric monarch known as the famous King Chulalongkorn of Siam (Rama V of the Chakri Dynasty), these ideas are very much at home with his grand plans to “westernise” Siam. So I suppose even “Italian Renaissance” would appear to be progressive.
Here’s a closer look of him in his official (note: Western) uniform.
So you have a rapidly Westernising Siam, and the overwhelming presence of Britain in India, Malaya & Burma, Dutch in Indonesia and the French in Indochina – all of the sudden, European IS the aristocracy.
But why the eclecticism? King Mongkut (also known as Rama IV – the father of our good fellow above) has an interesting quote that far outlived him …
King Mongkut once remarked to a Christian missionary friend: “What you teach us to do is admirable, but what you teach us to believe is foolish”.
So you see, when it comes to matters of science and technology everything is just imported wholesale. When it comes to matters of culture and religion, it seems that opinions are reserved. And when opinions are reserved, the opportunity for hybridity and “fusion” (so to say) becomes inevitable.
Much like how the Europeans had to somewhat reconcile the Industrial Age with their older architectural habits with, for instance, the Art Nouveau/Deco movement – everyone else in other parts of the world was pretty much doing the same thing albeit with a more jarring consequence in the Far East because of the greater divide.
Of course, I am not attributing the mentality in the region entirely to Rama V, but I’m sure this anecdote is a good insight into how the story played out elsewhere in the vicinity. So here’s my mini-lecture on early 20th century Siam architecture.
BUT … next time you feel nauseated by another Southeast Asian building with an absurd mix of “styles” ….. give it a little thought, the reasons may be more deeply rooted than you think.
January 3, 2008 at 7:52 am · Filed under Architecture, Thailand
Unlike many cities in the world, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur chose to build their mass transit trains ABOVE ground. For good reason I feel.
Why would you …
… in a climate where the temperature under shade is a constant 25˚C whole year round with wide-open highways ripe for stacking layers of freeways above …
… want to waste time shoving something underground??
No air-conditioning + no digging = lots of money saved !!
Of course, the trade off is the Blade Runner set you see above.
But … Menacing Concrete Jungle vs. Slick Sci-Fi Metropolis … take your Distopian/Utopian slant !!
Siam Square is not really a square, but a freak-load of shopping malls lining a boulevard of Asian consumerist indulgence (like Singapore’s Orchard Road, or Tokyo’s Ginza, and et cetera). Again, take your slant.
I used to be terrified at the prospect of more and more hyper massive impersonal shopping labyrinths. But having stayed in laid back Sydney for so long – I really miss the high energy 24/7 buzz in Asian malls, with wide open spaces in between to chill or meet people.
I mean WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEE open spaces.
Or if you’re still conservative, there’re still plenty of ultra claustrophobic people-packed venues! All in the name of more Shopping, Socialising & Eating!!
Ahhh, the wonderful paradoxes of my Asian compatriots …
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