Bangkok (Lonely Planet) - Andrew Burke [20]
Disembark at the Mae Nam Chao Phraya pier of Tha Tien (Map), weave your way through the vendor carts selling grilled squid and rice noodles, and you’ll find yourself standing between two rows of shophouses of the sort once found along all the streets near the river. Inside, the ground floors display multi-hued tiles of French, Italian or Dutch design, while upper floors are planked with polished teak. Similar shophouses can be found along Th Tanao in Banglamphu.
In the early 20th century, architects left the Victorian era behind, blended European Art Deco with functionalist restraint and created Thai Art Deco. Built just before WWI, an early and outstanding example of this style is Hualamphong Train Station. The station’s vaulted iron roof and neoclassical portico are a testament to state-of-the-art engineering, while the patterned, two-toned skylights exemplify Dutch modernism.
Fully realised examples of Thai Deco from the 1920s and ’30s can be found along Chinatown’s main streets, particularly Th Yaowarat. Whimsical Deco-style sculptures – the Eiffel Tower, a lion, an elephant, a Moorish dome – surmount vertical towers over doorways. Atop one commercial building on Th Songwat perches a rusting model of a WWII Japanese Zero warplane. Placed there by the Japanese during their brief occupation of Bangkok in 1941, it coordinates perfectly with the surrounding Thai Deco elements. Other examples are the Sala Chalermkrung and Ratchadamnoen Boxing Stadium.
Office Towers, Hotels & Shopping Centres
During most of the post-WWII era, the trend in modern Thai architecture – inspired by the German Bauhaus movement – was towards a boring International Style functionalism, and the average building looked like a giant egg carton turned on its side. The Thai aesthetic, so vibrant in pre-war eras, almost disappeared in this characterless style of architecture.
The city has been moving skywards almost as quickly as it has expanded outwards. When the Dusit Thani Hotel opened in 1970 it was the capital’s tallest building, and even by the end of that decade fewer than 25 buildings stood taller than six floors. By the year 2000, nearly 1000 buildings could claim that distinction, with at least 20 of them towering higher than 45 floors.
On Th Sathon Tai is the Bank of Asia headquarters Click here, known locally as the ‘Robot Building’. Thai architect Sumet Jumsai combined nut-and-bolt motifs at various elevations with a pair of lightning rods on the roof (arranged to resemble sci-fi robot-like antennae) and two metallic-lidded ‘eyes’ staring out from the upper facade. Another equally whimsical example can be seen in the Elephant Building (Map) on Th Phaholyothin in northern Bangkok. Taking influence from Thailand’s national symbol, every aspect of the building, from its external shape down to the door handles, is reminiscent of a pachyderm. Both of these buildings represent the last examples of architectural modernism in Bangkok, a trend that had all but concluded by the mid-1980s.
Almost every monumental project constructed in Bangkok now falls squarely in the postmodernist camp, combining rationalism with decorative elements from the past. Proclaiming its monumental verticality like a colossal exclamation point, the 60-storey Thai Wah II building (Map), also on Th Sathon Tai, combines rectangles and squares to create a geometric mosaic updating Egyptian Deco. At 305m, the cloud-stabbing Baiyoke Tower II Click here is currently the second-tallest structure in Southeast Asia after Kuala Lumpur’s towering Petronas Twin Towers. Stylistically it shows the inspiration of American post-Deco.
Pure verticality is now giving way to tiered skyscrapers in accordance with the city’s setback regulations for allowing light into city streets. The tiered Bangkok City Tower (Map) stacks marble,