Letter from Bangkok

Architectural Review, The, April, 2001 by Rob Gregory

Bangkok accepts city life with all its idiosyncrasies, and the many layers of history fuse past and future.

Founded in 1782, Bangkok has grown at an astonishing rate. Since 1900, the city's metropolitan area exploded from 13.2sq km to more than 330sq km and its population has swelled from 300 000 to an estimated 10 million. More new buildings have been built over the last 20 years than during the previous two centuries, and the number of buildings with more than six storeys has increased from less than 25 to over a thousand.

Bangkok's ability to mix and merge the varied layers essential to any authentic city distinguishes it from other Eastern metropoli such as Singapore, where history has been ruthlessly swept away to leave an efficient but sanitized modern metropolis. While this could be a result of the remarkable pace of change, it can also be seen as Bangkok's interpretation of the Buddhist principle of impermanence that places little value on the heritage of the manmade or the unnecessary preservation of the past. The result is a city endowed with an almost carefree acceptance of changing urban life and all its idiosyncrasies. Bangkok has been described as being both chaotic and serene, ancient and modern, sacred and profane, and as a city that panders to nouveau riche greed while embodying traditional values. [1] Despite these contradictions, Bangkok possesses an unmistakable sense of place and unlike other cities, cannot be divorced from its culture. It is both universal and regional.

While some may consider that the city has been ruined during recent decades by the pace of change, there is evidence that the city has always struggled to resolve issues such as the quality of its urban fabric and traffic congestion. These issues are as old as the city itself and not, as some may assume, recent phenomena. The authenticity of the city's architecture and the rationalization of its transport system are issues that can be traced throughout Bangkok's history.

Bangkok exhibited Post-Modernist traits long before the building boom of the 1980s. In his 1936 book, Bali and Anchor, Geoffrey Gorer wrote that Thai architecture is 'the same as Cambodian, but with knobs on -- lots of knobs. Bangkok is the most hokum place I have ever seen, never having been to California. It is a triumph of the "imitation" school; nothing is what it looks like; if it is not parodying European buildings it is parodying Khmer ones; failing anything else it will parody itself." [2]

Similarly, as the following description of one visitor's frustrations demonstrates, criticisms over the state of Bangkok's transport system were evident as early as 1836, more than 160 years ago. 'One of the most annoying and grievous circumstances of any business in this country, is the delay incident in travelling even from one part of Bangkok to the other. When a person wishes to transact any business a mile distant which, at home, would easily be done in an hour, it will ordinarily require three or four here,' observed J.T. Jones. [3] Jones was describing the busy canal boat network that was unable to cope with the demands of the growing number of city commuters, Historically, the city has struggled to find a transport system capable of meeting the increasing demands,

In 1864 one of the biggest changes in Bangkok's transport history occurred when it was transformed from the canal-based Venice of the East to a road-based city that was to become Asia's answer to LA. With the shift made from water to road, horse-drawn trains (introduced in 1888) were replaced by electric trains in 1897. These went on to become the city's primary form of transport for almost 70 years. Eventually, following the postwar introduction of bus routes, the last stretches of track were encased in asphalt in 1965 to make way for cars and buses.

But the city has never had enough roads and gridlock has become another accepted feature of modern metropolitan life. Despite the fact that traffic flow is believed to have reduced by 25 per cent following the recent addition of elevated expressways and the repossession of tens of thousands of cars during the economic crisis of 1997, there is still a huge congestion problem, An estimated 3 million vehicles crawl through the streets, a figure thought to be rising by 1000 per day. Most cities have road surface figures of over 20 per cent of the overall city area, but Bangkok's roads account for a mere 8.5 per cent. [4] Clearly, another significant infrastructure change was required, so in 1994 work began on 60km elevated monorail that would link the centre with the airport. This has yet to be completed, but the first phase, consisting of a 23.5km city centre two line route, was opened in December 1999. Averaging a speed of 35kph, the Skytrain gracefully sweeps over the traffic below, which rarely exceeds 14kph . The train is not only faster and cleaner, but with an operating sound output of 0.1dB, is also significantly quieter than buses or the precarious three wheeled tuk-tuks.