History Assignment
The Kingdom of Thailand formerly known as Siam, is found in South East Asia. This country is renowned for having the most recorded reigns in the world. (1) About 64 million people live in Thailand and its largest city is Bangkok which is also its capital city. Thailand experienced rapid economic growth between 1985 and 1995, (2) and today, it is a newly industrialised country well renowned with tourists.
Architecture in Thailand is a vital part of the community as it represents both the struggle of living there because of severe weather and also the cultural significance of Thailand and their religious beliefs. Due to the heat from the afternoon sun in Thailand, the bottom part of the house is cooler. The houses reflect the climate and tackle better the attacks from nature. (3) Thailand managed to develop appropriate regional variations in its religious and vernacular buildings.
Today, in Thailand, especially in Bangkok, one finds a great deal of contemporary architecture, as well as a contemporary twist on the more traditional Thai architecture, such as the stilt houses. (4, 5) This outlines in brief the contrasting difference between my two Thai architects named Duangrit Bunnag and Dr. Pinyo Suwankiri.
Dr. Pinyo Suwankiri was born in Songkla in 1937 while Duangrit Bunnag was born in 1966 in Bangkok. Though there is a huge age gap between these two architects, both of them flourished in the last three decades with their recognised projects in Thailand.
Pinyo Suwankiri has dedicated a lot of time and put in tremendous work in order to preserve the dignity and style of Thai architecture. The traditional form of Thai architecture is close to his heart and Dr. Suwankiri treasures it deeply which is ...
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... his work while Dr.Suwankiri strived to preserve the dignity of the conventional Thai stilt structure. The projects of Pinyo are smaller in comparison to those of Duangrit. Here is a table from some information I gathered which states and compares the achievements they have received:
Quoting China Williams (2009) from the book Thailand, Dr. Suwankiri is a traditional building specialist whose work is ubiquitous and the blueprint for an institutional aesthetic of traditional architecture. Following this, she explains that Duangrit Bunnag has excited the design world with his nearly undressed glass boxes offering a contemporary twist on mid-century modernism. The contrasting difference between these two architects cannot be highlighted better. They both offer a lot with regards to Thai architecture and both deliver a bold statement with their unique works.
Buddhist steles are typically large, stone carvings meant to act as markers in prominent locations, such as temples, crossroads, or other Buddhist sites, in order to promote Buddhism. This stele in particular, entitled Shakyamuni and Prabhutaratna, is carved stone, standing 19.7” high. The work was created in China during the Eastern Wei period, sometime around 500 CE, and features indications of the late 5th-early 6th century such as the two seated buddhas and the dense robes worn by the buddhas. For it’s age, the stele is in respectable condition. All of the figures can be discerned from one another and the only obvious wear is around the edges of the stele, predominately on the left hand side. This wear could be from the object being transported from one place to another throughout its history, or from followers touching the piece while admiring it.
Abstract: New forms in current world have been testimony to the contemporary style of postmodern architecture and are the strength of today’s generation for creating significant architectural standards. Post modernism has blurred the borders between contemporary and traditional construction classical concepts and simply in the field of art and literature. The architectural elements like domes, arches, and classical shapes have lost their identity but the post modernism tries to bridge between these historical forms and contemporary styles. The related architects not only struggled to achieve the image for the buildings but also rejected oversimplified diagrams for living. The post modernism here tries to achieve theoretical base for their designs that creates the excitement in the design program.
Pei was born in China in 1917 and immigrated to the United States in 1935. He originally attended the University of Pennsylvania but grew unconfident in his drawing skills so he dropped out and pursued engineering at MIT. After Pei decided to return to architecture, he earned degrees from both MIT and Harvard. In 1956, after he had taught at Harvard for three years, he established I.M. Pei & Partners, an architectural firm that has been known as Pei Cobb Freed & Partners since 1989. This firm is famous for its successful and rational solutions to a variety of design problems. They are responsible for many of the largest pubic and private construction projects in the second half of this century. Some of these projects include the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library in Boston, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
But these contrived differences give rise to esthetic difficulties too. Because inherent differences—those that come from genuinely differing uses—are lacking among the buildings and their settings, the contrivances repre...
As I already mentioned, the number of kathoey´s in Thailand is surpassing, and the origin of this appearance might lie in Religion. The main religion in Thailand is Buddhism, about 95% of the population are Buddhists (3) who follow the rules of this religion in their everyday life. The Thai- Buddhism is called "Theravada Buddhism" and it is a localized form of the original Buddhism which has it's origin in Indian Hinduism (3). The development from the original form to the "modern" Thai Buddhism took place over many years, "the tension between the teachings of the Theravada Buddhism and the Thai animistic practice" (2).This tension was resolved by "appropriating those elements of the Buddhism doctrine that are compatible with animistic thinking and basic human experience."(2). The result of this development of religion is that "institutional and ritual expressions of Thai religion appear to be very Buddhistic indeed, but its characteristic mentality is not so much interested in the moral message of the Theravada as in auspiciousness, worldly continuity and the manipulation of saksit (supernatural "sacred") power"(2).
Thailand is located on the southeastern of Asia, surrounding the bodies of water called the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. Next, Thailand is close to these countries Burma which is 1,800 km from Thailand, Laos which is 1,754 km away from Thailand, and Cambodia which is 803 km from Thailand, and the closest of them all is Malaysia which is 506 km away from Thailand. Moving on, Thailand has a land area average of 510,890 sq. km and it also has a water average of 2,230 sq. km.
The essence of modern architecture lays in a remarkable strives to reconcile the core principles of architectural design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society. However, it took “the form of numerous movements, schools of design, and architectural styles, some in tension with one another, and often equally defying such classification, to establish modernism as a distinctive architectural movement” (Robinson and Foell). Although, the narrower concept of modernism in architecture is broadly characterized by simplification of form and subtraction of ornament from the structure and theme of the building, meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose; the visual expression of the structure, particularly the visual importance of the horizontal and vertical lines typical for the International Style modernism, the use of industrially-produced materials and adaptation of the machine aesthetic, as well as the truth to materials concept, meaning that the true nat...
To understand the role of place in architecture, the author compares architecture to language. Language has patterns and arrangements, architecture relates directly to what humans do. It changes or evolves as
Throughout the world, there are an abundance of diverse cultures, each truly unique in comparison to another. Culture is described as the “characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts” (Zimmermann). Each of these traits is what sets each society apart, and is what influences their expression of design. Throughout this course, we’ve learned how planning and design have varied all through history, however we decided to take it a step further and focus on how different regions throughout the world create spaces that reflect their own cultures’ particular interests. Being a group composed entirely of Interior Design majors, our emphasis is investigating the use of material, color, motifs and layouts of their interior spaces, and how they reflect their societies. Not only do we explore a culture’s influence on design, but we briefly touch on environmental factors as well. Of all of the regions throughout the world, we decided to focus our research on the cultural practices and designs of Mexico, India, and Japan. Our reasoning behind centering on these three cultures is that these cultures are some of the most well-known, yet each entirely distinct within their own way, thus providing a greater understanding of design styles around the world.
In the following essay, I will be comparing and contrasting to architectural pieces by the Indians. The first is the Taj Mahal, a building constructed from white marble that took seventeen years to build in honor of Shah Jahan’s wife, Mumtaz Mahal (Z. Haq). This piece of architectural beauty belonged to the Mughal’s, the Muslim emperors in India (Z. Haq). The second is the Great Stupa at Sanchi, a holy, dome shaped structure that covers the body of the Buddha in honor of him and his contributions to Buddhism (Fischer, Julia). Furthermore, this structure was made of ruins, rocks, mud, and covered in bricks (Fischer, Julia). Both pieces of architecture are significant to the Indians, however they do contrast in some ways.
The pavilion is significant figure in the history of modern architecture, regarded to be influential with its open plan and use of exotic material. There is a blurred spatial demarcation where the interior becomes an exterior and exterior becomes the interior. The structure constantly offers new perspectives and experiences, as visitors discover and rediscover in the progress of moving throughout the in’s and out’s, a non directional conforming circulating movement pattern. To facilitate this movement, even though it is a visually simplistic plan, its complexity is derived from the strategic layout of walls with its intimation of an infinite freedom of
Human beings are susceptible to the force of nature. They had to make shelter for themselves. Material was one of the most basic tools to create shelter. By development of building construction, selection and use of materials also developed. The relationship between the architecture and the materials before invention of modern materials was simple and generally naturally [1]; in the past, architects always use tradition materials according their experimental skills. For choosing structural materials, they had attention to important factors such as availability (local materials) and harmony with climate and culture [2], although this way was forward with feedback. But this relationship was not continuing simply.
Thailand was originally named Siam, however in 1949 it got renamed to Thailand. The name “Thailand" comes from the word thai, meaning "free". So Thailand directly translates into “Free land” or “Land of free”. Coincidentally Thailand is actually the only country in Asia that was never colonized by Europe! Thailand has a very rich cultural diversity throughout the country. Their population is a mixture of ethnicities from different parts of Asia. The majority of these individuals are Thai and speak Malay and follow the Muslim Religion. The rest of the population is a mixture of...
A curious blend of the traditional East with the modern West, Bangkok’s every street has a surprise in hold for the visitor. Ramshackle buildings crouch next to exotic temples surrounded by delightful gardens, which are in turn overlooked by modern hotels and offices. Bangkok has emerged as a major world city with the traffic jams to match, as well as the all-pervasive mobile phones and designer clothes that are a prominent feature on the streets. The chaos on the roads is mirrored by the busy traffic on the Chao Phraya River, which dissects the city and is regularly crisscrossed by long-tailed boats, river taxis and small rowing boats, all miraculously missing each other.