Modernisation of Building: The Transplantation of the Concept of Architecture from Europe to Thailand, 1930s–1950s

Conventional studies consider the transplantation of Modern Architecture from Europe and North America to non-western contexts as a one-way imposition with little adaptation, if any. This research goes beyond the importation of ‘Modern Architecture’ to Thailand by fundamentally questioning the concept of ‘Architecture’ in Thai society between the 1930s and 1950s when it was transplanted for the first time from Europe to Thailand. By analysing archival materials and case studies in relation to their socio-political contexts, the transplantation of the concept of Architecture from Europe to Thailand is treated as an interactive and non-hierarchical process, involving translation, reinterpretation, and transformation. The thesis argues that the transplantation of the concept of ‘Architecture’ was a systematic yet complex and hybrid process that modernised the traditional concept of ‘building’ as perceived in Thai society. This process reassured the Thai elite that Thailand, the only country in Southeast Asia never to have been colonised by any western power, was a civilised country. At the same time, traditional practices, rituals, and beliefs, related to buildings, were not completely eliminated but were transformed and mingled with ‘Architecture’. Accordingly, the modern concept of ‘Architecture’ modernised the traditional concept of ‘building’ but the latter also indigenised the former in many respects. By examining the transplantation of the concept of ‘Architecture’ previously unknown in Thailand, the thesis questions the complex concept of modernity in architecture even before the presence of the Modern Movement. More broadly, it also questions the dichotomy between western/modern and non-western/traditional in transcultural modern architecture.