The Grand Palace of Bangkok

In 1767 Ayutthaya, the capital of the kingdom, fell to the Burmese armies. The fragmented country was reunified by Taksin, who established his power at Thonburi, on the bank of the Chao Phraya opposite the future palace. His reign left him no leisure to build a great residence: the land at his disposal was cramped, and political instability never ceased.⁵

In 1782 Taksin was deposed. Power passed to Thongduang, who had served him and had brought the Emerald Buddha back from Vientiane on his behalf. Having ascended the throne, he became Rama I (reigned 1782–1809), founder of the Chakri dynasty, and made Rattanakosin, on the east bank of the river, his new capital. There he wished to raise a palace that would recall the splendour of Ayutthaya and restore the political and religious might of the kingdom. His successors would preserve this imageIn Thai Buddhism, a devotional representation of the Buddha, most often a statue, venerated as an object of worship. of him: that of the king who built both the city of Bangkok and the Grand Palace of Bangkok.¹⁷

Work began on 6 May 1782. A month later, on 10 June, the king left Thonburi, crossed the Chao Phraya in ceremony and took up residence in the new palace; a first coronation took place the same day, and a second followed on 17 June 1785.⁷

The first palace bore little resemblance to the one visited today. Its buildings were of wood, for masonry was then reserved for the fortifications of the city and the palaces. The bricks of these ramparts had, in part, an unusual origin: they were brought from Ayutthaya, carried by barge along the Chao Phraya, to raise the walls of Bangkok and those of the palace itself. The ruins of the old capital thus supplied part of the material for the new one.¹¹

The palace's Thai name, Phra Borom Maha Ratchawang, piles up honorific titles: it may be rendered literally as 'supreme, great royal palace'. The plan answers the same ambition of lineage. It follows the general layout of the palaces of Ayutthaya, with their successive courts, and the whole complex, enclosed by walls, faces north. The sub-district in which it stands, in Phra Nakhon district, bears its name.⁷

Yet this original plan never became fixed. For more than two hundred years, successive kings added or rebuilt buildings. It is from this gradual growth that the asymmetry of the site and the variety of its styles, which strike the visitor, derive: the Grand Palace of Bangkok is not a monument conceived at a single stroke, but the sum of the successive states of a royal residence.⁷

As at Ayutthaya, the space is divided into three courts running from the most public to the most private. The Outer Court, on the entrance side, housed the administrations that answered directly to the king: the civil administration, the army, the treasury. The Middle Court brings together the state buildings. The Inner Court, at the rear, contained the residences. The Temple of the Emerald Buddha occupies one corner of the complex, beside the Outer Court.¹⁴

This arrangement reflects the dual function intended from the outset: the king had the palace built both to live in and to house the seat of the administration. For some hundred and fifty years, the Grand Palace of Bangkok was thus at once the home of the king and his court and the centre of the entire government.⁴

The Inner Court formed a small city, inhabited solely by women and by boys who had not yet reached puberty. No man entered it, except the king. Here lived the queens, the consorts and the daughters of the sovereign, surrounded by ladies-in-waiting and servants.¹⁴

Under Chulalongkorn (Rama V), the Inner Court was rebuilt and enlarged, at the same time as the Middle Court. It nonetheless became severely overcrowded, so much so that this situation led the king to build a new residence further north, Dusit Palace. Today it remains entirely closed to the public.⁹

From the first years of his reign, Rama I had WatBuddhist monastic complex that brings together, within a single enclosure, several religious buildings, monks’ quarters and ancillary buildings; the word does not refer to a single building. Phra Kaew, or the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, raised within the palace precinct; its full name is Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram. It is not a monastery: no monk or nun lives there. It was the private chapel of the kings and their court.⁶

The Phra UbosotConsecrated ordination hall of a wat: the ritually central building, marked out by sacred boundary stones, where monastic ordinations take place., commissioned by Rama I, is in the Ayutthaya style, with a multi-tiered roof, and is surrounded by a double row of sacred boundary stones that mark out the consecrated space. Inside, the Emerald Buddha is placed beneath a five-tiered prasatIn Thai architecture, a building or canopy with tiered roofs crowned by a spire, a form reserved for sacred images and for royalty.. Since the late eighteenth century, the temple has been regarded as a pinnacle of Thai craftsmanship. It is at once the spiritual heart of Thai Buddhism and of the monarchy, a place of pilgrimage and the most visited site in Bangkok.¹³

Despite its name, the Emerald Buddha, Phra Kaew Morakot in Thai, is not carved from an emerald: it is probably jadeite, a green stone from northern Thailand or from Shan State in Burma. Its origin remains unknown. The statue first appears in the fifteenth century at Chiang RaiThai unit of land area, equivalent to 1,600 square metres.; tradition relates that an abbot, removing a layer of stucco that covered it, discovered the green statue hidden beneath. The Chronicle of the Emerald Buddha, a fifteenth-century text, further ascribes to it a far older, legendary origin.⁶

The statue then entered the history of the Lao kingdoms. The Lao king Setthathirath made it his personal palladium. It was in Vientiane when the future Rama I seized it on behalf of Taksin. Once king, he installed it in the temple he had just built at the heart of his palace.⁸

This journey explains the statue's place in the palace. For a long time, the statue has expressed the legitimacy of the region's rulers. The cult can be read even in the image's appearance: dressed in regalia, it changes them according to the seasons, and it can be seen, for example, in its cool-season attire.⁶

The Dusit Maha Prasat, a throne hall built under Rama I, is in the Rattanakosin style. Its multi-tiered roofs, covered with ceramic tiles in several colours, rise towards a tall spire, in accordance with the rules of traditional Thai style. First an audience hall, it later became the funerary hall of the kings.³

Its name refers to the TusitaIn Buddhist cosmology, the heaven where bodhisattvas dwell before their final earthly birth. heaven, the abode of bodhisattvasIn Buddhism, a being destined to become a Buddha, who pursues the path to Awakening over the course of successive lives.. The choice is not without meaning: it echoes the belief that sees the king as a bodhisattva. The interior decoration extends this idea. The royal throne rests on a tall tiered base adorned with the animals of the HimavantaMythical forest of Buddhist cosmology, located at the foot of the Himalayas and inhabited by fabulous creatures. forest, while the murals show deities in attitudes of respect.³

A century after the founding, Chulalongkorn profoundly transformed the Middle Court. The most conspicuous building of this new phase is the Chakri Maha Prasat, completed in 1882, a hundred years after Rama I took up residence. It occupies a site laden with memories for the king: first a garden stood there, then his mother's house, where the future sovereign had been born and had grown up.¹⁴

For this throne hall, Chulalongkorn called upon a British architect based in Singapore.¹⁴

The Chakri Maha Prasat combines two traditions that are apparent at first glance. The marble façade adopts the Italian Renaissance style; the roof, of coloured Thai-style tiles, bears three seven-tiered spires. The architect's design was altered during construction. The king initially wanted an entirely Western building crowned with domes; members of his court secured Thai roofs and spires. A popular nickname sums up this blend: 'the farang wearing a Thai hat' — that is, 'the Westerner wearing a Thai hat'.¹

Inside, the rooms are decorated in the European taste of the late nineteenth century, with marble columns and portraits of the royal family. The front audience hall leads to the central throne hall, which houses a small nielloTechnique, called thom in Thai, in which metal is engraved and the grooves filled with a black alloy that makes the design stand out against the gold or silver ground. throne. Above the doors appears the emblem of the dynasty: a disc, the chak, pierced by a trident, the ri, which together form the name Chakri.¹⁴

The construction of Dusit Palace, to the north, gradually shifted the centre of royal life. The road linking the two residences became Ratchadamnoen Avenue. Under the reign of Vajiravudh (Rama VI), the royal residences left the Grand Palace of Bangkok. Deprived of its occupants, the Chakri Maha Prasat fell into disrepair.⁹

In 1932 Prajadhipok (Rama VII) launched a major renovation of the Chakri Maha Prasat. Funds were lacking, and the rear part of the building had to be demolished. What can be seen today of the great hall with its marble façade is therefore only part of the building completed in 1882.

The kings no longer live in the palace, but it remains the place where the great moments in the monarch's life unfold. The Dusit Maha Prasat hosts many of the ceremonies that mark a reign, from coronation to death. After the death of Rama I, it was used for the lying in state of kings and senior members of the royal family.³

The Phiman Rattaya, a hall just behind the Dusit Maha Prasat, now hosts the ritual bathing of deceased royals, in the presence of the royal family and senior officials. Cremations then take place on Sanam Luang, beside the palace. In October 2017, the palace and Sanam Luang thus hosted the funeral of Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX).¹⁰

Bhumibol Adulyadej lived at the Chitralada Royal Villa, and Vajiralongkorn (Rama X) lives at the Amphorn Sathan, both residences located within Dusit Palace. The Grand Palace of Bangkok has not, however, become a mere monument: it remains a working palace, housing several royal offices and hosting official ceremonies. Only part of it is open to the public, in the form of a museum.⁷

The palace also houses two museums. In 2003 Queen Sirikit asked to use a vacant building to create a museum devoted to textiles: this is the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, housed in the Ratsadakorn-bhibhathana Building. The Museum of the Arts of the Kingdom, for its part, presents the work of craftsmen from the Queen Sirikit Institute. The visitor thus passes through a place of many faces — at once sanctuary, backdrop to the rites of the monarchy and exhibition space — while the Inner Court, once the heart of domestic life, remains out of sight.⁴