Dusit, Rama V's ‘European-style’ royal quarter: how a palace garden shifted the centre of Bangkok

At the end of the 19th century, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) had rice fields and orchards purchased north of Bangkok, between two canals. Within some fifteen years, this ‘Dusit garden’ had become a royal quarter of an entirely new kind. It held teak villas, throne halls designed by Italians, a marble temple, a dead-straight avenue and a square adorned with an equestrian statue. Yet Dusit is not simply a copy of Europe. It shifted the centre of power, opened the city up beyond its walls and presented a modern Siam to the colonial powers. A look back at how this district was made, at its grey areas and at the uses it serves today.

Between two canals, rice fields north of the city

To place Dusit, one must start from the river. The capital founded by the Chakri dynasty first clustered on the east bank of the Chao Phraya, around the Grand Palace. This core occupies the ‘island’ of Rattanakosin, bounded by the river and a belt of canals (khlong). To the north-east, some four kilometres from the Grand Palace, rice fields and orchards still stretched out at the end of the 19th century. It was there, between Khlong Phadung Krung Kasem to the south and Khlong Samsen to the north, that Rama V had land acquired from 1897 onwards. The first of these canals then marked the outer limit of the city.

The purchases went through the king's Privy Purse (Krom Phra Khlang Khang Thi), which bought the plots from residents of the northern part of the city. The academics Bundit Chulasai and Ratchada Chotiphanich recall this in a column published by the daily Matichon. The database of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, a public body under the Ministry of Culture, specifies that the king paid from his personal fortune and named the place ‘Suan Dusit’, the Dusit garden. The detail matters: the estate came under the royal purse rather than the administration, which left the sovereign considerable freedom in laying it out.

Why move away from the Grand Palace? The daily Thairath puts forward a very practical reason. Over successive reigns, the compound had filled with tightly packed buildings that blocked the flow of air, and it had become stifling in the hot season. The encyclopaedia Wikipedia adds the king's fondness for long walks and for cycling, then in fashion: he is said to have ridden back and forth by bicycle, with his retinue, between the Grand Palace and his garden. The calendar supplies a third element. In 1897 Chulalongkorn returned from his first journey to Europe, where he had seen capitals transformed by major public works, with their parks and their pleasure residences. The sequence of dates is established. The idea that he wished to reproduce a specific European model, on the other hand, is a matter of interpretation.

From Suan Dusit to Wang Dusit: a foundation in stages

The founding date of Dusit varies from source to source. These dates do not necessarily contradict one another: rather, they refer to successive stages of a single project.

• 1897: return from Europe and first land purchases, according to the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre and the Matichon column.
• 1898: start of works according to the magazine Silpa-Mag (Silpawattanatham). Thairath instead places in that year the king's visit to the land, followed by the order to buy it.
• 1899: founding date adopted by Thairath, which celebrated the palace's ‘120 years’ in 2019, and by the Thai-language Wikipedia. A formal installation of the king on 1 March 1899 is sometimes put forward, but only one tourism website mentions it.
• 1901: inauguration of Vimanmek, the first permanent residence. The English-language Wikipedia sums up the whole process as ‘1897–1901’.

The name of the place evolved too. It was at first a wang suan, a palace garden. In Buddhist cosmology, Dusit refers to a paradise, the Tusita heaven; it is often rendered as ‘celestial abode’. According to the thesis of the architect and historian Koompong Noobanjong (2003), cited by Wikipedia, the estate became ‘Wang Dusit’ once it was clear that the king preferred to live there. The mere garden thereby became a true royal residence. The Thai-language Wikipedia places this change of name under Rama VI, who is also said to have renamed the palace gates, according to Silpa-Mag. The two versions are not mutually exclusive: usage may have preceded official recognition.

A hybrid palace garden

Builders from Europe

According to Noobanjong, cited by Wikipedia, the team that designed Dusit was entirely European, with one exception: Prince Naris (Narisara Nuwattiwong), the king's half-brother. It included the German Sandreczki, already architect of the Boromphiman Palace, and Italians who would leave a lasting mark on Bangkok. The best known is Mario Tamagno, born in Turin in 1877, who arrived in Siam in 1900 on a twenty-five-year contract in government service; he was also responsible for Hua Lamphong railway station. He was joined by Annibale Rigotti and Ercole Manfredi. Guidebooks often credit Prince Naris with overall direction of the works. The sources consulted do not confirm this: they document his role in the reassembly of Vimanmek and in the design of the neighbouring temple, Wat Benchamabophit.

Vimanmek, a pavilion from the sea

Dusit's first residence was not built on site. It came from Ko Si Chang, an island in the Gulf of Thailand, in Chonburi province. There the building had stood as the Munthatu Rattanaroj pavilion, within the Phra Chuthathut Palace. Noobanjong dates its construction to 1892. Between 1900 and 1901 it was dismantled, transported and re-erected at Dusit. It took the name Vimanmek and was inaugurated on 27 March 1901. This transfer shows that timber architecture could travel: the royal estate was also assembled from salvaged elements.

Two common claims should be treated with caution. According to a tradition repeated by many guides, the building was put together without nails, but Wikipedia states, on the contrary, that nails were used. As for the title of ‘largest golden teak building in the world’, it is a tourist slogan for which there is no supporting evidence. Noobanjong classes Vimanmek among the hybrid Siamese-European residences characteristic of the reign. The king lived there for about five years, until Amphorn Sathan was completed.

Abhisek Dusit and Amphorn Sathan

Built in 1903 and 1904 to designs by Tamagno, the Abhisek Dusit Throne Hall was used for banquets and state receptions. It is made of wood and shows a marked Moorish influence, a sign that Dusit's ‘Europe’ was itself composite. The building later housed a museum devoted to Thai crafts. The Amphorn Sathan Residence was completed in 1906. Rama V died there on 23 October 1910. Today it is the residence of King Vajiralongkorn (Rama X): Dusit is not merely a collection of museums but still a living home of the monarchy.

The Ruean Ton, a Siamese counterpoint

Amid these buildings, the king also had a modest traditional Siamese house built for himself, the Ruean Ton, noted by Noobanjong in a 2023 article. This detail prevents Dusit from being reduced to straightforward Westernisation. The king did not abandon Siamese forms: he had them coexist with others. Noobanjong sees in this a deliberate stylistic hybridity and reads it from a postcolonial perspective. Architecture would thus become a means of negotiating a modern identity without submitting to an imposed model. It is an interpretation, but it has the merit of taking the whole ensemble of buildings into account.

Ratchadamnoen: the avenue that drew the city northwards

An outlying palace only makes sense if it is connected to the centre. Between 1899 and 1903, Ratchadamnoen Avenue, the ‘royal way’, was cut through, linking the Grand Palace to Dusit and ending at the Royal Plaza. It is divided into three sections: Ratchadamnoen Nai (‘inner’), Klang (‘middle’) and Nok (‘outer’). It crosses the canals on the Phan Phiphop Lila and Phan Fa Lilat bridges. In a city long organised around water, where people travelled mainly by boat, this great straight thoroughfare overturned the organisation of space.

Its effects were considerable. For Noobanjong, the palace and the avenue enabled Bangkok to expand beyond its walls: the palace drew the city northwards, and the avenue accommodated that growth. An academic article consulted in excerpt form, whose author could not be identified, speaks of a shift in the political map. Power, hitherto concentrated around the Grand Palace, now stretched out towards Dusit. The elite followed the king. Palaces, military headquarters and then ministries settled along Ratchadamnoen Nok. Under Rama VI, Chitralada Palace, built east of Dusit, extended this movement.

Other readings are more political. The independent outlet Prachatai sees the avenue as the link between an ‘old Siam’, that of the Grand Palace, and a ‘new Siam’, that of Dusit. It would be a ‘showcase of civilisation’ aimed at the Western powers, at a time when Britain and France were carving up mainland Southeast Asia. Siam would thereby show that it was a modern state and not a territory to be colonised. This reading rests on the chronology and on the choice of forms. It nonetheless remains an interpretation, one that the king's written intentions, not consulted for this article, would make it possible to verify.

The Royal Plaza and Ananta Samakhom: staging the monarchy

An equestrian statue for a jubilee

On 11 November 1908, to mark Chulalongkorn's forty years on the throne, a bronze equestrian statue some five metres high was unveiled on the Royal Plaza. It was made in Paris by Georges Saulo and funded by public subscription. According to Wikipedia, the surplus from the collection was used by Rama VI to found Chulalongkorn University. A set of stamps issued the same day went up to a value of 40 ticals, echoing the forty years of the reign.

The origin of the project is debated. According to Wikipedia, it was Crown Prince Vajiravudh, then regent, who proposed it together with his ministers, following a remark by the king. A website specialising in equestrian statuary claims instead that the king himself, impressed by the statue of Louis XIV he had seen at Versailles in 1907, sat for it in Paris. A primary source could settle the matter: Prince Damrong's account of its construction, available in Thai. Nor has the monument stood still: every 23 October, the anniversary of the king's death, it receives tributes and offerings, a practice that ties Dusit to the popular memory of the reign.

A marble throne hall

At the far end of the plaza rises the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall, whose name means roughly ‘place of the immense assembly’. Rama V took up the name of a hall built by his father, King Mongkut, thus setting the new within a dynastic continuity. The building, in Neo-Renaissance and Neoclassical style, was designed by Tamagno and Rigotti, in collaboration with Manfredi. Its central dome reaches 49.5 metres and is surrounded by six smaller domes. It is commonly said to be clad in Carrara marble, but only unreliable sources state this.

The chronology remains uncertain. The commission is dated to 1907 or 1908 depending on the source, and completion to 1915 or 1916. Silpa-Mag publishes a photograph from the National Archives showing the inauguration ceremony in 2459 of the Buddhist Era, that is, 1916. One certainty remains: Rama V, who died in 1910, never saw his great project finished.

Galileo Chini's frescoes

The interior paintings trace the history of the Chakri dynasty from the first to the sixth reign. They are the work of the Italian painter Galileo Chini, who stayed in Bangkok from 1911 to 1913. According to the Arc of Memory project of the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University, he worked there for two years with his assistants Carlo Rigoli and Giovanni Sguanci and a team of Italian decorators, having first studied classical Siamese ornamentation. The dates of his engagement vary. The Uffizi in Florence speaks of a commission from Rama V in 1910, and the Chini foundation of an arrival in late spring 1911. Thai PBS World mentions a contract dated 17 October 1911 signed ‘a few days before the death of Rama V’, which is impossible and is probably a confusion over the year.

This commission also fed into European painting. Back in Italy, Chini exhibited a Chinese New Year in Bangkok at the 1914 Venice Biennale, now held at the Palazzo Pitti. The king is said to have noticed him at an earlier Biennale, according to the Uffizi. A preparatory sketch for the ceiling, long lost, has recently been restored in Thailand after three years of work.

From absolute monarchy to Parliament

The fate of Ananta Samakhom illustrates the transformations of the site. During the 1932 revolution, the hall served as headquarters for the People's Party (Khana Ratsadon). The first Assembly is said to have met there on 28 June 1932, a date that still needs to be confirmed against a parliamentary source. The building designed to celebrate an absolute monarchy thus became the seat of Parliament in a constitutional monarchy, a role it kept until 1974. The ceremony of the State Opening of parliamentary sessions by the king was still held there until recently.

Wat Benchamabophit, the palace temple

A Siamese royal palace is incomplete without its temple. In 1899, Rama V ordered the construction of Wat Benchamabophit, whose name means ‘temple of the fifth king, near Dusit Palace’. Prince Naris drew up the plans. Works were completed in 1911 according to Wikipedia, which presents it as the first temple in the country to use marble, hence its nickname of ‘Marble Temple’. The contrast with the neighbouring throne halls is striking. The same material, a symbol of imported prestige, here serves a religious architecture of Siamese forms. The temple thus anchors the new quarter in Buddhist kingship.

Several accounts of the site's history circulate, reported by travel guides. They are unverified and belong to tradition. A monastery is said to have stood here as early as the Ayutthaya period. In the 1820s, five princes of the reign of Rama III are said to have set up a military position here, hence the former name of ‘monastery of the five princes’. The ashes of Rama V are said to rest beneath the replica of the Phra Phuttha Chinnarat Buddha enthroned in the temple. These traditions speak of the site's bond with the king's memory, but they are not established facts.

A heritage in motion

Dusit has never been a fixed ensemble. From the reign of Rama VI onwards, functions shifted. Vimanmek housed Queen Indrasakdi Sachi and then, from 1932, served only as a storehouse for the Bureau of the Royal Household. In 1982, for Bangkok's bicentenary, Queen Sirikit had it restored and turned into a museum. For more than thirty years it was one of the most visited sites in the quarter.

The recent period has been marked by closures. In July 2016, the Bureau of the Royal Household closed Vimanmek to the public. Ananta Samakhom closed in turn in October 2017, indefinitely. In 2019, Vimanmek was entirely dismantled. According to Bangkok city hall documents consulted by Khaosod English, the operation aims to repair the foundations, and palace officials have announced an identical reconstruction, with no timetable. Figures circulating online about the cost of the works or a permanent closure are unconfirmed. Nor do the sources gathered here specify the heritage protection status of the ensemble.

What Dusit ultimately reveals is less a ‘European-style quarter’ than a territory shaped by a political choice. Rice fields between two canals became, within some fifteen years, a new centre of power. An avenue shifted the city northwards and ministries followed the sovereign. Forms from Italy, Germany and the Moorish world stand alongside a Siamese house and a marble temple. The hall built for absolute monarchy housed the first Parliament, and the pavilion brought from Ko Si Chang now waits to be reassembled a second time. To read Dusit is to observe how Chulalongkorn's Siam used urban space to present itself to the world, and how later eras redefined its uses.

Sources and further reading

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2. Contributeurs Wikipédia, List of Thai royal residences, Wikipedia, n.d..
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5. Contributeurs Wikipédia, Abhisek Dusit Throne Hall, Wikipedia, n.d..
6. Contributeurs Wikipédia, Wat Benchamabophit, Wikipedia, n.d..
7. Contributeurs Wikipédia, Ratchadamnoen Avenue, Wikipedia, n.d..
8. Contributeurs Wikipédia, Equestrian statue of King Chulalongkorn, Wikipedia, n.d..
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12. Contributeurs Wikipédia, Ercole Manfredi, Wikipedia, n.d..
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14. Koompong Noobanjong, Power, Identity, and the Rise of Modern Architecture: from Siam to Thailand (thèse de doctorat, repérée, non consultée), University of Colorado, 2003.
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