Wang Phaya Thai
The Wang Phaya Thai ( Thai : วัง พญาไท , official name Phra Ratchawang Phaya Thai - พระราชวัง พญาไท - German Phaya-Thai-Palast ; English Phya Thai Palace ) is a former palace in Bangkok , the capital of Thailand . Today he is part of the Phra Mongkutklao Hospital of the Thai Army.
location
The Phaya Thai Palace is located between the Samsen Canal ( คลอง สามเสน - Khlong Samsen ) and Thanon Ratchawithi ( ถนน ราชวิถี - Ratchawithi Street ) in the Ratchathewi District ( Khet ) in the northeast of central Bangkok. Not far away is the Victory Monument ( อนุสาวรีย์ ชัยสมรภูมิ - Victory Monument).
history
After the Dusit Palace was completed, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) had several roads built in the Dusit district , including the Thanon Sanghi (today: Thanon Ratchawithi), which lead through orchards and vegetable gardens along the Samsen Canal to Thung Phaya Thai ran an area with rice fields at that time. King Chulalongkorn and Queen Saowabha liked this area, they felt “in the country” here, far away from the stress of the Grand Palace . In 1909, the king bought a piece of vegetable gardens and rice fields the size of 100 rai (about 16 hectares ). There he had a royal villa built, which he named Phra Tamnak Phaya Thai ( พระ ตำหนัก พญาไท - "Phaya Thai mansion").
On the palace grounds, the king and queen planned to set up a demonstration farm to experiment with growing various types of rice and vegetables and to raise Leghorn chickens . The annual “First Plowing Ceremony” was later held on this site. Unfortunately, King Chulalongkorn died just months after the official inauguration.
At the invitation of King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) , Queen Saowabha lived with many of her relatives, princes and princesses for the next ten years until her death in 1920 in the Phaya Thai Palace. Then King Vajiravudh had all the buildings demolished except for the Thewarat Saparom Throne Hall ( พระที่นั่ง เทว ราช สภา รมย์ ). Some buildings were rebuilt in the Vajiravudh School, others were donated to Wat Rachathiwat as the abbot's kuti . The king then built numerous new throne halls, four of which are still preserved today.
From 1919 on, Vajiravudh had a model city called Dusit Thani ("heavenly city") built in a 4000 square meter section of the palace grounds, and he was the "chief planner and architect" of the city. The miniature city contained 1:12 scale models of important buildings in Bangkok, but also facilities such as a factory, a hospital, a cinema, a mosque, a castle, a clock tower and a town hall, as well as shops, restaurants and a hotel, based on Western models , a working lighthouse and electric street lighting. The “city”, whose “citizens” were selected courtiers and friends of the king, was given a constitution and published two newspapers. Mayoral elections were held and two political parties - recognizable by blue and red ribbons - organized. In part, the project is interpreted as an attempt to prepare for the introduction of a constitutional or even democratic form of government in Siam. Other authors attribute it to the king's predilection for lavish miniature worlds and diagnose him with a kind of " Peter Pan Syndrome ". When the palace grounds were redesigned after Vajiravudh's death, Dusit Thani was lost.
King Vajiravudh lived in the palace for three years before he died in 1925. After his death, King Prajadhipok (Rama VII.) First set up the “Phya Thai Palace Hotel” in the buildings in 1926, and later - in 1931 - the first radio station in Thailand, the “Bangkok Radio Broadcasting Station At Phya Thai” broadcast the Waikun Hall. In the end, today's Phra Mongkutklao Hospital took over the entire site. Some less important buildings have been demolished to make way for modern hospital facilities. In 1971, a life-size statue in memory of King Vajiravudh was inaugurated on the site.
Impressions from the palace grounds
“Roman Garden”: King Vajiravudh's theater stage
Covered passage between the throne halls
Hallway in the Phiman Chakri Throne Hall
Relief of Prince Naris : King Vajiravudh was born in the year of the snake
literature
- Naengnoi Suksri: Palaces of Bangkok: Royal Residences of the Chakri Dynasty . Thames & Hudson Ltd., London 1996, ISBN 978-0-500-97446-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ Naengnoi Suksri: Palaces of Bangkok , page 299
- ↑ Maurizio Peleggi: Lords of Things. The Fashioning of the Siamese Monarchy's Modern Image. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 2002, p. 92.
- ^ Exhibition board in the Phiman Chakri Throne Hall
- ↑ The Thai zodiac signs are modeled on the Chinese earth branches . For the assignment of the year of birth to the individual branches of the earth see Chinese astrology # Time circles (cycles or periods) .
Web links
Coordinates: 13 ° 46 ′ 7 ″ N , 100 ° 31 ′ 58.5 ″ E