Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
is set in a green garden compound and has at its centre a structure with towering iron
spires, forming a strange pencilled outline against the sky. Wat Ratchanatdaram is set on
the intersection of Ratchadamnoen Avenue and Maha Chai Road, and was built by Rama
III
in 1846, in honour of his granddaughter, Princess Somanas. The central structure is
Loha Prasat, the Metal Castle, and the style was adapted from two earlier, and now lost,
sanctuaries in India and Sri Lanka. There are five concentric square towers, each taller
than the other, and three of them are capped by a total of thirty-seven cast-iron spires,
signifying the thirty-seven virtues towards enlightenment. The two towers without spires
form walkways, reached by a massive spiral stairway in the central tower, the walkways
having shrines along their length. The Rama
III
Monument nearby was added in 1990.
This was a very fashionable part of Ratchadamnoen Avenue. A popular movie theatre, the
Chalerm Thai, stood here until it was demolished to improve the setting, and across the
canal bridge stands the building that once housed the fashionable John Simpson Store,
which sold imported clothing and which now houses a museum dedicated to Rama
VII
, the
last absolute monarch of Siam. Built in 1906 by a Swiss-French architect named Charles
Beguelin, and designed to a Neo-Classical style, the building contains a collection of per-
sonal belongings and state records that provide both an insight to this young king, who
abdicated in 1935 at the age of 41 and died six years later in England, and to the moment-
ous changes that were taking place in Siam at this time.
The Metal Castle was built to a design based on now lost temples in India and Sri Lanka.
Although the coup that replaced the absolute monarchy with a constitutional mon-
archy was bloodless, forty years later there occurred a series of events that will be re-
membered as one of the darkest episodes in Thailand's history. Field Marshal Thanom
Kittikachorn had become military dictator in 1963, but there was growing public discon-
tent over the next decade at the state of the economy, and a growing unrest amongst
students, angrily resentful at the replacement of democracy by military rule. In 1973 a
number of student activists were expelled for their anti-government activities, and thir-
teen were arrested. On 13
th
October there were mass demonstrations for the students
