Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
riverbank, the Chinese were making their new home. The ox-bow shape of the river pro-
tected the city to the west and north, the Sea of Mud was an effective barrier to the east,
and anyone making their way up the river from the south would have to pass the forts that
Rama
I
began building at the coast and upstream.
Building of the Grand Palace began on 6
th
May 1782, presenting the king with a prob-
lem of where to find sufficient building materials in this flat, muddy delta region. He was
also short of funds. Consequently the original palace was made entirely from wood, a col-
lection of structures surrounded by a long palisade, occupying a rectangular piece of land
on the west side of Rattanakosin Island, with the existing temples of Wat Pho to the south
and Wat Mahathat to the north. On 10
th
June 1782 the king made a ceremonial crossing
of the river to enter the palace, and three days later underwent a brief coronation cere-
mony. A more solid and palatial palace was needed, and Rama
I
despatched officials and
labourers up the river to the ruins of Ayutthaya. There, while leaving what remained of
the temples intact, they removed the bricks from the old royal palaces, from the forts and
from the wall, and floated them down the river. These bricks were then used to form a new
palace, and walls for the city. The timber palace was dismantled building by building as the
brick palace complex took shape. Once the ceremonial halls were completed, in 1785, the
king held a full coronation.
Cannon at the Ministry of Defence building, with the Grand Palace in the background.
By modelling the Grand Palace on the Royal Palace at Ayutthaya, in the positioning of
the courts, walls, gates and forts, the builders could move quickly. Five thousand Laotians
were levied from Vientiane and brought to Bangkok, along with local officials to oversee
them, and were put to work digging the foundations, building new structures and erecting
the new city wall and its forts. Craftsmen and artists from Thonburi, most of them ori-
ginally from Ayutthaya, fashioned the palatial residences. There were actually two palaces:
the Grand Palace, and at the northern end of the inner island, the Front Palace, which was
the residence of the deputy king, Rama
I
's younger brother Bunma, who became Maha
Sura Singhanat. A Rear Palace was also built at the mouth of the Bangkok Noi canal for the
