THE HISTORY OF BANGKOK LAND-USE PLAN

The history of Bangkok urban planning evidences the failure of top-down urban planning. Bangkok is manifested its role as the symbolic center of social order and culture (Sintusingha and Mirgholami, 2012). In the early Rattanakosin era, Bangkok was planned as universe following the Hindu and Buddhist cosmological models. The urban landscape was dominated by The Grand Palace of the king and the Front Palace of the heir (Fig. 2). The city of Ayutthaya was replicated to form the city of Bangkok where the royal center of power from the trading center and also in the cosmopolitan dramatically contrast to its agricultural area representing hinterland (Aeuosrivongse, 1984). The administrative core of the city was set on land while the rest was based on water, which responded to the seasonal change of the Chao Phraya river and provided land for commoner's amphibious dwellings. As Aeuosrivongse stated that Bangkok's urbanism comprises the royal citadel, its trading areas, and its mosaic of villages networked by canals and river (Fig. 3). In the past, the top-down urban planning seems to be appropriated to the physical of the city.

Fig. 2. Bangkok in the mid-19th century (source: author)