Nationalism and the Modernisation of Thai Architectural Education at Chulalongkorn University in the 1920s and 1930s

This paper examines the modernization of Thai architecture through the establishment of Thailand’s first architecture school, its curriculum, its architecture, and the pivotal role of the first generation of Thai architecture professors, who had been educated in England and France. It demonstrates how the establishment of the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, stemmed from the Siamese government’s growing nationalism that aimed to end foreign domination in both Siam’s construction industry and international diplomacy. The process, however, involved the adoption of a western curriculum — which was considered modern — and adapting it to be more Thai for nationalist purposes. This also required support by employing a foreign professor in architecture: Lucien Coppé, a Belgian architect who was responsible for both upgrading the school’s curriculum and the design of its first permanent building in 1938. Furthermore, some aspects of the western curriculum were not intended to be adapted but were hybridized due to the constraints of the modernizing nation. The establishment and construction of the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, are examples of how art, science, and education were intertwined in both national and global politics in the 1930s.