The shining Bangkok Style
Thailand today is still home to simple forest monasteries that are often made of wood, and its everyday architecture has always been quite modest. Since the 18th century, however, the country has fallen prey to a type of horror vacui — or fear of emptiness — with regard to its temples and palaces. The aesthetic qualities of the “Bangkok Style” that emerged at that time spread throughout the entire country, resulting in a situation where one would be hard-pressed to find any spot on many of Thailand’s temples that has not been covered with colourfully reflective mosaics, glazed tiles, or sculptures of mythical birds. There’s also hardly a door that’s not decorated with wood carvings, gold, lacquer, or pearls; barely a staircase not flanked by shiny-scaled snake deities: rarely an empty space not covered with the omnipresent colour of shiny, glittering, sparkling gold.
It’s true that there’s no longer any danger today of foreign enemies overrunning the country, scraping off the gold leaf from the temple roofs or the large bell-shaped paintings (stupas) at graves and memorials, or even melting down and packing away statues, as the Burmese did in 1767 in the former Thai capital of Ayutthaya. Nevertheless, there are other, more practical reasons why those who build and renovate temples these days forgo the use of gold leaf and instead often apply a golden lacquer. For one thing, the latter is lighter than the gold leaf. It can also be processed more rapidly, and is less expensive while at the same time quite stable and durable.
This bright glossy lacquer is now making the temples Wat Pa Sa Wang Bun and Wat Pra Thad Jong Jun shine in all their glory — but it’s also been used on worldly structures like Hua Lumphong central station in Bangkok. The fact that “all that glitters is not gold” doesn’t seem to bother anyone here. On the contrary, according to the lacquer’s manufacturer, TOA, the Merck pigments it contains produce an iridescent glittering gold effect whose brilliant shimmer appears to many observers to be “more real” — i.e. more golden — than the somewhat more matte gold leaf. The product is thus considered by Thais to be very valuable.
How the use of this more favourably priced material on the one hand, and the improved aesthetics it leads to on the other, affects the desired karma balance of the religious individuals who employ it as an offering is something probably only the Buddha would know. Still, based on everything that’s been written about him, it’s likely he would prefer the more practical solution.
Thailand today is still home to simple forest monasteries that are often made of wood, and its everyday architecture has always been quite modest. Since the 18th century, however, the country has fallen prey to a type of horror vacui — or fear of emptiness — with regard to its temples and palaces. The aesthetic qualities of the “Bangkok Style” that emerged at that time spread throughout the entire country, resulting in a situation where one would be hard-pressed to find any spot on many of Thailand’s temples that has not been covered with colourfully reflective mosaics, glazed tiles, or sculptures of mythical birds. There’s also hardly a door that’s not decorated with wood carvings, gold, lacquer, or pearls; barely a staircase not flanked by shiny-scaled snake deities: rarely an empty space not covered with the omnipresent colour of shiny, glittering, sparkling gold.
It’s true that there’s no longer any danger today of foreign enemies overrunning the country, scraping off the gold leaf from the temple roofs or the large bell-shaped paintings (stupas) at graves and memorials, or even melting down and packing away statues, as the Burmese did in 1767 in the former Thai capital of Ayutthaya. Nevertheless, there are other, more practical reasons why those who build and renovate temples these days forgo the use of gold leaf and instead often apply a golden lacquer. For one thing, the latter is lighter than the gold leaf. It can also be processed more rapidly, and is less expensive while at the same time quite stable and durable.
This bright glossy lacquer is now making the temples Wat Pa Sa Wang Bun and Wat Pra Thad Jong Jun shine in all their glory — but it’s also been used on worldly structures like Hua Lumphong central station in Bangkok. The fact that “all that glitters is not gold” doesn’t seem to bother anyone here. On the contrary, according to the lacquer’s manufacturer, TOA, the Merck pigments it contains produce an iridescent glittering gold effect whose brilliant shimmer appears to many observers to be “more real” — i.e. more golden — than the somewhat more matte gold leaf. The product is thus considered by Thais to be very valuable.
How the use of this more favourably priced material on the one hand, and the improved aesthetics it leads to on the other, affects the desired karma balance of the religious individuals who employ it as an offering is something probably only the Buddha would know. Still, based on everything that’s been written about him, it’s likely he would prefer the more practical solution.
