A Tudor House in Bangkok: HSH Prince Vodhyakara Varavarn’s House at 42 Soi Tonson

Abstract

This paper examines the design and construction process of the house at 42 Soi Tonson, Bangkok, designed and owned by His Serene Highness Prince Vodhyakara Varavarn – a Cambridge graduate and pioneering Thai architect – in 1929. By examining the house, the factors that infl uenced the design and the construction process are taken into account including contemporary circumstances of pre-World War II Siam culturally and economically, as well as the life and educational background of the architect. The paper reveals that the design and construction process not only involved the selection and appropriation of the Western ideas and knowledge but also the reinterpretation of them, as well as the mediation between them and local practices. As a result, the house is, to use H. K. Bhabha’s word, a “hybrid” and “ambiguous” product of modernization in the non-western context.