Victory in the present fight to save the past

The Bangkokian Museum’s announcement yesterday that its fund-raising campaign had been a success represents a significant triumph for ordinary folks. Associate Professor Waraporn Suravadee, the 81-year-old original owner of the house given to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administra-tion for use as a museum, declared that she had raised Bt10 million from public donations. Combined with Bt30 million from her own savings, she can now buy the vacant property in front of it. 

Had she failed to reach the target, an eight-storey building already given the green light by local authorities would have risen there, completely hiding the 70-year-old teakwood mansions that make up the museum compound on Charoen Krung Road in Bang Rak district.

The compound includes four World War II-era buildings that are much admired as examples of European influence on Thai architecture. The Association of Siamese Architects honoured the museum with awards in 2013 and 2014. One of the structures, a two-storey teak house, has rooms full of minor marvels – classical, traditional and educational.

The success of the funding campaign is unprecedented in two important ways. It was the first instance in which users of the social media pooled resources on behalf of a small sample of the city’s cultural heritage. The unexpected surge in enthusiasm for preserving a site for future generations – Bt10 million raised within three weeks of the funding drive being announced on Facebook – is heart-warming.

Secondly, this was a campaign that didn’t address the usual urban issues, like public safety, environmental degradation or traffic jams. It was simply about keeping the venerable old home-museum in good condition. Waraporn has fought with the BMA over this since giving it the buildings in the compound, also known as the Bangkok Folk Museum, in 2004, and finding the municipality a poor manager for what was intended to be a public facility. In 2009 she took the BMA to civil court, demanding that it return ownership of the museum so she could give it to a more caring overseer.

For the octogenarian, the last straw was Bang Rak District Office approving construction of an eight-storey building on the 420-square metre property in front, a plan that would have ruined the site’s landscaped beauty and perhaps threaten the old houses’ structural integrity.

Waraporn first asked the BMA to buy the property “to save the museum”, but the administration was instead guided by zoning laws that do not bar fair use of the adjoining land. That’s when she conceived a plan to keep the high-rise out. The fund-raising campaign was expected to continue until the end of September, but has happily concluded quickly.

The campaign’s success offers another small but cheering glimpse of hope for Thailand’s much-abused cultural heritage. The public donations of Bt100 and up prove we have a conscientious and caring civil society already established, increasingly aware that the past needs preserving.

It’s to be hoped that this collective action by friends of the folk museum serves as a wake-up call for rich and influential people and the corporations that offer nothing more than lip service to the idea of “giving back to society”. Perhaps wealthy developers cannot proceed as they wish after all, filling every vacant plot with concrete and steel without considering the underlying value of what they’re replacing.

Catering to the developers, bowing to the influence of the well to do and slackening their grip on zoning barriers, the municipal authorities are a hindrance to good cultural management in Thailand. We are consoled by the fact that their negligence serves to strengthen civil society. Once people understand there is strength in unity, they are prepared to act in preserving for the future all the things that make life worth living.