I have always been a fan of Bangkok’s flamboyant architecture, some of which pops up in very unexpected places. Take Assumption University’s Bangna campus for example (usually referred to as ABAC). It appears – all gleaming spires and golden angels – literally out of rice fields beside a freeway lined with car lots and auto wholesalers.
Like 99.9% of Bangkok visitors, I had never heard of the place – until the Brown Eyed Girls flew in from Korea to shoot a video there. Wise choice, it would make an incredible film set. After watching the video I did a quick google search online and quickly decided to visit when I got the chance.
The place is amazing. Crowned by its comic book Gothic-Stalinist skyscraper (above), the university is constructed on a monumental scale. The architecture can only be described as triumphalist California-Meditarranean-revivalist. It is as if 1920s L.A. married the Vatican, became a fascist state and settled down in the Bangkok ‘burbs.
Dead straight boulevards cut past huge buildings decorated with busts of Einstein and carved with figures of Catholic saints. On the roof of one building, and on its doors, gold glints in the tropical sun. Everywhere is white, and marble, and spotless. But it is also shaded and softened by immaculate gardens with palm trees and beautiful lawns.
At the centre of the complex is a lake, standing beneath the central tower. Besides this is the university’s lone departure from its signature Santa Monica-cum-Pyongyang hybrid architectural style, a glittering Thai pavilion. Black swans float by on the water or nestle on the palm shaded grass, and an incredible sculpture of horses bolting across the surface of the water appears in the distance.
And to think all this was built with private money! If the idea is to promote Christianity (this being Catholic institution), they have done a pretty good job. It is the closest place I have ever been to Heaven. Or perhaps the Truman Show. And utterly, utterly unlike the anarchic, colour-clashing, pulsating city around it.
