And as if that was not weird enough, the party shut down at 1.45am! There was a police raid, the music was turned off and everyone was told to piss in a cup – a random dugs test was underway (as I later discovered, it was in clubs across the city that night). As luck would have it, I was taking a breather outside with my friends and missed all the drama and commotion anyway – we jsut wondered where the party had gone!

Perturbing.

And doubly disappointing after the amazing video the promoters had made for the party – with all the grit, humour and knowing camp that made the original so fun. But other than on the screen – where was that on the night?

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.

And here it is, once again, straight outta Bangna- 2011′s greatest video as shot on campus at ABAC (although I could be wrong, but I think the White House-alike structure behind rapper Miryo is the huge-ass mansion that lords over the mouth of Thonglor Soi 38.)

Also incidentally, Miryo’s solo album is due out by the end of the month and promised to be “electro-reggae!”

On the way out to ABAC I happened to pass by another interesting piece of architecture, also in Bangna. This was Sumet Jumsai’s “word processor” building, a headquarters for the Nation Media group. The self-described “surrealist” Thai architect is known for his whimsical take on sculptural architecture with works including Sukhumvit Soi 31′s “Bird Building” (where I stayed), the astounding “Elephant Building” and the 1980s “Robot building” in Sathorn.

In his book on Bangkok, Asian cultural commenator Alex Kerr remarked on Bangkok’s fondness for buildings that “look like things” suggesting it resonates deeply in traditions of Thai art where the idea of “transformation” is central; a piece of fruit becomes a flower through carving, a mask turns a dancer into a demon. So why can’t an office building be a typewriter?

Or a bird?

Or an elephant? It is certainly hard to think of another city that is playful enough to turn its architecture into a practical joke, and laugh along with it.