The blight of beautification: Bangkok and the pursuit of class-based urban purity

Abstract

‘Beautification’ is often invoked as a justification for forms of urban reorganization that threaten existing ways of life and ignore the aesthetic values and social needs of poorer residents. The case of Bangkok, dramatically exemplified by the official campaign to evict the community of Pom Mahakan, shows how little attention is paid either to the social problems that such modernist uses of ‘tradition’ are likely to cause or to the vernacular architecture that is being destroyed in the name of ‘development’ and of a harshly selective conservation regime. The future of Bangkok’s vernacular past looks decidedly bleak.

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