The groovy Thai-accented post-modern architecture and decor of the 1960s has over the years become a victim of the unsightly incursion of mega-malls and other buildings lacking the soul that typified design from that era. Arguably the best example of the '60s Bangkok chic, the Siam Intercontinental Hotel, was torn down to make way for Siam Paragon.
FLASHBACKS: Clockwise from above, Rex’s coffee hall, inner coffee hall and more ’60s era wall designs.
GOING SWIMMINGLY: Right, First Hotel’s pool.
The less lamented, but no less groovy, Siam Hotel on Phetchaburi Road was also lost in recent years, sacrificed so that a faceless multi-storey massage parlour could be erected.
Yet representatives of this hip style of architecture and decor can still be ferreted out in spots throughout Bangkok.
Fine examples include the carved relief of kinnarees, which in Thai myth are female half-human, half-bird creatures, seeming to float atop the surface of the swimming pool at First Hotel on Phetchaburi Road, more Thai figures painted onto the mirrors in the Coffee Hall of the Rex Hotel on Sukhumvit Road, and Thai-style swans depicted in the lobbies of the Prince Hotel on Phetchaburi Road, and the Swan Hotel off Charoen Krung Road, which also retains its original white floor with black flecks.
Insignia based on the intertwining initials for hotels were popular in the era, as seen in the signs of the Prince Hotel and the Grace Hotel, while the colourful logo of the Florida Hotel on Phaya Thai Road looks a bit like a psychedelic '60s concert poster with its curvaceous letters and palm tree.
Elsewhere, multicoloured worms squiggle their way through the funky period carpet in the lobby of the '60s-era Rajah Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 4, and an old circular hotel shield-style sign graces the exterior of the Miami Hotel, the tiny and tatty old lobby of which contains an ancient and ignored jukebox featuring a faded Grease-era photo of John Travolta. Surreally, just a block away, around the corner on Sukhumvit Road, stands the recently opened Sofitel, which is almost half a century newer.
Another sign of hotels from this decade are the neon signs, often on marquees, for hotels such as the Prince, Florida and Rex, which blaze into the night.
Phetchaburi and Sukhumvit roads were the prime locales for hotels in the 1960s, springing up in large part to serve the needs of US soldiers on R&R breaks during the Vietnam War.
Academic Porphant Ouyyanont sums up the trend in a paper titled ''The Vietnam War and Tourism in Bangkok's Development, 1960-1967'': ''Looking at the growth of 'soft' service industries, which included nightclubs, bars, and massage parlours, these activities were generally recognised as products of the large spending of US military personnel in the 1960s on recreation and entertainment.''
LIGHTS STILL ON: Far left, Florida marquee; left, the Miami’s jukebox.
In early 1967, American Lance Woodruff, now a seasoned Thailand hand, arrived in Bangkok for the first time to write a story for the Empire News Agency on the R&R scene.
He says the industry was still in its nascent stages at that time.
''It was before bars had developed as bars. The dance halls on Phetchaburi Road were just big dark rooms with people who just shuffled around on the floor. It was like a high school dance, where people were too shy to talk to each other.''
But, if not at the bars, and in addition to the hotels, there were also signs of post-modernism alive in the massage parlours, with their decorative ceilings and walls.
Post-modernity in architecture can be defined as signs of the return of wit and ornament to buildings in response to the plain and simple formalism of the international style of modernism.
Even though modernism didn't catch on in Thailand, there are still ample examples of post-modern architecture that rebelled against the style. The most accessible and interesting of these are found in Bangkok hotels.
Just as the trendy boutique hotels of today are a reaction against large and sometimes characterless skyscraper hotels, Bangkok hotels of the 1960s made a statement defying the box-like, simplistic modernist structures of earlier decades.
Ceilings in particular were the reserve of great post-modern artistic expression in the lobbies of Bangkok hotels of the 1960s _ examples include the surviving bulbous light bulbs in the Rex's lobby, geometric motifs in the foyer of the Swan and stained glass that can be marvelled when looking up in the entrance area of the First Hotel on Phetchaburi Road, which while technically in the art nouveau style of earlier decades, also dates to the chic '60s.
Many of these hotels appear to be oblivious of their rich architectural heritage. While the Swan styles itself a ''classic and boutique'' hotel that's been around since 1965, the menu in the Florida's Tampa Coffee Shop unceremoniously notes without additional detail that the property dates to 1968, and words painted onto the exterior of the lift in the vintage Miami Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 13 boasts that the property has been operating since 1965, there seems little recognition of the age of these architecturally significant properties.
Several of these similar looking and character-rich hotels feature a small swimming pool surrounded by guestrooms, which have been renovated over the years and lack the historic appeal of the hotels' common areas.
Perhaps the coolest surviving sense of '60s ambiance lives on in the retro lobby _ manned by bellboys in classic red jackets _ and Coffee Hall of the Rex.
The eatery, like many coffee shops at these hotels, is open 24 hours. If you let your imagination run a bit, it seems like the kind of place Frank Sinatra might have sang in or hung out with the Rat Pack, knocking back martinis in the modish booths. It hints at 1960s Disney's Tomorrowland/Jetsons-futuristic chic with its mirrored walls, funky signs, such as one for an exit flanked by two simplified depictions of fat flowers, and, especially, in the weird walls with Swiss cheese-like oval-shaped holes through which Sukhumvit Road can be seen. A few Thai-style figures in paintings and statues grace the spacious room.
''The Rex was definitely a GI hangout and for people with expense accounts,'' says Woodruff, as all sorts of US money was being spent on the war and incidental costs.
Yet the Rex's website encourages its guests to enjoy the hotel's ''modern facilities'' and ''new, vibrant look'', and makes no reference to its past.
Similarly, the also unselfconsciously chic Prince invites visitors to make the most of its ''trendy, yet relaxed and comfortable'' atmosphere, while ignoring its near 50 years of history.
While other coffee shops in Bangkok dating from the '60s have been remodelled, and had mixed success in keeping alive their classic allure, the Rex and the Prince have done the best jobs in retaining much of the original decor and detailing in their restaurants.
Some Bangkok hotels dating from the decade, such as the Nana, Grace and Federal, offer little of historic worth, having been thoroughly modernised.
But in a city with a rapidly evolving skyline, with more hi-so condos and up-market malls and hotels being erected all the time, it is refreshing to find examples of these '60s-era blasts from the past.
