The faltering conservation of Thailand's built cultural heritage is a quiet national crisis.
Despite local initiatives and a few existing laws, big gaps remain that continually let valuable architecture be lost. Old buildings that are not considered national monuments, especially those privately owned, typically receive no protection under our outdated Ancient Monuments Act.
As a result, valuable sites are often demolished or mutilated. We tear down vintage cinemas that enshrine important Thai modernist architecture. We redevelop traditional shophouse districts into shiny commercial spaces disconnected from the local way of life. Week after week, we lose buildings that could enrich our quality of life, enhance our prosperity and strengthen our identity as Thais.
We can do better. What's crucial is systemic legal and administrative reform. We need to create a dedicated agency responsible for heritage, backed by ample funding. We should decentralise conservation power so that each province can help steer local work. More broadly, we need a supportive heritage protection "ecosystem", including public education outreach and diverse public participation.
Above all, we need to enact a primary law specifically aimed at protecting tangible cultural heritage, a new and more powerful law separate from the Ancient Monuments Act, which is more than 60 years old. There are dozens of successful models of heritage acts around the world that we could adapt to the Thai context. A new, comprehensive national act would enable secondary legislation and enforcement mechanisms to ensure that we really keep our priceless heritage resources.
The law should clearly define heritage categories, recognising not only national monuments but also locally valuable sites, all of which should be protected with standardised management criteria. And it should mandate the use of data, such as cultural heritage maps and master plans, to establish clear, actionable protection standards. These kinds of requirements are typical of successful heritage management laws abroad.
It's a paradox that we Thais are so proud of our culture, yet we often feel hopeless about protecting it. One reason may be that heritage academics, professionals and agencies tend to be focused on narrow issues: their own research project, a single site, a single type of building. We need to see the big picture.
That's what I set out to do in 2021. In my role as a member of Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Architecture, I undertook a 15-month study to understand why our built heritage is in such decline throughout the country. It became clear that the problems are serious and systemic. Yet if we undertake a serious national effort, we can solve these problems and improve Thailand's future.
Because we do not have a dedicated legal framework that covers all forms of heritage, officials are left to cobble together various existing laws to protect architectural assets. However, these laws tend to be effective only for specific aspects, locations, or types of heritage. For example, the Building Control Act is normally used to regulate building appearance, density, and land use. The Prime Minister's Office Regulation on the Conservation of Old Towns is used to develop master plans for conserving historic urban areas, controlling the use of important buildings. The Town Planning Act defines zones that should be preserved.
This might look good on paper, but when it comes to the actual protection of heritage buildings, these laws prove inadequate. Each law functions only within its limited mandate. The agencies in charge only operate within their narrow authority. It's not enough.
The Building Control Act, for example, might appear to offer hope for conserving privately owned heritage. In several historic areas around the nation, local authorities are trying to draft municipal ordinances under this act. However, the act was originally designed to ensure building safety, not to identify and conserve heritage. This often leads to unintended harm: original architectural features get dismantled and historic neighbourhoods decline.
How does this happen? A local ordinance under the act may focus on matters like safety requirements, such as the width of a stairway or hallway. Then the original features are often destroyed and replaced. In some cases, old buildings are demolished entirely and rebuilt at the maximum allowable size.
Uniform design codes sometimes dictate details like colour, shape, or height of new buildings to blend with "old towns." But in places with architectural diversity, requiring uniform use of, say, natural materials or sloped roofs tends to erode authentic variety. The renovated or new buildings all look the same. Strict rules limit successful innovation. These systemic problems can be observed in towns like Chiang Mai, Ayutthaya, Phrae, and many others around the nation, which are steadily losing their distinctive character and history.
The heritage problem cannot be solved simply by adding new clauses to old laws. And it's not enough to focus on protecting only a specific district because our heritage is everywhere. We must fix the complex, interconnected root problems.
With a primary heritage law and proper funding, we can protect and manage valuable architecture in a comprehensive and effective way. Success in sustaining heritage will promote our creative economy, our cultural tourism, and our sense of historical and cultural identity. Thailand's soft power is its heritage. Let's take good care of it.
Wimonrart Issarathumnoon is a practising architect and associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University. Heritage Matters is a column presented by The Siam Society Under Royal Patronage to advocate conserving the architectural, cultural and natural heritage of Thailand and the neighbouring region.The views expressed are those of the author.