Historic community facing eviction in Bangkok

2016-04-01T14:15:00-04:00

The fort community houses 59 families, and is well-known for its wooden houses in the early Rattanakosin-style. Faced with strong resistance from the community, and academics and activists, City Hall the plan but dusted it off early last month amid a public outcry.

The Pom Mahakan community on the edge of Rattanakosin Island in Bangkok has been there for more than 150 years. Many of the old teak houses remain behind the last piece of the original wall of the city. The people of this community have faced many eviction threats in the past 20 years as the Bangkok Metro Administration attempts to move them out in order to implement the Rattanakosin Master Plan, part of which calls for this small strip of land between the klong and the old city wall to be turned into a tourist park. NGOs and academics have, over the years called for the protection of this piece of vernacular architectural history and for the community with the intimate knowledge of that history and culture (see, for example, the 2007 UN Global Report on Human Settlements - Strategies for Survival). A short video of the Pom Mahakan community was done in 2004 when they were facing yet another threat of eviction. That eviction notice was postponed with the help of KMUTT architect...

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Historic community facing eviction in Bangkok