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Manuscript Tower |
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European Building |
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Red Palace |
Prasart Museum is in a private house on the eastern edge of the city -this is an unusual open-air exhibition of traditional Asian buildings, collected and reassembled by wealthy entrepreneur and art lover Mr. Prasart. The place is rarely visited by mass tourists, partly because of it's intentionally limited for number of visitors. The admission is by appointment only, and usually requires one to two days notice, but it makes a pleasant day out and is worth the effort. Set in a gorgeously lush tropical garden, it comprises about a dozen replicas of traditional buildings, including a golden teak palace inspired by the royal residence now housed at the National Museum, a Chinese temple and water garden, a Khmer shrine, a Sukhothai Period teak library set over a lotus pond, and a European-style mansion, fashionable with Bangkok royalty in the late nineteenth century. Some of these structures have been assembled from the ruins of buildings found all over Asia, but there is no attempt at purist authenticity - the aim is to give a flavor of architectural styles, not an exact reproduction. Many of the other buildings, including the Thai temple and the Chinese temple, were constructed from scratch, using designs dreamt up by the owner and his team. Whatever their ancestry, all the buildings are beautifully crafted, with great attention paid to carvings and decorations, and many are filled with antique artifacts, including Burmese woodcarvings, prehistoric pottery from Ban Chiang and Lopburi Period statuettes. There are also some unusual pieces of royal memorabilia and an exquisite collection of Bencharong ceramics. The owner also owns a ceramics workshop, which produces reproductions of famous designs; they can be bought either here, or at his showroom, on the second floor of the Peninsula Plaza shopping center on Rajdamri Road.
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