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Facing the north wall of the Grand Palace is a terrace of graceful old shop houses, dating from the reign of King Rama V. Behind these, almost invisible and accessed by a small gate, is the campus of Silpakorn University.
The compound is tiny, crammed with an odd mixture of historic architecture and nondescript buildings from the 1950s and 60s, scattered with sculptures, overhung with ancient trees, and thronged with students. Silpakorn was the first university of art in Thailand, and the cradle of modern Thai art.
Tha Phra Palace, the architectural centerpiece of the campus, is one of the oldest buildings on Rattanakosin Island. It was built for Prince Kasattranuchit, a nephew of King Rama I, and the prince lived here until his death during the reign of Rama II. The king gave it to his son, Prince Chesdabodin, who was head of important government units such as the Harbor Department, the Police, and the Royal Treasury. Eventually the prince ascended the throne as King Rama III, and handed over the palace to three of his sons in succession. One of them was Prince Jumsai, who headed the royal craft departments, including the Stonework Department and the Department of Ten Fine Arts Units. Interestingly then, Tha Phra Palace's connection with the arts dates back to the first half of the 191h century, Rama III having reigned from 1824-51.
King Rama V handed the palace on to Prince Naris Aranuwattiwongse, one of his brothers. Prince Naris, one of Siam's greatest patrons of the arts, held positions such as Minister of Public Works, Minister of the Treasury, and Minister of the Royal Household, serving through five reigns (he died in 1948). He was the last prince to occupy this palace, eventually moving away from the congestion of Rattanakosin for health reasons, having built Plainoen Palace in the then pastoral surroundings of Klong Toey. After his death, the prince's heirs sold Tha Phra Palace to the government, and it was assimilated into the newly-founded Silpakorn University.
The palace adjoins the gracious old mansion that houses the Fine Arts Department, and here for many years was a school that taught painting and sculpture to civil servants and other students, who were accepted without fees. In the reign of
King Rama VI (1910-25) a highly talented sculptor, an Italian named Corrado Feroci, arrived in Bangkok to teach at the Royal Academy's Fine Arts section. He was later made principal of the Artisan's section of the Fine Arts School. During World War Two Feroci took Thai citizenship, adopting the Thai name Silpa Bhirasri. When the school was upgraded to university status in 1943 and named Silpakorn, he became Dean of the Faculty of Sculpture. Professor Silpa Bhirasri, whose works can be seen throughout Bangkok, did more than anyone to introduce modern European ideas .and techniques to Thai artists, and today his personality still makes its presence felt throughout the university campus.
It was shortly before 9 0' clock on a damp Saturday morning when I entered the grounds of Silpakorn University. There were crowds of students meeting before class, sitting under the trees sketching, eating breakfast outside the cafeteria. Tha Phra Palace is a neo-classical style building, very European, its exterior a faded yellow and white. Quite how European it was when it was first built is unclear. The interior follows a traditional palace plan for its time, but many Western style changes were made by Prince Naris during the reign of Rama V (1868-1910). During this time he erected three other European buildings in the compound, and used the opportunity to place fluted columns inside the main hall, add shutters and awnings to the windows, and replace the main staircase with a fashionable spiral one that the prince named the "One Slip and You're Dead Staircase."
The Throne Hall, by contrast, is a traditional Thai building with a red-tiled roof. PrinceJumsai had used the Throne Hall as a school for his Ten Units artisans, and it was a workshop for the carpenters, the woodcarvers, the mosaic artists and the cloth painters who came under this department.
A pleasant place for the students to gather is the Music Pavilion, a timber structure built in the time of Rama V. Painted a pale green, the pavilion has lovely fretwork and Western style wooden railings. Curiously, one side is a solid wall, but the pavilion was originally on the boundary of the outer and inner courtyards, and a stretch of the old wall can be seen up against the Throne Hall. Further into the campus, opposite the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Prints, stands a statue of Professor Silpa, and there is a small museum built around what was his study.
Exit through the main gate and back into Na Phra Lan Road, and you will see that the wall of the university follows a similar pattern to the castellation on the Grand Palace wall. Although the original walls ofTha Phra had the traditional sema, the heart¬shaped unmanned battlements that denoted a Chao Fa prince, they were pulled down when the road in front of the Grand Palace was widened. The present walls were built in the time of Rama V, at the same time as the shophouses. I stopped and talked to Mr Prakit, the 77-year old owner of the Amazing Medicine Company, a shop that is so old fashioned and cluttered that there appears to be no way to get inside. Smiling over the top of boxes of ginseng herbal medicine, Mr Prakit told me he had inherited the business from his father. Back in those days, he said, the rent was eight baht a month. Now it is 1,000 baht. It still sounds pretty good value to me. Before these became shops, Mr Prakit added, the building was used for housing foreign visitors to the Grand Palace. Certainly, the terrace is an elegant one, constructed from brick and plaster, and painted white with green doors and window shutters. It is similar in style to the shop houses at nearby Tha Chang pier.
I walked to the end of the terrace and turned left into Na Phrathat Road. On the corner is the Fine Arts Department, distinuished by the frieze that runs the length of the building under the eaves. Next to this is a building that is a vivid ochre in colour, designed in a Khmer style. It looks as if it should be
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