Preface - kmutt

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accessible and easy for designers to use. This is
to create an effectiveness of team working and
to help users performing their idea properly. It is
also to fulfill the weaknesses and problems of
existing techniques. The device is comprised of
three main parts: Moderator device, Facilitating
pens, and the Tablet. First, moderator device is
the main tool used to control the working
process of the device and to control the
facilitating pen as well. Second, facilitating pens
are used to prompt the users and to receive
commands from the moderator device. Third,
the tablet provides a space for writing and
discussing. All of the parts were linked together
using the software that contains rules of using
each technique in terms of working process and
time keeping. The project was tested by using
software and hardware prototyping to a group of
13 designers. The result shows that the product
can reduce problems of using creative thinking
techniques and Thai nature of being too
reserved. The result from the testing also
suggests that team members could utilize the
creative thinking techniques more effectively
using this device. Moreover, the testing groups
could run the process of each technique quicker
and easier. In the future, there is a potential that
the product will be able to be used for both
educational and commercial purposes for team
meeting.
IC-309 APPROPRIATION AS CONQUEST IN
THE BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE OF KING
CHULALONGKORN
Worrasit Tantinipankul
The 9 th International Conference on Thai
Studies, April 3-6, 2005, Northern Illinois
University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA.
Most studies in Thai history are based
on texts and archival documents, to the
exclusion of built form. According to Victor
Hugo, "Architecture is history written in stone...
few men of the Middle Ages could read books,
but they could read messages of the buildings...
And much of what they built remains today as a
living witness to the story of the past." By
analyzing the built form, spatial arrangement,
and architectural motifs of royal monasteries in
historic Bangkok during the period of the Chakri
Reformation in comparison to temples of
previous reigns, my paper aims to show how
built form expressed the political views of
Siam's ruling class as well as their approaches to
KMUTT Annual Research Abstracts 2005
contact with the outside world.
Most scholarship about the colonial era
argues that Siam's monarchs saved the country
from direct colonization by adopting and
modifying colonial ideologies and modes of
governance. Both King Mongkut and
Chulalongkorn have been portrayed as
indigenous rulers whose triumph derived from
their skillful appropriation of Western
knowledge. By examining practices of
appropriation as conquest as they are expressed
in architecture, this paper suggests that Siamese
monarchs have long employed strategies of
imitation and incorporation of the foreign to
assert their power over the other.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the
built form, spatial arrangement and architectural
motifs of royal monasteries during the period of
the Chakri Reformation in comparison to
previous reigns.
How does the Buddhist architecture
during the fifth reign reflect Siam's imperial
ambition to be the center of Buddhist world?
How was this ambition expressed
through the appropriation of iconographic motif
from around the world?
First, authenticity of nationalist for pure
form of national Buddhist architecture. The
construction of national identity and its heritage
to define its unique culture. Even in the fifth
reign, the ruling elites began to construct the
idea of Siam as bounded entity nevertheless in
Buddhist architecture of the fifth reign, the idea
of national purity did not manifest in Buddhist
architecture at this time. On the contrary,
Buddhist architecture of this period reflects
Siam imperial ambition to present itself as a
colonial power and center of Buddhist world.
As I will show in this paper, the
architecture of Buddhist monasteries in this
reign portray the change from preference of
King Mongkut in Sukhothai-Sri Lankan
architecture to the amalgamation, of Western.
When we look at it for Wat Ben we see
that Wat Ben has a lot of foreign features, why ?
because that time there was no concept of
authenticity. More that power came from
assimilation and appropriation of other. Wat Ben
has Java, Angkor, Italian Chinese crafts link to
the king journey to colonial Dutch and British
archaeological work.
Sri Lankan monks soliciting King
Chulalongkorn (Anne Blackburn) creating sense
that Bangkok could be the new center of
Buddhist world.
International Conference