The genesis of Vimanmek can be traced to a small island in the Gulf of Siam not far from where the Chao Phraya River meets the sea. The island is Koh Si Chang, and its potential as a royal holiday resort was first noted in the mid 19th Century by King Rama IV (King Mongkut) who attributed the remarkable health and long-life of its inhabitants to salubrious ocean air. On his private steamship, "Siam Orasumpol", he made periodic trips to this then sparsely populated island. For lack of suitable residence on the island, the King always slept in his cabin on the moored ship. On one of his visits, he bestowed the lofty title of "Theo Kiriraksa" ("Dame Guardian of the Mountains") on a senior H.M.King Mongkut (King Rama IV). and much respected female islander.

By the reign of his son and successor, King Rama V (King Chulalongkorn), Koh Si Chang's population had grown considerably; merchant seafarers used its harbours as storm shelters as well as ports for exchanging and transferring heir goods from ship to ship. It has also grown as a resort for royalty, and when the King sent his son, Prince Vajiravudh (the future King Rama VI), to convalesce after an illness, a precedence was set. It became the popular practice for convalescent members of the royalty to come to the island to recover their health in its pleasant surroundings.

In 1893 King Rama V and Queen Saowapha, who was advanced in pregnancy, took residence in one of the buildings erected for royal use on Koh Si Chang. Perceiving the rapid growth potential importance of this island, the King decided that the Queen should remain for childbirth. On the 5th of July the Queen gave birth to a prince and on the 10th of August the King presided over three traditional ceremonies: the naming and blessing of the month-old prince, the naming of the whole palace compound on the island and the laying of the foundation stone of what was intended to be the palace's main building, the Mundchat Ratanaroj Mansion. The baby prince was named Prince Chudhadhuj Dharadilok, and the palace was honoured with the name Chudhadhuj Palace.

The function of this island-resort palace was destined to an abrupt end in the following year when a political crisis in the Franco-Thai relations led to the blockade of Siam by means of the Gulf French gunships. Koh Si Chang was considered unsafe for royal sojourn, and Chudhadhuj Palace with all its buildings was never used again. The construction of the Mundhat Ratanaroj Mansion remained uncompleted. It was, however, not to be left to decay in disuse as we shall see.

The Rise of Vimanmek

The idea of building Vimanmek was conceived on the 19th of May, 1901 when King Rama V stopped at Koh Si Chang in the course of his visit to seaboard provinces on the eastern coasts and saw the uncompleted Mundhat Ratanaroj Mansion standing in the now deserted Chudhadhuj Palace. The King ordered the golden teakwood building to be dismantled and taken to Suan Dusit Palace where it was to be rebuilt as the main royal residence in the garden palace. The man who received the royal command to supervise this task was Phra Rajayodhathep (Korn Hongsakul later to become Phraya Rajasongkram), fourth generation member of the family that had served the Chakri Dynasty as master-constructors of royal temples under King Rama I since the founding of Bangkok. At thirty five minutes past eight on the morning of Friday, 31st August, 1901, the King laid the ceremonial foundation for the building which he named "Vimanmek". The occasion was recorded in both the Royal Gazette and the Royal Command. A copy of the Royal Command for the Construction of Vimanmek was placed in the foundation along with traditional gold and silver bricks.

The architect of Vimanmek was the King's brother, Prince Narisaranuwatiwong. This beautiful structure was built in the shape of the Roman letter L with its two wings, one running westward, the other northward, joining at an angle of 90 degrees. Each wing is 60 meters in length while the width in general is 15 meters, though certain parts are as wide as 35 metros. The height measured 20 meters from the ground to the fourth-floor ceiling or 25 meters to the top of the superstructure.

This building with its 31 apartments consists of three stories with the exception of the octagonal end of the west wing whose additional fourth floor was used by the King as his private quarters. Though the lowest story of the building is of stucco, the rest of the structure is made entirely of golden teakwood which is now extremely rare.

In the days of King Rama V, a large green house complete with sprinklers stood just beyond the end of the west wing. It was said to be the nursery that supplied plants to all the gardens of Suan Dusit Palace. Vimanmek is framed by four canals, Klong Rang Mai Hom (Groove o' Fragrant Wood Canal), Klong Karb Pan Krachok (Sheet of Glass Canal) in the north now hidden by the wall that separates the grounds of Vimanmek from a compound belonging to Royal Thai Army, Klong Rang Ngern (Silver Channel Canal) in the west, and best known of all is the large stretch of water on the south named Ang Yok Jade Basin) because of the natural greenness of its water.

The construction of Vimanmek took only seven months to complete. Inauguration was held in combination with of top-knot cutting rites for five young members of royalty and the house warming ceremony for Krom Khun Nakorn Rajasima who was moving into his new residence in Suan Dusit. Religious rites and entertainments lasted five consecutive days in celebration of the three combined events. From this point, the King took up permanent residence at Vimanmek. The heyday of Vimanmek had just begun.

Vimanmek in Full Splendor

For six years, Vimanmek was the residence of King Rama V who found its clean air and beautiful surroundings a great deal more congenial than his former residence in the Grand Palace,a fact evidenced by the following excerpt from a letter written of Vimanmek to his son, Prince Boripat Sukumbhandhu in the summer of 1901 "I very much enjoy living here. If I were still at the Grand Palace. I would be finding the heat unbearable and would have to set out on another trip".

The king personally planted many of the trees to provide shades and greenness to create lush surroundings for his beautiful teakwood residence. To the people, the King was no longer a remote monarch unstated within the all-enclosing walls of the Grand Palace, and the sight of the King travailing to and from Suan Dusit Palace grew to be a familiar sight to passersby.

During the early part of his residence at Vimanmek, the King used the fourth floor of the domed octagonal part of the building as his private apartment. The floor directly beneath it was divided into two parts, the southern part was used by the King while the other was the apartment of Queen Sukhumal Marasri who acted as his private secretary. Below this was the octagonal hall serving as the King's living room. He often used it to receive private guests, and it is here that the royal barbers gave the King his regular hair which was always ceremoniously performed in strict accordance with the ancient Brahmic belief that the monarch was a divine being whose hair must never be allowed to touch the floor. The rest of the building was occupied by the King's other consorts and his female children.

Beside this octagonal portion in the west wing, another notable part of the building was the loggia and its adjoining suite in the middle of the north wing. The loggia on the second floor was used by the King for his cabinet meetings. The adjoining suite west of the hall functioned as the apartment of Queen Saowapha and Princess Valai Alongkorn in the early days of Vimanmek. After Queen Saowapha and the Princess moved to another building in Suan Dusit, the King vacated the octagonal apartment on the fourth floor and came to reside in the loggia, using Queen Saowapha's former bedchamber as his dressing room. This was due to the loggia's convenient nearness to the Apisek Dusit Hall which was completed in 1902 and served the King as an audience hall as well as for his cabinet meetings.

The loggia became the birthplace of one of the gems of Bangkok Period literature, a drama in verse form entitled "Ngor Pa". The work was written by the King during his eight-day recuperation from an attack of malarial fever. Unused to enforced idleness, the King passed his time by conversing with one of his page boys, Kanung, who was a Sakai Malay aborigine from the South. What the King learnt about the aboriginal way of life in the Malay jungles triggered his poetic imagination and "Ngor Pa" was the outcome of the King's convalescence.

It was said that during his illness the King would retire early while, a few rooms away, court singers and musicians would play and sing, allowing the music to float through to the King's bed chamber. The sound of the music would then be softened by the distance and the partitions between the musicians and the royal invalid.

Related Pages:

• Suan Dusit Palace
• The Present Vimanmek Mansion
• Interior Layout of Vimanmek Mansion
• Inside Vimanmek Mansion
• Collectibles Inside Vimanmek Mansion

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This document was updated on:  August 03, 2008