Consideration on Formation and Transition of Shophouse Case of Ratanakosin Island, Bangkok, Thailand

摘要

As an un-colonized country, the birth and evolution of shophouse in Ratanakosin, the old core conservation area of Bangkok, were different from those in neighborhood S. E. Asian Countries. They were freely built without the control of any ordinances or building codes as in other S.E.Asian Countries but they were shaped by following road construction from the king, the royalty and the Privy Purse Bureau. They could enjoy the full use of shophouse space without any imposition for the construction of front colonnade. By this reason, although Ratanakosin shophouses were modeled on Singapore shophouses, their formation and space arrangement were different from each other. This research demonstrates that with the fragmental and periodical city planning of Ratanakosin. shophouses formed to be the predominant urban form from their simple composition of spaces, which in the later period were developed to be more complex in their space arrangement, especially in the vertical plane.