order to make one decision simplify the next?
Analysis implies plan, and planning for cities involves architects, poli- ticians and specialists in the various levels of urban problems. Planning can provide for growth in all areas, be it in industry, housing or institu- tional expansion. It will do so ac- cording to directed paths so that in each case one positive venture will not negate another. Unplanned cities are anarchies.
Foresight Needed
The United States experienced this circumstance in its early industrial days and is now paying for it with vast expenditures in rebuilding its urban centres along more rational lines. Bangkok should benefit from others in this respect. Foresight is more valuable than expediency in building viable cities.
Basic issues of a city begin with man for he is the unit whose multi- ples make a city. Man's labour is that which makes a city prosperous. his attitude the creator of the standard by which the urban centre maintains itself and lives. With modern tech- nology, communications and re- sources, cities can be designed with a freedom limited only by man's im- agination and ingenuity. But, it re- quires a degree of idealism on the part of the powers-that-be to in- augurate such programmes. A city plan cannot be based on immediate and temporary gains. It must anti- cipate a future of greater dimension which involves time as a factor in ultimate solutions.
For the urban dweller, the con- centration of activity should offer great benefits because the resources of the government are largely invested here. Bangkok, being the principle city of Thailand with no other city a close second in manpower or physical plant, should be the ideal to which consequent urban centres can aspire. For Bangkok to attain this status, a dynamic involvement by the adminis- tration is necessary.
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Gate and wall of Palace
A gauge of this quality is the amount and type of government- sponsored construction in progress at any given time. To take an instance I do not see enough public housing in existence to prove that adequate measures are being taken in this area. For a city of Bangkok's population. public housing on a grand scale is an absolute requirement. Due to the economic framework of a city, the government alone has the ability to provide for large investments at a slow rate of return.
Government-sponsored housing can insure each citizen. regardless of income bracket, a respectable dwelling for a fair percentage of his wage. The government gains in this arrangement because it is enabled to maintain a certain standard of living for the people. In addition, it can
determine the residential areas of the city and automatically control en- vironmental problems associated with residential areas.
The second major consideration that will determine the viability of a city is the control of vehicular move- ment in its various mediums. A city should not comprise the remainder of space after roads are constructed. The placement of these arteries must be considered as an integral part of the living situation.
Naturally one does not suggest an expressway through the centre of the city. But it also is not realistic to in- finitely widen all the existing avenues
of the present city with hopes of al- leviating the traffic problem.
The increase in traffic density in Bangkok calls for new types of roads in places where they will be used most efficiently. There are various categories of traffic: through traffic, commercial trucking and public transportation. Specific kinds of routes are preferable in each case. Through traffic, meaning vehicles whose destination is not Bangkok. should be directed around the city. Heavy commercial trucking can be handled by specified lanes of high- ways leading to industrial areas, thus separating slow and fast traffic. The remainder of traffic is variable in
Sculptural form of temple structure
density and speed and can be ac- comodated by streets within the city if such streets are designed to carry the loads that the planned population density would indicate.
Design Potential
There is no simple solution to these problems, but initial analysis asks for these generalities to be first stated as I have done here.
NEC
Complexity of composite roof structures, ornate edges and stupa
forms contrast with planar simplicity of wall masses
Far East Architect & Builder March, 1967
Uninteresting uniformity of repetitious structures along multi- lane expressways leading to the town centre
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