Monday, November 9, 2009

Maximalism

The other day, I was taking care of some visa issues at the new government office complex North of Bangkok.

When I was done, I went looking for the food garden and stumbled upon this massive atrium, which was big enough to hold a couple football fields.


For a moment, it took my breath away, as if I had wandered up to the edge of the Grand Canyon without knowing it was there.

But just as quickly, I wondered why, in one of the hottest cities on earth, would you purposely air condition a space that has no purpose.


"Big" seems to be a trend in Thailand, as I'll show in a future post on their recent mega-bridge projects. I can only assume that Thailand is trying to emulate China that seems to have the biggest and tallest of everything. More likely, some big Thai politicians have a few construction and cement companies.

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