Baandam Museum
‘Baan’ (house) ‘Dam’ (Black), so known to westerners as the ‘black house’ is a collection of around 40 buildings surrounded by peaceful gardens. Created by Thailand national artist Thawan Duchanee, the grounds cover 100 rai (remember our lesson from the Singha post? 2.5 rai is roughly one acre) in the artists home town Nang-lae, Chiang Rai provance, Thailand.
The 40 buildings consist of small black houses made of wood, glass, concrete, bricks or terracotta in a variety of styles and designs. The buildings display Thawan’s collections of paintings, sculptures, animal bones, skins, horns, silver, gold and other unique items from around the world.
The houses on the property reflect Lan Na (Lanna) and South East Asia architecture and art dating back to the Suvarabhumi period.
Today’s lesson: The Suvarabhumi Kingdom is mentioned primarily in early Buddhist scripts and specifics are vague. In the scriptures, ‘Suvarnabhumi’ means ‘the golden land,’ or ‘land of gold.’
These references are mostly found in Jataka scriptures – which a bonus lesson – means stories with a long history.
In one of those scriptures, During the Third Buddhist Council around 234 B.E., King Ashoka the Great sent Buddhist missionaries to spread Buddhism to Suvarnabhumi. Since the only specific location indicates Survarnabhumi is in the east of India, it is assumed it includes at least some parts of burma, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia.
so, that fits.
But apparently, sometime in the 1st or second centuries BCE, the Suvarnabhumi were destroyed by the Funan and forced most of the population to move to Funan.
I have no idea where or what Funan is or was, but it did not sound fun.
And back to the point… which I forgot. So moving on to the artist of this compound.
Thawan Duchanee was born in September 1939 in Chiang Rai province. He graduated from the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture at Silpakorn University. His Masters of Arts degree is in Mural Painting, monument and Urban Planning, and his PhD in Metaphysics and Aesthetics was earned from the Roayal Academy of Visual Arts in Amsterdam.
So he has extensive art background.
Over his 50 years of creating art, he brought Thai art onto the world stage including being mentioned or featured in publications, movie clips and television programs.
Never heard of him, but he is a really big thing here. After seeing this display, I believe he has the attention of many Hollywood influencers and I probably have seen his work without realizing what it was.
And he built this place, so… lots of his stuff laying around.
Having said that, this was a weird place. My friend had never been here or even heard of the place, so when we were dropped off amidst a sea of tour busses, it was a surprise.
Apparently a lot of people read the internet, because that is the only way I knew about the place.
The first building is the Sanctuary, followed directly by the sanctuary hall. It was black. He was true to that theme, I will give him that.
The sanctuary hall was a lot of paintings, that walled off rooms, that contained castle size dining room tables surrounded by chairs made of horns, antlers, bones and the like. Big chairs fit for a Norse king, and small for his subjects. Covered in animal skins, the chairs did not appear at all comfortable, but I was not allowed to sit and find out.
Every table had a neatly pressed alligator (or croc, I cannot tell the difference) skin as a table runner. Huge skins. Over 10 feet long in my estimation.
And there were a lot of them. In the sanctuary hall alone there were at least 4 ‘dining rooms.’ All alike in theme and presentation, yet entirely different in details.
As the Thai apparently say, or my friend says frequently ‘same, same but different.’
It was weird.
Yet interesting. Passing through the first buildings opened up the rest of the complex. Some buildings you walk through, others you look into, and all had a lot of sculptures surrounding them. The buildings themselves are masterpieces of detail which blended what I interpreted as his Amsterdam influence melding with buddha and the underlying weird. Of course, I do not know a lot about the local native cultures, so what I perceived to be a Norse influence could just be my upbringing and have nothing to do with anything.
I was innocently wandering around when I came upon an open pavilion called “the drum pavilion” which predictably had large drums in the center. It was also displaying a large woven baskets, wood furniture and a pottery collection. It was here that I came face to face with the first… I will call it a symbol of fertility. Meant for use in an elephant or other large beast because it was the size of my arm, but there it was in all of its terracotta glory. But wait, there were more. Several subtle yet entirely obvious displays somehow suspended in a… I will call it a pot. I am just going to put a picture out here and leave it at that. I have no idea.
The thing was, in the middle of all the weird, that was weird. Everything else fit with the theme of black, dead and bone. Oh, now I get it. Never mind.
ANYHOO… the next building was closed, but to me looked like a Dutch shoe, or maybe a submarine. It was called the hornbill house. Still pondering that one.
Next to that were the 3 stupas. Oddly white, rounded buildings appeared to be upside down tea cups. I walked up to one, noted several chairs lining the inside walls, so I took a video starting at one side and working my way around the room. Bone chairs, animal skins, usual.
Until I got to the door I was standing in and directly in front of me was a black wooden statue of a man… with a bone… and somehow I had looked past him, oblivious to his presence and presentation until I had panned around the room and I noted it in the camera.
I’m not sure what that says about me.
I think that was the last picture I took because my phone died, but in comparing notes with MJ later, I apparently missed many ‘bones’ scattered throughout the complex.
I will say, for the weird… and make no mistake this place is weird… it is worth seeing. If I am in the area again, I would do more research so I have a better grasp on what I was looking at.
That was rude. Sorry.
But I would come back. Because as weird as this is, the artist is dedicated to his themes. Which included the ‘charcoal’ ice cream they serve outside the gates. I did not try it.
