Urban Choreographies : Bangkok Cases, Catalysts and Qualities

This paper describes the catalysts, strategies and tactics of Bangkok's urban transformation. It links the essence of Bangkok's historic economic development in relation to the city's urbanisation and offers a framework for understanding the urban spatial productions of resilience in rapidly transforming and developing political economies of Southeast Asia.

The concept of Urban Choreographies localises resilient Siamese urban development practises of selected inner-city neighbourhoods in the larger body of contemporary urban transformation theories. Addressing adaptive reuse and renewal, creative production and consumerism, it invites the reader to rethink urban qualities and spatial production less according to a building’s size and programmes (scale) but rather in terms of its experience over time (urban intensities).

Supported by interviews, photographic documentation and cartography, this paper offers a balance of personal narratives, spatial theory, economic history and the singularity of urban change. Learning from this study, the reader can derive and further develop site-specific quality criteria and strategic urban planning frameworks for rapidly evolving urban planning conditions.