Jim Thompson House

OK, we have to admit that until someone (several, actually) suggested that the “Jim Thompson House” was a must-see in Bangkok, we’d never heard of it before.

Short version of the story is that Jim Thompson -- an American architect (born 1906, disappeared mysteriously 1959) visited Bangkok, decided he liked it, divorced his wife and moved here permanently. He had been a non-practicing architect, so he bought half a dozen antique traditional Thai houses and put them together to make his house.

http://www.jimthompsonhouse.org/life/index.asp

Because of the temperate climate, these houses were built without nails (they used wooden pegs instead) and have walls that are constructed more like the doors on your kitchen cabinets than what we think of with studs and dry wall. They have teak panels set in frames that allow for expansion and contraction due to the humidity variances.

Jim Thompson house didn’t let you take photographs, though, so you’ll have to take our word for it.  The pictures here are ones we captured from the web.

He’s important because he became fascinated with the cottage industry of handmade silk, just after WWII. This was pretty much dying out due to automation, but he st some to friends who were clothing designers in New York City.

They liked it, pictures made it into magazines and an industry was saved.

Unfortunately for Jim Thompson, he wasn’t – while on vacation in Cambodia in 1959, he went out for a walk and never came back. The house is now a museum (with a pretty decent restaurant attached).

There were a few things that we took away from this particular tour, though.

We’d noticed before (like at the Teak Palace) that the custom is to put a raised threshold on all doors, even interior ones. Some of these are so tall that they have a step to go over. We were told that there are three purposes for these.

• First, because of the type of construction, you need that brace across the bottom of the door to keep the wall together. It’s very much like a puzzle in a frame, and if you take out one piece the whole thing becomes much easier to pop out.
• Second, because traditional Thai houses tended to be built near the water or canals, these tall thresholds especially made the rooms a “playpen” to keep the crawlers and toddlers from falling into the water. Presumably it would also keep them out from under mom’s feet while she was trying to cook dinner as well.
• Finally, they are intended to cause evil spirits to trip and not come into the room. We find they work equally well on Americans, who forget to look down when crossing a doorway.  Although the purpose may be different, there is a raised threshold going into the bathroom in our hotel. We have both managed to slam the ball of our feet into it at various times.  In older structures, such as the original part of this house which dated back 200 years, it’s equally easy to slam your head into the mantle as you’re trying to remember to step high.

Jim Thompson collected a lot of antique art, much of which is on display in the structure. We were particularly fascinated by saki pots, which look a lot like smaller teapots, but which have no lid. Instead, they have a hole in the bottom with a tube that goes up to the top of the pot, and you turn it upside down to fill it. When you turn it back over, the tube is above the liquid line, so the liquid stays in the pot.

There was also a “mouse house”, which apparently was a very popular children’s toy. The pre-courser to those plastic hamster habitats we see now, this one had a glass front and lots of levels with wooden houses carved into a neighborhood for the mice to run through.

By this time, the afternoon was upon us and traffic for the sporting event (maybe a soccer game?) was picking up significantly. We were going to get a traditional Thai Massage while Sam went off to take care of some of his other business interests, and we got a nap in along the way.  I told you today was a day of "leisure."  It is Saturday after all.