Urban robotic architecture
Introduction
The Robot Building, located in the Sathorn financial district of Bangkok, Thailand, houses the headquarters of United Overseas Bank in Bangkok. It was designed by Sumet Jumsai for the Bank of Asia to reflect the computerization of banking; its architecture is a reaction against neoclassical architecture and postmodern high-tech architecture. The building's features, such as successively set back walls, antennas, and eyes, contribute to its robot-like appearance and practical function. Completed in 1986, it is one of the last examples of modern architecture in Bangkok.
Design
Thai architect Sumet Jumsai designed the Robot Building for Bank of Asia, which was purchased by United Overseas Bank in 2005.[2][3] He was asked by the directors of Bank of Asia to design a building that reflected the modernization and computerization of banking[2][4] and was inspired by his son's toy robot.[5].
Sumet designed the building in conscious opposition to the postmodern style of the time, especially the neoclassical architecture and high-tech architecture reflected in the Center Pompidou.[6] Although Sumet praised the beginning of postmodernism as a protest against puritanical and bland modern design, he later called it "a protest movement that seeks to substitute without proposing a substitute."[7] Sumet rejected the neoclassicism of the mid-1980s as being "intellectually bankrupt" and criticized the "catalogue of meaningless architectural motifs" that characterized Bangkok neoclassicism.[7] He also rejected high-tech architecture, "which engrosses itself in the machine while at the same time secretly loving handmade objects and honest manual labor", as a movement without a future.[8]
Sumet wrote that his building "does not have to be a robot" and would suffice "subject to other metamorphoses", provided they could "free the spirit from the current intellectual dead end and propel it forward, into the next century." of the machine as an "independent entity" often "raised on a pedestal for worship" and, by making it "part of our daily lives, a friend, ourselves", paved the way for the century's amalgamation of man and machine.[8].
The building was completed in 1987 at a cost of US$10 million.[1][2] By the mid-1980s, modern architecture had declined in Bangkok; This building is one of the last examples of this style.[10].