(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Bangkok Flower Market (or “Pak Khlong Talat”) is in Pra Nakhon District, which is an inner old town of Bangkok. Its location is alongside Chao Phraya River. For more than six decades, the Thai public have acknowledged it as the most important market for agricultural products, vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Bangkok Flower Market is not only one of the biggest flower markets in Thailand, accommodating more than a thousand of local vendors per day, but was also a 24-hours genuinely lively place where most tourists who came to Thailand must check out. In 2016, the government launched a city beautification programme, which forbidden all street vendors to sell flowers on the sidewalks. Thus, its sense of place has dramatically changed from organically vigorous to orderly empty. Tourists went there and asked the local vendors “where is the flower market (as they once knew)?” and the locals were unenthusiastic to say that it is (or was) here. Thus, the author with a team from the Faculty of Architecture, Silpakorn University have been collaborating with the local vendors and young designers since 2016, exploring fresh visions of the place by catalysing various street art exhibitions, flower installations, walking tours, and flower arrangement workshops led by the local vendors, as tactical placemaking to highlight local assets and intangible heritage, additionally to pursuit opportunities for the future. Moreover, in 2017 with a fund from the National Innovation Agency (NIA), the author launched the website named www.flowerhub.space, which is an online platform for the local vendors. It is evident that, during COVID-19 pandemic, online channels have helped various local shops to survive. The paper explores the tensions between top-down versus bottom-up, tangible versus intangible heritage, and sense of place versus public health and safety. Finally, it illustrates the role of art and design as a tool for experimenting the sense of place of Bangkok Flower Market.