Jim Thompson's House

"You have not only beautiful things," observed Somerset Maugham in a thank-you note after visiting Jim Thompson's Bangkok house in 1959, "but what is rare you have arranged them with faultless taste". A fine compliment, and one that bears much truth, too. Today, thirty years after Thompson's tragic and mysterious disappearance whilst staying with friends in Malaysia's Cameron Highlands, his house and the collection of antiques and paintings it contains still retain the charm and elegance to captivate any visitor who strays into the quiet compound on the banks of the Klong Maha Nag.

It was, of course, silk which first brought Thompson international fame. Almost single-handedly in the twenty years preceeding his disappearance Thompson had resuscitated the Thai silk industry. Prior to Thompson's arrival on the scene, silk weaving in Thailand was in a state of terminal decline under the onslaught of new, cheaper, man-made fibres. But Thompson, who clearly felt the material was far too good to lose, had the necessary enthusiasm and faith to persuade the weavers - particularly those living in the Ban Krua district of Bangkok - not to leave their looms. Through trial and error, through contacts in the American fashion world, but mostly through his very fair if somewhat eccentric - indeed almost selfless - business practices, Thompson built up an industry which continued to grow to the point where Thai silk became one of the country's major exports, and an absolute essential in any fashion designer's collection.

With Thompson's fame came visitors, and not only clients, but increasingly journalists, writers, and the simply curious. Thompson, far from shying away from fame and his many visitors, was a master of hospitality, and seemingly inexhaustably gregarious. The house which Thompson eventually built on the banks of Klong Maha Nag facing the weaving community of Ban Krua to which he was so attached, was very much designed as a place to entertain. It was also designed to be a showcase for his constantly expanding collection of Southeast Asian art and antiques.

Thompson was an almost compulsive collector. As soon as he arrived in Thailand a few days after the close of World War II, he began picking up pieces of the silk which so took his fancy with its "humps and bumps". Undoubtedly, from this early casual aquaintance with the material, the seed of the future Thai Silk Company was sown. It wasn't only silk, though, that caught Thompson's eye. He soon became interested in the art of the area too. At that time, in the early fifties, Bangkok was indisputably a wonderful place to pick up art objects and antiques - the shops in the Chinese area known as Nakorn Kasem were absolutely teeming with paintings, Buddha images, porcelains and furniture, much of it of a venerable age, and most of it remarkably cheap. There was little local interest in such things, and even less foreign interest. Thompson, though, was hooked, and spent most of what little spare time he had rooting through these curio shops, and purchasing anything that he felt worth having. Over time he read up on the pieces he was buying, and certainly became fairly knowledgable about the arts of Southeast Asia. But to the end, it was his personal disposition towards a piece which finally decided whether it would be in his collection or not. And today the collection remains very much a personal legacy.

It was in 1958, feeling that his current dwelling close to Lumpini Park was too small to house his now fairly extensive collection of antiques, and also realising that he needed somewhere bigger to entertain all the visitors who were turning up, that Thompson decided to build a house on some land which had become available opposite the Ban Krua weaving community. He admired many of the old teak houses he had seen on his frequent forays into the country, and decided, against the Bangkok vogue for concrete, to buy up some old teak houses and combine them into one dwelling. Thai houses were traditionally built with portability in mind, and could easily be taken apart and reassembled after transport. The house that he built consists of parts of six separate buildings. The main section, the drawing room, is a nineteenth century house moved from Ban Krua on the other side of the canal. The kitchen, an annexe to the east of the main section of the building also came from Ban Krua. The other four houses originate, as did the craftsmen who knew how to work in the traditional style, from Ayutthaya, the former capital to the north of Bangkok.

Thompson was keen that his house be authentically Thai, even going so far as to observe all the appropriate Buddhist and animistic rituals during its construction. He did however make a couple of departures from tradition. The stairs, which by tradition go on the outside of a Thai house, he moved into a stairwell. He reversed the walls in the drawing room, so that the ornate carving below the windows could be seen from the inside - interestingly this makes the shutters on the windows rather awkward to close! And he installed Western bathrooms and toilets, probably his greatest concession to comfortable living.

Some critics of the house, possibly motivated more by jealousy than anything else, have indeed claimed that the house is not a liveable place at all. There may be some truth in the observation, but that is rather to miss the point that the building was designed all along to be something approaching a museum, and a theatrical one at that. Before serving in the war, and ending up in the Far East, Thompson had practised as an architect in New York for nine years, and for a few more years been director of the Monte Carlo Ballet Company, where his real interest, he was frequently to recall, lay in the sets, the costumes, and the theatrical effects . It seems that much of the experience he gained in these American years fed quite directly into the house he later designed.

One can sense the elegance of the house immediately on setting foot in the entrance hall. It is here that the relocated staircase rises from a black and white marble tiled floor. The marble, while not typically Thai, did in fact come from a nineteenth-century Bangkok palace, and it certainly sets off well the gleaming teak walls which rise above you. Hanging above the stairs, and rising to the second level, are several large Thai paintings on silk depicting the life of the Buddha. They are complemented at the top of the stairs by an impressive gallery of mainly nineteenth-century Thai religious paintings, including a complete set representing the popular Thai Jataka story of Prince Vessantara who gave away all his possessions, including wife and children, to achieve perfection.

Off the entrance hall is the dining room, containing a set of blue-and-white Ming Dynasty porcelains, some of which are displayed on the ornate dining table, formerly a gaming table, and bearing King Chulalongkorn's insignia. More of the porcelain can be seen in the cupboards and cabinets around the sides of the room. A particularly distinguishing feature of Thai architecture is that the walls of the house slope inwards slightly, as do the sides of the windows, which is plain to see should you look towards the window over the klong in the dining room. While the reasons for this are practical - it makes for a stronger structure - the aesthetic effects are quite striking. They lend to the building as a whole a gentle elegance, as though a delicate reaching for the sky. Another Thai architectural phenomenon is the raised board in each doorway. Again, this lends strength to the structure, but legend has it that these boards keep out evil spirits.

The focus and centre of the house is undoubtedly the large drawing room, where Thompson's theatricality was given its fullest reign. The room is entirely open on the canal side, and outside there is a patio of seventeenth-century bricks from Ayutthaya. In the centre of the room is a traditional Thai bed, and all around in alcoves and on antique cabinets are various Buddha images and religious icons. The soft furnishings, needless to say are of silk, and all demonstrate Thompson's inate brilliance with colour - reds, yellows, browns, blues, all combining with wonderful effectiveness. Interestingly, most of the statuary which adorns every surface and alcove in this and all other rooms is of Burmese and Khmer origin.After a dispute with the Fine Arts Department, Thompson had been so embittered that he got rid of much of his Thai collection - in the process he may well have earned some respect from locals, who were never too happy with his displaying religious artefacts from their country, but were less bothered by those from neighbouring countries.

Aside from Buddha images and other religious statues, many of great antiquity, Thompson's house plays host to several other objects of interest. Adjacent to the drawing room is a room devoted to his collection of colourful Bencharong porcelains, made in China after the designs of Thai artists. In the master bedroom, with tiger skins on the floor, there is a beautiful Chinese rosewood screen with painted glass panels. Here also is the mouse house - an elaborate nineteenth century playground and cage to house pet mice. With it's glass front, it is almost like an early television. Similarly delightful is the porcelain cat in the guest bedroom, which when the head is removed serves as a well-disguised chamber pot.

It's certainly a unique collection, and one that avoids the dreaded fatigue associated with certain museum collections. This is largely because the objects reveal so much about Thompson himself - they seem to reveal the man whose stay in this part of the world eventually ended in such mystery. The other factor which makes the pieces so engaging is their setting. The many carefully lit alcoves, the cluttered tables, the colorful soft furnishings all draw the visitor on. One feels that these objects really are part of a home, and a warm home at that. The polished teak all around glows, casting its soft red hue over all the beautiful things it contains. And the taste certainly cannot be faulted.

Jim Thompson's house can be found on Soi Kasem San 2, off Rama I Road opposite the National Stadium. It is open from Monday to Saturday, 9 am to 4.30 pm. There is a gift shop in what used to be the kitchen, selling books, postcards, prints and other souvenirs. Admission is 100 Baht, 40 Baht for under 25's. Part of the money goes to Bangkok's school for the blind as Thompson decreed when hefirst opened the house to the public.

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