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M+, Hong Kong. Gift of Sumet Jumsai, 2018, © Sumet Jumsai
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Sumet Jumsai 書梅春塞
North elevation, Bank of Asia headquarters building (now United Overseas Bank Bangkok headquarters) (1983–1986), Bangkok, Thailand
April 1984
The Bank of Asia Tower—the first high-rise in Bangkok’s Sathorn business district—was the culmination of Jumsai’s engagement with the concept of the machine. The tower, also known as the Robot Building, makes playful use of a hightech, anthropomorphic form to signal the dawn of the age of digital banking, for a new generation of bankers. Jumsai met his client’s brief with a design inspired by his son’s toy robot. He both critiques and embraces the apparent arbitrariness of the postmodern appropriation of references— what he called ‘Disney World’ architecture. But the design is more than a theoretical exercise. The staggered robot shape meets the setback requirements of an eighteen-degree incline from all four sides; its ‘nuts’ and ‘bolts’, in glass fibre reinforced concrete, function as operable window casings, sunshades, and an entrance canopy; and its ‘eyes’ are made of reflective glass, with ‘lids’ consisting of metallic louvres through which the city can be viewed from the office’s boardroom.
In Search of Southeast Asia through the M+ Collections. M+ Pavilion, Hong Kong, 22 June–30 September 2018
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