The most juicy thing about my last lecture in KL is not quite about architecture but more about the politics behind them.

One question was asked to me why I have been a little quiet lately. I told him that I have been busy dealing with the Thai political terrain. Architecture of all kind build on this and eventually became a political space. We, architects, cannot ever build anything on a weak foundation, especially a political one.

Removal of military regime from this country for good is not a job of one entity, it needs brains of all minds to work on that. Military minds are a polemic thinking without embracing the context. No empathy. No compassion. It is not structured for any business or architecture. So my thought to involve in this partial political movement during the past few years is solely for the sake of possibility of good architecture. Not that I was interested in politics or inspired to be a politician.

Now the job is done; so it is time to get back into architecture as usual.

Still, corruptions exist. No fair governmental design competition and government’s project still being commissioned to a corrupted system. This is still a very long way to go for Thailand.

My next lecture will be for a Keynote speaker for ARCASIA in Sri Lanka in September. Perhaps I should be discussing more about relations of architecture and politics.