Wat Rong Khun
Interesting facts
- Chalermchai Kositpipat was 42 when he began rebuilding the temple in 1997, and has spent more than 40 million baht of his own money on it.
- To keep the project free of outside influence, individual donations are capped at 10,000 baht.
- A magnitude 6.3 earthquake on 5 May 2014 cracked walls and snapped the tip of the stupa; the artist vowed to demolish it, but engineers found the structures sound.
- The original temple dates back to settlers who arrived around 1887 and had to be moved several times because the riverbank kept eroding.
- The three steps leading up to the ordination hall stand for the Buddhist marks of impermanence, suffering and non-self.
- Before the White Temple, the artist painted cinema billboards and spent four years from 1988 on murals for Wat Buddhapadipa in London, criticised at home as un-Thai.
- In 2004 he became the first visual artist to receive Thailand's Silpathorn Award.
Why it is worth it
Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple, is a working Buddhist temple and at the same time the life's work of one artist. The original temple on this site south of Chiang Rai had fallen into disrepair when Chalermchai Kositpipat, a painter born in Chiang Rai province and named a National Artist of Thailand in 2011, took it on. He designed and rebuilt it with his own money, opened it to visitors in 1997, and has kept adding to it ever since, with work on the complex expected to continue until around 2070. He has said that only death can stop his dream, not the project. Under the dazzle the main hall is a plain structure of concrete and timber; what makes it shimmer is a skin of white plaster set with countless small pieces of mirrored glass, so that in the sun the whole building flashes like frost.
Everything here is an allegory, and the approach is designed as a journey. Visitors cross a bridge past hundreds of outstretched sculpted hands, an image of unchecked desire, on a path meant to lead towards happiness by giving up greed and temptation, and then pass through a gate guarded by the figures of Death and Rahu before arriving at the ubosot, the ordination hall. White stands for the mind and spiritual merit, and the building takes the familiar layered roofs and ornament of Thai temple architecture and pushes them into something closer to a dream. By contrast, the richly gilded building on the grounds, which houses the toilets, stands for worldly desire and the pull of money.
Inside the ubosot the calm breaks. The murals turn fiery and bewildering: demons, nuclear war and terrorism crowd the walls alongside a gallery of pop-culture figures, from Superman to Michael Jackson and Harry Potter, as emblems of the delusions of modern life. It is a startling, sometimes unsettling room, and deliberately so. Elsewhere on the site, a museum shows Chalermchai's own paintings, sculpture and prints, which help explain the vision behind the temple. Wat Rong Khun is a place of worship as well as an artwork.
Getting there
The temple lies in Pa O Don Chai, about 13 km south of the centre of Chiang Rai, on Highway 1208. Local buses run from Chiang Rai's old bus terminal and take about half an hour; songthaews and ride-hailing cars also make the trip in around twenty minutes. Mae Fah Luang–Chiang Rai International Airport (CEI) is about 19 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Wat Rong Khun, better known as the White Temple, is a contemporary, privately owned art exhibit in the style of a Buddhist temple in Pa O Don Chai, Mueang District, Chiang Rai province, Thailand. Situated outside the city of Chiang Rai, the site attracts a large number of visitors, both Thai and foreign, making it one of Chiang Rai's most visited attractions. The White Temple was created by master Chalermchai Kositpipat, the national artist who designed, constructed, and opened it to visitors in 1997.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
19.82424, 99.76329per Wikidata