- published: 21 Oct 2015
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The Robot Building, located in the Sathorn business district of Bangkok, Thailand, houses United Overseas Bank's Bangkok headquarters. It was designed for the Bank of Asia by Sumet Jumsai to reflect the computerization of banking; its architecture is a reaction against neoclassical and high-tech postmodern architecture. The building's features, such as progressively receding walls, antennas, and eyes, contribute to its robotic appearance and to its practical function. Completed in 1986, the building is one of the last examples of modern architecture in Bangkok.
Thai architect Sumet Jumsai designed the Robot Building for the Bank of Asia, which was acquired by United Overseas Bank in 2005. He had been asked by the Bank of Asia's directors to design a building that reflected the modernization and computerization of banking and found inspiration in his son's toy robot.
Sumet designed the building in conscious opposition to postmodern styles of the era, particularly classical revivalism and high-tech architecture as embodied in the Centre Pompidou. While Sumet praised the inception of postmodernism as a protest against puritanical, bland modern design, he called it "a protest movement which seeks to replace without offering a replacement". Sumet dismissed mid-1980s classical revivalism as "intellectual[ly] bankrupt[]" and criticized the "catalogue[s] of meaningless architectural motifs" that characterized classical revivalism in Bangkok. He further dismissed high-tech architecture, "which engrosses itself in the machine while at the same time secretly...lov[ing]...handmade artifacts and honest manual labor", as a movement without a future.