The Time Out Love Bangkok Awards 2016 : Museum

Learning about culture and history will never get boring. Standing in the 19th-century historic building, this interactive museum is designed to be equally as fun and informative. The galleries and the exhibitions are also entertaining and photograph-worthy that you can easily lose track of time while exploring.

Visiting Thai palaces, we enjoy the beauty of arts and new knowledge, and Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles offers us the beauty of Thai textiles and lets us experience Thai wisdom which is the root of Thai creativity.

Siriraj Medical Museum, best known as the Museum of Death, is home to five medical museums for the public to learn more about the science of health and wellness. The five museums are Congdon Anatomical Museum, Ellis the Pathological Museum, Sood Sangvichien Prehistoric Museum and Laboratory, Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum and Parasitology Museum.  

The revival and global fame of Thai silk owes much to Jim Thompson, a US architect who came in Thailand at the end of World War II with the OSS (now the CIA) and settled. Thompson spotted the marketing potential of the declining silk weaving industry, then still practised by the Muslims of Baan Khrua, and used it to create a lucrative company selling luxurious fabrics and home decor. In 1959, he adapted six reassembled teak houses into a modern living compound. Now a museum in lush grounds, it exhibits Thompson's Asian artefacts and looks much like it did when he disappeared in Malaysia's Cameron Highlands in 1967. Conspiracy theories surround his unexplained disappearance. After taking a short guided tour through Thompson’s former abode, relax in the canalside bar/restaurant Thompson, browse the onsite silk shop or view the Jim Thompson Center for the Arts, which holds world-class exhibitions on regional textiles and culture. Nearby, the William Warren Library, named after Jim's friend and biographer, also hosts talks.

Kukrit’s Heritage Home is the former residence of one of Thailand’s biggest political and literature figures, M.R. Kukrit Pramoj. He was the country’s prime minister during 1974-1975, founded a newspaper, and wrote many books. Verdant garden wraps around a complex of five traditional Thai teak houses connected by a verandah. Since his death in 1995, Kukrit’s Heritage Home has been registered on the list of Ministry of Culture’s preserved architecture.  

Famous Thai florist Sakul Intakul turned a vintage house into a museum to display multi-cultural floristry in different forms. You’ll see everything about floral cultures from photographs of flower arrangement in various cultures to handmade garlands to the secrets of ancient Japanese flower arranging.    

Guru of Thai lifestyle history Anek Nawikkamun showcases antiques, collectibles, and toys from different eras. The museum is comprised of two houses: the first three-story shows you how people do businesses in Thailand in the past: coffee shop, pharmacy, shophouse, barber shop, cinema, publishing, and tailor while the second house resembles the ambiance of a floating market.

More than 10,000 seashells from 624 species in the heart of Bangkok’s busiest business district? Yes, as amazing as it sounds. The three-storey museum on Silom Road displays rare-find seashells from around the world, including those poisonous and non-poisonous seashells from the deep sea.