BANGKOK – With last weekend’s performance of classical piano, the Thailand Cultural Center passed another important milestone with its 10,000th performance to be ruined by the Center’s appalling acoustics, shallow and uncomfortable seating, and disturbingly bland architecture.
“We’re deeply proud of our place in Thai performing arts history,” said a spokesperson for the Culture Ministry, which operates the center. Since its opening in 1987 as part of the celebrations of His Majesty the King’s 60th birthday, the Cultural Center has played host to almost every kind of performing art, including opera, ballet, Broadway-style musicals, pop and jazz concerts, acrobatics, magicians, and command performances from some of the world’s great solo singers – most of whom have consistently described the Main Hall as among the worst-designed and least-inspiring venues of their respective careers.
According to the Ministry, there are currently no plans to replace, update, or improve the maligned facilities or its infamously inconvenient location far from the MRT station that deceptively bears its name. “The Cultural Center is all about Thailand,” the spokesman continued. “If insufficient public transport, sloppy pseudo-modernist architecture, and unsightly attempts at grandeur are part of that, then we should continue to celebrate it.”
