The Marble Temple of King Chulalongkorn 🇹🇭 #shorts

Indexed: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]The marble temple was built by one king's love for his brother.

[00:00:04]King Chulalongkorn, Rama the fifth, traveled to Europe and fell in love with Western architecture.

[00:00:12]He asked his half-brother Prince Nares, a brilliant artist, to design a temple that would blend East and West.

[00:00:20]Construction took 16 years.

[00:00:23]Prince Nares used Italian Carrara marble, Chinese dragon motifs, and European stained glass, all woven together with traditional Thai temple architecture.

[00:00:34]The courtyard displays 53 Buddha statues, representing every major artistic period in Thai history, a timeline of faith spanning over 1,200 years.

[00:00:46]When the temple was finally finished in 1915, King Chulalongkorn had already been dead for 5 years.

[00:00:54]He never saw the completed masterpiece that his beloved brother built for him.

[00:00:59]But Prince Nares finished it anyway.

[00:01:02]He carved the king's initials into the marble, side by side with his own.

[00:01:07]Two brothers, one perfect temple.

[00:01:11]The temple is so beloved that it appears on Thailand's 5-baht coin.

[00:01:17]Monks say that on full moon nights, two shadows walk among the 53 Buddhas, still inspecting the work.