Visit the Jim Thompson House in Bangkok

The Jim Thompson House is a group of six old teak houses reassembled in 1959 off Rama I Road in central Bangkok, by the American who did more than anyone to bring Thai silk to the world. It has been a museum since his disappearance, and it shows his collection of Asian art much as he left it.

What the experience is

James H. W. Thompson came to Thailand at the end of the Second World War with the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, and stayed. He had trained as an architect. Silk weaving was declining, still kept up by the Muslim weavers of Baan Khrua across the canal, and he built a company around their cloth that sold it as luxury fabric abroad. In 1959 he bought six traditional teak houses from different parts of the country, moved them to this site and joined them into one modern home.

In 1967, on holiday in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, he went for a walk in the jungle and never returned. No trace of him has been found, and the mystery has never been solved. The house was left as it was, and a foundation set up in 1976 now runs it, with his sculptures, paintings, porcelain and curiosities still in the rooms, set in a garden of dense tropical planting. The Jim Thompson Art Center in the same compound holds exhibitions on textiles and the culture of the region, and there is a silk shop and a canal-side restaurant.

Good to know

The house is at 6 Soi Kasemsan 2, Rama I Road, and is open daily from 10:00 to 17:00. The main house can only be seen on a guided tour, offered in Thai, English, French, Chinese and Japanese, with tickets online or at the door; adult admission is 250 baht, 150 baht for visitors aged 10 to 21, and free for children under 10.

Sources: Jim Thompson House Museum; Museum Thailand; Time Out Bangkok.