Democracy Monument

The Democracy Monument (Thai: อนุสาวรีย์ประชาธิปไตย Anusawari Prachathipatai) is a public monument in the centre of Bangkok, capital of Thailand. It occupies a traffic circle on the wide east-west Ratchadamnoen Klang Road, at the intersection of Dinso Road. The monument is roughly halfway between Sanam Luang, the former royal cremation ground in front of Wat Phra Kaew, and the temple of the Golden Mount (Phu Kao Thong).

The monument was commissioned in 1939 to commemorate the 1932 Siamese coup d'état (also called "Siamese Revolution of 1932" or just "1932 Revolution") which led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in what was then the Kingdom of Siam, by its military ruler, Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram. Phibun saw the monument as the centre of what he envisaged as a new, Westernised Bangkok, "making Thanon [road] Ratchadamnoen the Champs-Élysées and the Democracy Monument the Arc de Triomphe" of Bangkok.

The monument was designed by Maeo Aphaiyawong, an architect whose brother, Khuang Aphaiyawong, was a leading member of Phibun's government. The Italian sculptor Corrado Feroci, who became a Thai citizen and used the Thai name Silpa Bhirasi from the Second World War on, initially to avoid Japanese military ire, executed the relief sculptures around the base of the monument. He also provided the main sculpting for the renowned Lady Mo monument in the northeast Thailand city of Nakhon Ratchasima.

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Wikipedia