10/08/2026
Architecture After the Photograph
Architectural media often prefer to publish photographs of buildings just after they are completed, when everything is still new, clean, and perfect for the camera.
But if you visit Elephant World today, you may find that the architecture no longer looks as new as it does in the photographs you see on the internet.
The bricks have changed with time.
Some of the timber has aged, and some has decayed.The trees have grown and unorganized. And every year, more traces of use appear.
For me, this is not something to regret.
Because what I want people to see here today is not simply whether the architecture I designed years ago still looks as beautiful as it did when it was completed.
What I want them to see is how life here has changed after the architecture was built.
Today, this place has become somewhere for the local community and people from across the province to spend time and rest.
There is now an elephant hospital, with veterinarians who specialize in treating elephants working here.
Children are growing up around these spaces.
Elephants still walk through the architecture.
And people continue to use it as part of their everyday lives.
Even though the timber of the Cultural Courtyard has aged and decayed with time, the pond we dug as a source of water still holds water.
From the beginning, I never thought of the Elephant World Museum as only the three buildings I designed.
For me, the entire place is the museum.
The community is the museum.
The Kui people are the ones who tell their own stories.
The elephant veterinarians are part of the museum.
The children are part of the museum.
The elephants, the pond, the trees, and the everyday life that continues here are all part of it.
The three buildings that we call the “museum” are only a small part of a much larger museum that I imagined from the beginning.
Architecture grows old.
Life continues.
And for me, perhaps what matters more than whether architecture still looks new is whether it remains alive after the architect has walked away.