Raising King and Queen Pillars Ceremony near Lieb Tang Rodfai Road in Pattaya

On Friday morning, July 8th, a traditional Thai ceremony took place near the Lieb Tang Rodfai Road in Pattaya to celebrate the rise of eight pillars of a new Eastern Economic Corridor development project (EEC), where five luxury villas and a hotel are scheduled to be constructed.

The architect responsible, Mario Kleff, and his construction company Wandeegroup Asia Co. Ltd., prepared the construction site for the celebration of the concrete pouring of the King and Queen Pillars. Mr Chanyut Hengtrakool, Former Secretary of the Minister of Education and other political members, took part in the celebration. Chanyut Hengtrakool opened the event with a blessing ceremony for the prosperity of the project under construction.

The Raising of the King and Queen Pillars Ceremony was blessed by nine Buddhist monks from the Royal Buddhist temple, Wat Yansangwararam.

If you’re completely unsure of the significance of this ceremony within Thai construction culture (of course you are!), allow us to explain; in the traditional Thai meaning, the King (Father) and the Queen (Mother) pillars are the focal points of the foundations that form and carry a new building. Usually, these ceremonies will be held with either Monks or Brahmin (sort of a Hindu version of a monk). For special projects or ones the Government especially wish to celebrate, both may attend and a large ceremony will be held, such as in this case.

Mario explains further “For nine monks to attend this event from the Royal Buddhist temple of Wat Yansangwararam, it is a particular honour. In fact, three of these monks were part of my marriage ceremony in 2005. Actually, my wife, Nittaya Wongsin, and I were the first and only people to be married at the temple.”

Mario Kleff, the celebrity engineer, is known for his unusual designs in the field of architecture and construction, having designed and constructed the longest steel box girder used in residential construction in Thailand.

With this project near Lieb Tang Rodfai Road, he once again sets a new standard in the local construction industry. The foundations of the buildings are built with heavily post-tensioned high-strength marine concrete. A procedure that has not yet been initiated in residential construction in Thailand. The large King and Queen pillars carry precast, prestressed concrete girders of 18 metres, which are produced on-site by Wandeegroup Asia Co. Ltd.

The Chinese project owners, Mr Liu Wei and Mr Zhang Wei support Mario’s approach of developing high-quality buildings in order to attract foreign buyers and have personally invested around 200 million baht into his construction projects.

Another advantage of this construction method is the construction period itself. Mario and his team of 100+ labourers are claiming they can build the villas and the hotel within just four months, so watch this space!

If you’re laughing off this outlandish claim as mere wishful thinking, Mr Kleff assures us it’s possible given his experienced and large team and their use of the huge tower crane and heavy machinery (see above). After only two months of construction, the foundations were laid and pillars raised – another four months should be a walk in the park, right?

Mr Chanyut Hengtrakool, who praised this approach, is keen for Mr Kleff to prepare plans for further developments of high-quality villas and elderly care projects in Pattaya. No doubt, we’ll be seeing more to come from Mario and his team.