Abstract: Chiang Mai is the largest and the most culturally significant city in Northern Thailand. It was a capital of Lanna Kingdom dating back in 1200s. The city has a long history and continues to be culturally prosperous while retaining evidence of the past as a cultural and religious center. Therefore, the city has been applied for a tentative list of a World Heritage City. To be included in the World Heritage List, the old city should be well conserved. Since 1988, Chiang Mai municipality has announced the municipality control aimed to advocate the conservation development of the city. One of the imposed tools is Kalare, a cross attached over the pediment of vernacular Lanna houses. It is presupposed that Kalare is an important component of Lanna architecture which can represent Lanna style, and thus should be placed on the buildings to signify Lanna, consequently enhancing the conservation development. However, there are many arguments about the Kalare implication which led to the revision of the municipality control in 2014. The color control has been proposed. Chiang Mai Municipality is collaborating with private and governmental agencies to initiate a pilot project to repaint buildings around the center of the old city, using prospect colors which are white, cream-white, off-white, and brown. It is assumed that the conformity of colors will strengthen the conservation development in the historic area. However, the residents would not perceive those colors as their names. According to a case study of Kyoto that applies color control in the conservation area, Munsell color system was chosen as the color pattern for the local act. Therefore, this article is aimed to examine the repaints using Munsell color system by a DIC application. The results reveal the color group of Munsell color system: Yellow, Red, Yellow-Red, Purple-Blue, Blue, and Neutral. It is suggested that Munsell color should be announced to control the color instead of the name of colors.
Keywords: world heritage, conservation, Chiang Mai, Munsell.
Title: The Pilot Study of Munsell Color System for Chiang Mai Heritage
Author: Kannatip Tantisiriwat, Karuna Raksawin, Supagtra Suthasupa
International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations
ISSN 2348-1218 (print), ISSN 2348-1226 (online)
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