Baan Phitsanulok is back in the political limelight after more than three decades in which its role had become vastly diminished.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Thursday strode into the ornate government guest house on Phitsanulok Road, where she chaired the first meeting with her five-member senior advisory team.
“Baan Phitsanulok is officially opened,” she announced on her X account, accompanied by photos showing her leading the advisory team into the mansion in Dusit district of Bangkok.
The meeting at Baan Phitsanulok was the first official one since the prime minister appointed the high-profile group to advise her administration early this month.
Pansak Vinyaratn heads the panel. The other members are:
- Surapong Suebwonglee, deputy chairman
- Tongthong Chandransu
- Phongthep Thepkanjana
- Supavud Saicheua.
The prime minister leads a meeting at the house on Phitsanulok Road. (Photo: @ingshin X account)
Built in 1922, Baan Phitsanulok is the official residence of the prime minister, although the only premier to have lived there for any extended period was Chuan Leekpai. The Venetian Gothic mansion has been used mainly as a guest house for VIP guests of the government.
Baan Phitsanulok is perhaps best known as the command centre used by prime minister Chatichai Choonhavan between 1988 and 1991, when Mr Pansak chaired a seven-member advisory team. One of its most famous policies was to turn “battlefields into marketplaces” in a region still recovering from the Vietnam war and turmoil in Cambodia.
Chatichai’s advisers were called the Baan Phitsanulok advisory team. Their role ended when Chatichai was ousted in a coup in 1991.
Mr Pansak was also an adviser on economic policy for Ms Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin Shinawatra, when he was the prime minister.
Baan Phitsanulok is a Venetian Gothic style house designed and built in 1922 under the direction of Mario Tamagno, an Italian architect who was employed at the time by the Ministry of Public Works. (Photo: Chulalongkorn University Alumni Association)
