Wat Kalayanamit Woramahawiharn วัดกัลยาณมิตรวรมหาวิหาร Thonburi is a second class royal temple under the Woramahawihan class. It is considered a priceless temple of Thon Buri and was constructed during the reign of King Rama III on the bank of the Chao Phraya River at the mouth of Khlong Bangkok Yai.
Initially, Chao Phraya Nikhon Bodin (To Kalayanamit) donated his house and land to King Rama III and bought additional land nearby to build a temple in 1825. The King bestowed the name Wat Kalayanamit. Later, the King built and bestowed both the royal Wihan and the principal image for the royal Wihan, which is Phra Phuttha Trai Rattananayok (Luangpho To) that is highly evered, especially among the Chinese called Sam Po Hut Kong or Sam Pho Kong.
It is a stucco Buddha image in the subduing Mara posture, which the lap width is 10 meters and a height of 14 meters. It is located in the large wihan in the center of the temple. In the middle between the ...
The temple ruin now commonly known in connection with Wat Talad (วัดตลาด) in Bang Pahan District, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province, was originally called Wat Thai Talad or Wat Thaitalad.
The name reflected its location immediately behind a local market where residents traded vegetables, food, and other goods. Local tradition holds that this market continued to operate even during the final Burmese siege of Ayutthaya, supplying soldiers from the invading forces who had established a camp in the nearby Pho Sam Ton area. The site therefore sits at the intersection of ordinary village life and the turbulent closing years of the Ayutthaya kingdom.
Archaeological evidence places the original construction in the late Ayutthaya period, roughly the early decades of the 24th Buddhist century (mid-eighteenth century), shortly before the fall of the capital in 1767.
The earliest phase consisted of an ordination hall and a surrounding glass wall. After the destruction of the city, the monastery ...
The Ascension Cathedral in Almaty, Kazakhstan, also known as Zenkov Cathedral, stands as a striking Russian Orthodox church and one of the most remarkable examples of wooden ecclesiastical architecture in the world.
Constructed entirely of wood between 1904 and 1907 under the guidance of engineer Andrei Pavlovich Zenkov, who refined earlier plans by architect Konstantin Borisoglebsky, the cathedral was built primarily from durable local Tian Shan spruce using traditional joinery techniques that relied on interlocking wooden elements rather than metal nails for its main structural frame.
This all wood construction reaches approximately 56 meters in height to the tip of its central dome and cross, earning it widespread recognition as the second tallest wooden church on the planet.
Its five onion domes, vibrant pastel exterior of blues, greens, and whites accented with gold, and cruciform plan embody classic Russian Orthodox design adapted to the seismic realities of the region. The flexible wooden ...
The Almaty Central Mosque, known in Kazakh as Almaty ortalyq meshiti, stands as one of the largest and most prominent mosques in Almaty and throughout Kazakhstan.
The current structure was erected on the site of an earlier Tatar Mosque that had operated since 1890, serving the local Muslim community of Tatar traders, artisans, and settlers during the period of Russian imperial expansion into Central Asia. That wooden mosque was destroyed by fire in 1987. In the years following Kazakhstan’s independence, plans advanced for a major new mosque to meet the needs of a growing Muslim population and to mark a revival of religious life after the Soviet era. The foundation was poured in 1993, and construction continued for six years until the building opened in 1999.
The mosque is a rectangular, domed building oriented along an east-west axis and clad in white marble, giving it a luminous appearance. Its main dome rises 36 meters with a diameter of 20 meters and rests on a two-tiered drum that transitions ...
