Title : LAK BAN and LAK MUANG: The Ideology of Settlement Landscape in Traditional Southeast Asia

Author(s) : Navanath Osiri

Pages : 29-39

Abstract in English : This paper describes the identifying role ritual architecture plays in the construction of settlement landscapes in northern mainland Southeast Asia. Integrating ethnographic and art historical data, it develops a framework for understanding lak ban and lak muang in terms of their socio-historical development, spatical organization, ritual observances, designs, and meaning.

Landscape cannot
be fully understood
without reference
to a worldview which
integrates place
and space in the
production of meaning.
(Snead & Preucel 1999,170)