Inner Peace

In this Chiang Mai hotel’s tranquil courtyard gardens, dotted with cloud-pruned trees and clipped bushes, layouts that follow the golden ratio create a pleasing symmetry.

- Michael Paul

The tradition of the courtyard garden that began some 5000 years ago with the ancient Egyptians has been embraced by nearly every major civilisation across the globe with the Persians, Chinese, Japanese and Romans all contributing their own distinguishing features. Down the centuries, courtyards have offered refuge from the world as places of peace, shade and sanctuary.

In modern times courtyard spaces continue as an extension to the home for outdoor living or to enhance the aesthetics of the architecture – often providing an urban oasis in a crowded city. In the northern Thailand temple city of Chiang Mai this is very much the case. The garden at Rachamankha, an exclusive 25-room boutique hotel, carries on the legacy of classic courtyard garden design, revealing influences of both East and West cultures, yet proudly displaying a distinctive contemporary Thai tropical theme.

Here at Rachamankha, a carefully orchestrated sequence of interrelated courtyards creates a studied composition of light and dark using open and closed outdoor spaces to achieve order and beauty – a true sense of place that expresses serenity and spirituality. Their scale and repetition reflect classic order while the perfectly executed geometry sits comfortably on the eye.