Celebrate Heritage! Hidden Retreat The Road ... - The Expat Group

architecture
Cultural
Fusion
Penang owes its rich culture
and architectural splendor to
the various races that found a
home on the island during its
years as a port. Kat Fatland
admires the diverse styles
and designs these infl uences
brought to her home city’s
architecture.
IN THE 2008 INSCRIPTION jointly
establishing George Town and Melaka as
World Heritage Sites, UNESCO states that
these two towns “constitute a unique
architectural and cultural townscape
without parallel anywhere in East and
Southeast Asia.”
Upon a first read, the statement seems
impossibly bold: after all, there are a
myriad of architecturally interesting cities
all over the region, what could possibly
make Penang and its sister city so special?
The answer, in short, is quite a bit. From
Malay kampungs to Anglo Indian bungalows,
from Chinese shophouses to Colonial-style
churches, Penang’s list of international
influences is all-encompassing. Like much
of its heritage, the island’s architectural
style reflects the serendipitous outcome of
cultures coming together.
People and Penang
Penang’s architectural history could be
said to have truly begun in 1786 when
it became a British trading post. Thanks
in part to founder Francis Light’s good
relations with locals and regional traders,
settlers started moving to the island en
masse, coming from Arabia, Siam, India and
China, Indonesia, and mainland Malaya.
Soon, the city could boast a core group of
permanent residents who began to set up
shop throughout the island.
Penang happened to be in a very unique
position to cater to the settlers’ wishes
to bring with them something of their
homeland. Unlike the surrounding areas,
where systems of government could
implement strictures on foreign or local
architectural influence (in nearby Kedah,
for example, no one could build a house
taller than the Sultan’s palace), Penang
could accommodate a host of diverse
customs. Thus, the Indian traders brought
with them their Anglo-Indian traditions,
the Chinese brought their courtyard
houses, and the Europeans brought their
neoclassicist designs.
Adaptation
Smartly, instead of producing replicas
of buildings from their country of
origin, builders took note of what local
Malay houses had to offer and adapted
accordingly. Perfectly suited for the
tropical climes, the typical Malay house
was constructed largely from timber and
atap. The houses were stilted to provide
ample ventilation to the rooms above, and
a sloping atap roof offered shade over the
verandah. These features, along with the
building materials, were largely borrowed
by other traditions as they went about
building their own abodes.
The Penang bungalow is a particularly
apt example of the blending of many
traditions into one regal household. The
bungalow, derived from the Hindi term
bungla, originally came to the island via
India. There, the bungalow was a simple
four-walled structure made of mud and
later brick with a low, sweeping roof. These
structures were commonly built for the
lower class, while the upper class resided in
the colonial-style pucka houses, characterised
by their flat roofs, a form exemplified in
Penang’s Suffolk house.
When the bungalow reached Penang
however, it lost all low-class connotations.
Here, the buildings were recreated using
Indian brick masonry and Malay-style
timber. The form became popular among
the families of Indian and Arab traders
– the Jawi Peranakans – who chose to
group together their bungalows in typical
Malay kampungs (a term that gave birth
to the English word “compound”). The
Europeans, who also found the form useful,
married the Malay and Indian traditions
with their own traditions, building huge
two-storey bungalows with well-ventilated
stilted verandahs, sweeping rooftops,
20 Penang International