Southeast Asian Houses: Embracing Urban Context

By Seo Ryeung Ju et al.

The modernization of traditional houses in each country may be understood as a process by which various aspects of culture and architecture originating from China, India, European colonial countries and international style were assimilated into various forms and elements of traditional houses. In contemporary houses recently developed in Southeast Asian cities, influences of more nearby regions such as South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore can easily be found.

Even under such multi-cultural influences, Southeast Asian countries sought compromises and maintained each country’s unique housing culture, resulting in the differentiation of each country’s housing style.

This book aims to find out the uniqueness of each Southeast Asian country’s modern housing through the understanding of the modern housing typologies of each county produced by the process of modernization. Previous studies of Southeast Asia’s urban housing were mostly on political, institutional and economic issues, which can be said to be macro-issues. However, this book focuses on the forms of urban housing, which is rather a micro-issue, compared to previous studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seoul Selection
• Release date: Sep 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781624120992

Book preview

Authors

PREFACE

Major cosmopolitan cities of Southeast Asia underwent colonization, industrialization, independence, urbanization and globalization in similar order to one another, though with some exceptions and differences in time.

The trading ports in Southeast Asia that connected the East and West were established in accordance to Western urban planning, colonial administrative buildings were constructed, and modern buildings such as stations, schools, hospitals and markets were built during the colonial period. During the late colonial period, these cities transformed into a Western urban pattern, and migration from rural to urban areas increased exponentially due to accelerated industrialization around the period of independence. Such urbanization led to saturation and congestion of infrastructure, overpopulation, housing shortage, poverty and pollution. As a solution to these issues, new towns based on the ideas of E. Howard’s Garden City were constructed in satellite cities and on the borders of major cities. Furthermore, the open market developed cosmopolitan cities in Southeast Asia into global cities.

The modernization of traditional houses in each country may be understood as a process by which various aspects of culture and architecture originating from China, India, European colonial countries and international style were assimilated into various forms and elements of traditional houses. In contemporary houses recently developed in Southeast Asian cities, influences of more nearby regions such as South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore can easily be found.

Even under such multi-cultural influences, Southeast Asian countries sought compromises and maintained each country’s unique housing culture, resulting in the differentiation of each country’s housing style.

This book aims to find the uniqueness of each Southeast Asian country’s modern housing through the understanding of the modern housing typologies of each county produced by the process of modernization. Previous studies of Southeast Asia’s urban housing were mostly on political, institutional and economic issues, which can be said to be macro-issues. However, this book focuses on the forms of urban housing, which is rather a micro-issue, compared to previous studies.

The main content of this book begins with a brief history of the modernization of each country. This is followed by a detailed explanation on the form and significance of the country’s major modern housing typologies. The typologies of modern housing in Southeast Asia can be classified into two categories. The first category is the one that is derived from the transformation of traditional housing. With the arrival of the colonialists and the new ethnic groups, they brought their own housing styles and adapted them to vernacular materials and customized them to the tropical climatic condition. The examples are shophouses, bungalows and villas.

The second category is the modern urban housing type, which resulted from the rapid economic and urbanization process after independence. To accommodate the maximum utilization of land, the new typologies such as walk-up flats, apartments, detached houses, semi-detached houses and terraced (linked) houses were developed in the various forms of medium and high-density housing typologies within the new townships.

As no book has yet offered a comprehensive and systematic analysis of Southeast Asian modern housing, this book will provide an introductory guide to the subject. The work on this book began in 2010. After researching Malaysian houses since 2008, I became curious about the housing of the entire region. In 2010, I broadened my academic interests to other counties in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Over the course of two trips in 2010 and 2011, I interacted with many scholars from various Southeast Asian countries, and several of them agreed to publish a book about Southeast Asian modern houses with me.

As our first step, we organized the first Southeast Asian Housing Forum on Commonality and Diversity in Southeast Asian Housing: A Search for New Identity, which was held in Seoul, Korea, in October 2011. Twelve housing experts from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia were invited to speak. This laid the foundation for the Asian Research Center for Housing (ARCH), a strong international academic network that is designed to share knowledge about the housing studies of each Southeast Asian country. Proceedings of 2011 Southeast Asian Housing Forum, published by USD Publishing, contains the fruits of this rich forum. Since then, the participants have expanded upon the material they presented during the forum, culminating in this book.

This book is a sequel to the first book, Southeast Asian Houses: Expanding Tradition. A total of twelve authors from six countries are involved in writing this book and the first in the series, which was a volume on traditional housing in Southeast Asia. I am deeply grateful to the authors for their trust and patience since the book’s conception in 2010 and for their work and dedication despite their busy schedules.

I would like to thank those who gave us permission to use their images for the book, the staff of Seoul Selection for leading the publication process, and my dear family and students for their sincere support.

Lastly, I express special gratitude to Professor Saari Omar, my dear friend and mentor who wholeheartedly supported me since the very beginning of my Southeast Asian housing study.

Seo Ryeung Ju

Chapter 1 · Malaysia

URBAN HOUSING TYPOLOGY OF MODERN MALAYSIA

¹

Seo Ryeung Ju

Saari Bin Omar

Introduction

The modern history of Malaysia was determined by three Western colonial powers that ruled the Malay Peninsula consecutively: the Portuguese from 1511, the Dutch from 1641 and the British from 1824. However, the British, being the last colonial power, had the most influence on the development of modern Malaysia. Upon the imposition of colonial rule in the country, the British opened up the closed internal market of the Malay states. Capitalism was officially introduced with the imposition of British land law to regulate land usage, fix tenure, register titles and control the alienation of customary land. Tax and revenue laws soon followed, and a generalized money economy was introduced.

The British developed plantations and tin mines to meet growing demand from European industries. To meet the demand for labor, the British imported Chinese and Indian workers on a large scale. The Chinese became workers in the tin mines, and the Indians became plantation laborers. Malay peasants, who still had access to plentiful land and other rural resources, were to maintain their way of life in the villages.

The above phenomenon resulted in the formation of a unique social and cultural background, with a plural society² consisting of Malays, Chinese, Indians and other minority ethnic groups.³ This phenomenon is the most important factor and characteristic of Malaysian modernization and has played a key role in the country’s economic and housing policy since 1970.

The modernization of Malaysia’s housing typology also involves the fusion of elements of traditional Malay housing with various cultural and architectural touchpoints from China, India and European colonial powers. As an international style became dominant in post-independence urban development in the 1960s, Malaysia’s particular modern housing typology was developed and influenced by the social and cultural exchange of various ethnic groups. As defined by Widodo (2003), the history of modern architecture in Asia mirrored the story of how Asian nations had modernized due to rapid economic development within the colonial urbanization process.

This chapter aims to identify the various housing typologies that have developed throughout Malaysia’s modernization process and to consider the socio-cultural background and physical characteristics of each. Ultimately, this will allow us to gain a better understanding of the unique housing form and culture of Malaysia. In this chapter, the typology of housing in Malaysia will be examined according to the historical sequence in which it evolved, and the architectural features of each house typology will be discussed.

Modernization of Malaysia

According to McGee (1983), cities can be defined as a reflection of a wider socio-economic system. In the context of Malaysia, cities have been shaped by the penetration of socio-economic systems imposed by the colonial government on to the indigenous settlements. Therefore, urbanization in Malaysia was the product of the capitalist economic development of the colonial government and had no similarity to the traditional Malay or indigenous socio-economic structure.

The maritime trade and exchanges with Arabs, Chinese and Indians provided momentum for changes on the Malay Peninsula from about the 5th century. Due to their active economic trade, traditional coastal kampong (villages) subsequently developed into Malaysia’s earliest towns.

Malacca was probably the earliest significant town in the Malay Peninsula prior to European colonization. It was an entrepot where Indian, Arab and Chinese merchants came to trade. For most of the country, however, a feudal mode of production, organized around agrarian production and subsistence farming, was the main economic system. The traditional feudal society was characterized by its rural nature, with the kampong the predominant form of settlement. These villages were self-sufficient, with little need of trade.

The other major towns of the Malay Peninsula were Alor Setar on the west coast and Johor Bahru to the south. Kota Bharu, Kuala Terengganu and Pekan are on the east coast. The main physical features of early towns were the istana (palace), the mosque and a market, surrounded by kampongs. However, those early towns were still notably rural and were essentially big villages.

Establishment of early towns

Throughout the colonial period, the fabric and shape of towns were gradually changed. The traditional Malay settlements were transformed with the introduction of well-aligned streets, town squares, shophouses, churches, bungalows, monasteries, hospitals, palaces and administrative buildings. The colonial powers changed the style of architecture and its decorative elements, resulting in older towns such as Malacca becoming an exhibition of various colonial architectural styles.

The period of modern growth on the Malay Peninsula can be dated from the establishment of British control over the Straits of Malacca, following the decline of the Portuguese and Dutch, who had been there almost 200 years earlier. Following British intervention in 1874 to safeguard their tin mining interests, a variety of new urban places, including a network of administrative centers, new mining and transportation towns and small coastal ports, were added to the pre-existing settlement systems. A hierarchy of cities was designed to facilitate the extraction of export goods, provide commercial and service activities, and serve as political and administrative centers.

When the British occupied Penang in 1786, it was developed as a trading post for the East India Company. As trade flourished, peoples including Europeans, Chinese, Indians and other Malay ethnic groups established their own settlements within the town center and constructed their own, unique style of buildings. British churches, Chinese temples, Hindu temples and Indian Muslim mosques appeared at the same period. Town planning was influenced by a British colonial urban form that had been developed in India some time earlier. Beautiful classical churches, administrative halls, hotels and bungalows were built, reflecting the wealth and power of the colonial government. The religious buildings and shophouses were mostly built in an eclectic classical style, incorporating various ethnic characteristics and traditions.

Development of the capital: Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur was established as a little inland tin-mining town in the 1850s. The success of mining operations in the upper reaches of the Klang and Gombak rivers had resulted in the development of an urban nucleus at the strategic confluence of the two rivers. Founded in 1859 after the discovery of a tin field in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur was, in its early days, a service center for the mining communities of Chinese immigrants. The Klang and Gombak rivers were the main transportation lines for people and goods. The city’s expansion accelerated from 1882, when rising tin prices triggered an economic boom, resulting in an influx of immigrant prospectors and traders of Chinese origin. From around 4,000 in 1884, Kuala Lumpur’s population increased to 19,000 or so by 1891 (Ho, 1984).

The shift of the British colonial administrative headquarters in 1880 from Klang to Kuala Lumpur was another factor which greatly enhanced the development of the city. The construction of a railway link to Klang further boosted Kuala Lumpur’s development, while the arrival of Indian immigrants to work in the rubber estates, on railway line construction and as clerical staff and traders, increased its population. The city continued to develop rapidly with the expansion of a road system linking it to surrounding tin mines and rubber estates. In 1896 Kuala Lumpur was made the capital of the Federated Malay States. Between 1891 and 1947, the city’s population jumped from 18,000 to 175,000 (McGee, 1971).

In a period of around 60 years since its founding, Kuala Lumpur had grown to become the largest city on the Malay Peninsula. As its function changed from a Chinese mining encampment to the country’s political, cultural and commercial center, Kuala Lumpur had transformed from a shanty town into a permanent settlement of brick buildings. It also performed many of the country’s key economic functions (McGee, 1971, p. 153). The colonial administration provided the political framework and the spatial infrastructure, while the Chinese immigrant groups contributed to building the socio-economic base.

At this stage, a clearly segregated urban spatial formation began to take place. The eastern bank of the river was dominated by Chinese tin miners and traders, with its marketplace and rows of shophouses. The streets in the commercial zone were laid in a grid pattern and building blocks were divided with narrow front plots. Narrow lanes connecting the back ends of shophouses, called sanitary lanes, provided access for service people. After the establishment of the Sanitary Board (Town Council) in 1890, sanitary, health and safety issues became important criteria in the development of the city. The British and European quarters, with their military garrison, administrative buildings and courthouses, were on the west bank of the river. The Malay settlements were at the periphery, in areas such as Kampong Baru, Kampong Datuk Keramat and Gombak. This type of colonial settlement, marked by clear spatial zoning and segregation between Europeans, indigenous people and traders, was very similar to what has been noted by King (1995) about Delhi and Madras in the same period.

After Malaysia gained independence in 1957, the further transformation of Kuala Lumpur and its immediate surroundings into a manufacturing hub also altered the socio-economic and employment structure of its inhabitants. The population continued to grow, mainly through rural-urban migration rather than births. Unfortunately, the expansion of Kuala Lumpur’s economic and administrative functions was too fast for social infrastructure to keep up with. With the rapid increase in rural-urban migration, social amenities and housing came