“When we think about heritage, very often in Malaysia, people think about an old building. But heritage isn’t actually about just that. If there is an old building it actually suggests a whole bunch of other information such as the history of the place, why it was placed there, and who placed it thereâ€, states Elizabeth Cardosa, President of Badan Warisan Malaysia or the Malaysian Heritage Council, in an interview with The Peak.
Seated at Birch over a cup of long black, the interview circles around the value of tangible and intangible heritage found in Malaysia and how our nation has, as a collective, gradually changed our viewpoint on our own history and built heritage. Working with the National Heritage Council for over 19 years, Elizabeth Cardosa is a veteran at pushing forth the notion that preserving and tending to the built heritage of Malaysia is one of the key ways in maintaining the story of Malaysia for those who are interested and she is not alone.
“You can see in the past 20 years there has been an incremental development of the Malaysian public’s interest in heritage. In television or in news back in the early 2000s, heritage stories would have been more nostalgia motivated, and it wasn’t in itself seen as important in terms of the current and the future world,†continues Elizabeth.
“We started in 1982 when heritage was nowhere on the map unless it was recounted under nostalgia or it carried a stigma. Old equals bad. Old equals rundown and dilapidated. It’s not modern, it’s not glass, it’s not steel. The need to retain those parts of the story give you a continuum and that is what heritage is about. Of course you can’t keep it (the space) as dilapidated, if you have a shophouse you have to modernise it. You have to put in your modern facilities.”
The idea of modernising older spaces and historical buildings in Malaysia is not a new conversation to be had, however the participants who have successfully carried it off are few and far between. We now bring to the spotlight two concerned conservationists who have breathed life back into a space that no one had given any attention to, Hijjas Kasturi whom has handled many heritage revitalisation projects and Shin Tseng, one of the brains behind the formation of REXKL, then REX Cinema.
Hijjas Kasturi & Angela Hijjas
Architect & Ecologist
How did your interest in revitalising heritage buildings began?
AH: It started generally because of Hijjas’ interest in architecture. A friend, Waveney Jenkins, who was on the board of Badan Warisan (National Heritage Council) in 1997, found a house in Perak but she didn’t have any land. She bought it as soon as she saw it but she had nowhere to move it.
HJ: It was an old house, very old and dilapidated.
AH: Late 19th century, about 1890. It had beautiful decorations, a Malay house done in the Chinese style and decorated with Chinese motifs which is quite unique. She asked us if we would be interesting in doing a joint venture—she would provide the building and Hijjas would rebuild it. This is what they call ‘adaptive reuse’, rather than being an exact replica. We had to put in power, we had to put in water, we had to fix everything. The front part is original but it’s got electricity. The back part is a rebuild that follows the floor plan but it’s lifted up a bit and it’s got enough headroom for toilets and showers underneath. Today, we use it for the Residency programs. This is the problem with a lot of renovation projects. People think they can renovate it but unless you have a use for it, it’s really not much good. If it’s not used and you don’t look after it and maintain it daily, then it becomes a white elephant.
We were, at the time, looking for properties in Penang (this was before the World Heritage status.) It was very difficult to buy properties at that point in Penang because they had been handed down through generations and because of rent control, they weren’t worth much. People couldn’t sell them because after three generations you might have 17 names on the title and you couldn’t get anyone to agree. Eventually, our contractor found a house in Jalan Perak and dismantled that for us. He eventually brought it down to our home in Rimbun Dahan and we paid MYR23,000 for it, for the value of the timber floor. That was the only thing that had any commercial value. The owner wanted to rebuild and didn’t want the house any more so he was happy to have us take it away.
Subsequently, just before the World Heritage status, a block of heritage houses became available in Georgetown.
HK: Three blocks.
AH: Three blocks, 16 terraces. And Hijjas saw this advertisement in the paper from a Singaporean bank that was auctioning it off because they felt it was worthless. We went, “Oh, ok! We’ll try and bid for it.†So we bid and we won and we restored it and converted it into a hotel. As it was shophouses and terrace houses, a lot of the internal arrangements were changed and because the shophouses had concertina gates at the front, they didn’t have the nice frontage of the old houses. We rebuilt the frontage to look like a terrace house, the same as the terrace house we restored around the corner. It was again an ‘adaptive reuse’. We were able to operate it as a hotel and reuse the laneway at the back. Instead of using it as a route to pick up the night soil–which was what it had originally been provided for—we turned it into a garden and the rooms all now look down into that.
We have had these three projects and I don’t think Hijjas was terribly excited about the first one. He asked, “What did you do that for?â€, but in the end it proved to be a very interesting journey into older buildings. Learning about heritage materials, finding replacement materials from Indonesia where you can still buy vintage floor tiles, getting second hand timber to replace the rotted timber. We used recycled timber wherever we could so that it’s sustainable.
Is there a reason you were not interested in working on an older space?
HK: No, no. I was only interested because I had nothing else to do during the recession in 1997. Every architect is supposed to know a little bit about heritage and history as well, so that is how my interest in it came in.
In a way, I forced myself to learn about the old techniques of construction, the history part of it and the materials. That is quite fun in a way.
When we had the Penang house, we did the same thing too. We maintained the integrity of the design. Even the wood, to our surprise, was excellent wood that could have been preserved but when we took it, it was so dilapidated that we had to find ways and means on how to renew it to the extent that we even had to get the expertise of wood cutters from Kelantan to come show us how. I got to relearn these old-fashioned techniques and also find new ways and materials, bringing in new, modern facilities and even did a little bit of insulation. It forces you to go far and research—searching for the material itself took me to various places like Sarawak for their hard timber. In a way, I am re-learning Architecture.
REXKL
Shin Tseng, Architect
What drew you to the historic space that was REX Cinema?
It was Petaling Street I think, the confluence of Kuala Lumpur that we were first drawn to. The whole of Downtown was a blind spot for a long time and that was what we really wanted to look into as architects and urban planners. Then we found Rex after a year of looking and another year to take over this place. So all in, it took us two years until we could start the first hacking.
When you refer to Petaling Street as a ‘blind spot’, what do you mean by that?
Blind spot generally refers to something that has always been there but is overlooked. We have so many issues here, like the market that is not really representative of Malaysia, local businesses that are fading away and people just taking this place for granted. That’s why I call it a blind spot because we all know it’s there, we just don’t really look at it. We choose to ignore it. You don’t really feel proud bringing people here, like your friends or tourists, because you know what the streets are like.
Do you personally feel a strong emotional connection to Petaling Street?
Most people who grew up in KL, even one of my team members from Borneo, has memories of following their grandfather here to play in the Mahjong house and visiting the vintage toy stores, and it makes you sad. It is now becoming more touristy, and though there is nothing wrong with that, this is also where KL originated from. This is the capital of Malaysia, it all originated here.
What interest did you hold in a space like REX?
Firstly, the space was sort of a void because it was vacant, there was nothing in it. There was space in this density of Petaling Street, that was really interesting. When you go inside you will notice the huge opening, entirely empty. That is actually quite an amazing feat in Petaling Street, and the whole landscape of it all. That was the first thing that sparked our interest in the space.
Secondly, it was the location. Petaling Street is actually in the middle of Downtown from Zhongshan to Leboh Pasar. So I think if we can do it well, it can have some impact on the overall economy or even social economy, even our culture. It’s what we really hope we could be.
What is the ethos behind REXKL?
I’m an architect yet in contrast to my profession, I don’t believe in building any more buildings. I mean look around, we have all these offices and vacant shophouses just sitting there not doing anything and we are still building a lot of new blocks of offices and apartments. Why can’t we occupy the old buildings? To me, we talk about zero waste, recycling, but we have these massive wasted spaces Downtown that no one is looking at.
It is also a manifesto to ourselves as architects that we should probably stop building and look around for spaces that are available to reuse and recycle. So for REX we actually have five values, the first of which is Recycle. We try to have a green practise within the premise to promote zero waste. E is Empower, as we would like to do work with local entrepreneurs and restaurateurs, craft makers and performers by giving them a space to showcase what they have. I also believe it’s a good platform for them to interact with international viewers. X is Crossover as we would like to work with a lot of crossover groups. We are currently working with Borneo Laboratory and Think City, to help us set up a back lane cinema. Starting in April we will be going to six different back lanes and setting up pop up cinemas, to just sit on the street and enjoy a movie together. K is Knowledge because we want a place where people can learn and enrich themselves with workshops and L is Learning which ties together with the knowledge aspect.
Petaling Street used to be a tuition centre area—there are still a lot of kids around and we want them to come and learn what they can from REX in their free time. We actually have an agreement with our tenants, that if you maintain a space in REX, you must provide workshops at least twice a month. [With] all the workshops from craft to cooking to dance to music, it’s almost like a school or academy.
When will we get to fully enjoy REXKL?
The construction is planned to end in September where we will have a month long opening from Malaysia Day. It’s also to change the image of Petaling Street as Chinatown which is something a lot of us disagree with because it’s not the proper term. If you’re local, you don’t really call it Chinatown, and it was quite demeaning because it kills a lot of layers of culture in the process of calling it Chinatown. Which is why we chose to open it on Malaysia Day, to reinstate the Malaysian identity by celebrating Malaysian culture and all things Malaysian.
TEXT SWAROOPINI UDHAYA NAIR
ART DIRECTION AUDREY LIM & MON KAI-SIONG
PHOTOGRAPHY PATRICK CHAN & ROBIN LIEW
