{"id":431,"date":"2007-07-22T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2007-07-22T02:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2007\/07\/22\/buildings-should-have-ethnocentric-designs-only\/"},"modified":"2007-07-22T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2007-07-22T02:30:10","slug":"buildings-should-have-ethnocentric-designs-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2007\/07\/22\/buildings-should-have-ethnocentric-designs-only\/","title":{"rendered":"buildings should have ethnocentric designs only"},"content":{"rendered":"
forget about design, there's not even a place to pray for us in Putrajaya! Not even in the plans. So much for multi-cultural or multi-racial calls.<\/div>\n
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For public buildings, a mix can be beautiful, says don<\/div>\n

By : Tan Choe Choe<\/a> <\/p>\n

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KUALA LUMPUR: Is the architecture of public buildings too ethnocentric? Does it reflect the identity of only one race? <\/p>\n\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Not in all cases, but as an architecture expert said, some landmark public buildings and universities were built based on a single ethnic reference.<\/p>\n

"Take, for example, Putrajaya," Professor Dr Mohamad Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi said. <\/p>\n

"The buildings there are mostly based on old Muslim-architecture. Even the lamp posts there are built as such.<\/p>\n

"It is something of a concern here if we look at it from a democratic perspective."
He said this in a paper on Malaysian architecture at the Asia Pacific Geomancy Conference 2007, organised by the Malaysian Institute of Geomancy Sciences. <\/p>\n

Tajuddin has written 23 books on building and architecture. He is the director of the Centre for the Study of Built Environment in the Malay World of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s Faculty of Built Environment. <\/p>\n

He said if landmark buildings like those in Putrajaya were ethnocentric, "we can expect many other buildings to try to emulate them".<\/p>\n

As Malaysia is a multiracial democratic society, he said its public buildings should convey the identity of the society in its "architectural language". <\/p>\n

"There is nothing wrong with owners of private buildings choosing whatever architectural concept they like but public buildings should reflect our sensitivity, tolerance and appreciation of each other’s cultural background. <\/p>\n

"Being too ethnocentric in our building construction is not the way."<\/p>\n

He suggested that public buildings be more eclectic and combine the architectural elements of various ethnic groups.<\/p>\n

"Some may say it will be like rojak but there is nothing wrong with that. <\/p>\n

"In fact, the end result can be very beautiful," he said, citing countries where there were buildings built on a combination of Gothic, Roman and Classical architecture.<\/p>\n

Some universities, he said, are built solely on the concept of Malay architecture. <\/p>\n

"Universities are places of learning, for our children to broaden their minds and learn about all kinds of stuff. <\/p>\n

"Why are we building them based on a single-ethnic reference? What is the message we are conveying to our children?" <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Malaysian Institute of Geomancy Sciences founder Prof David Koh said incorporating the ancient concept of geomancy into development projects at the planning stage itself was crucial if people wanted to create a harmonious relationship between the environment and themselves. <\/p>\n

"I think the authorities should take the lead in incorporating these values by enacting rules and regulations to plan for a better future, prosperity and advancement of the people." <\/p>\n

He added that compared with 50 years ago, fewer developers were using the ancient concept to boost the value of their projects nowadays. <\/p>\n

Themed "Modern Living, Ancient Concept", the three-day conference was the first of its kind to combine Chinese feng shui, Malay tajul muluk and Indian vastu shastra.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

forget about design, there's not even a place to pray for us in Putrajaya! Not even in the plans. So much for multi-cultural or multi-racial calls.     For public buildings, a mix can be beautiful, says don By : Tan Choe Choe source KUALA LUMPUR: Is the architecture of public buildings too ethnocentric? Does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borninmalaysia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}