How Can We make the past to be part of our Future? “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”Confucius. Past is us try and error, a practical case study has been conducted, we should harvest the knowledge from our past and in-cooperated in our modern life and our future. For example, Chinese Architecture had taught us with multiple dwelling and courtyard could improve the privacy of the house, shows us unity, importance of a family, and even hierarchy of a family where these architectural elements have been evolved into modern days living room, a condensed area hosting multiple events within a house. A simple practice of this example improved our life, communication of people and other values hence it is so important and it is a must to be in-cooperated and porting to our life. Heritage conservation are not just saving bricks, but it is about saving our cultural practice and things that is no where to be found if it is demolish. By introducing adaptive-reuse are one of the way that is practical in conservation building also balancing the economical sheets. Adaptive-reuse successfully in-cooperated the idea of bring our past to be part of our future; in layman terms it conserved the old building and repurposed it into something it is practical and helpful to the modern society. The case study I’ve chosen is Penang. The China House, Penang was a trading shophouses back in the 90s where it acts as the shopfront and business warehouse now China House has been re-use and refurbished as an art gallery, a café and a bar (at night). The thing is the form of the shophouse, structural design, the architecture never changes it just acts as a different space. For example, they had implemented the air courtyard of the shop houses as seats and tables for customer, the warehouse storage part has been changed into a bar and the mezzanine floor has been transform into a art gallery. The China House is a very long shop houses due to its original intention was a warehouse hence they could implement so many different spaces in one building. Making the past to be part of the future is the main selling point of Penang Tourism, it is the city development for the city to function better, generates profits, and
at the same time it also helps us remember the culture, the roots, the personality, the identities of the community. Another example of adaptive-reuse can be found in Penang, are hidden bars; Magazine 63, Manchu and etc. Hidden bars are very popular now in Penang, most of them theme as “shanghai tan” era clubhouses where it also brings us back to 1920s/1930s where this kind of clubhouses started to exist. However, these fancy bars does not put up a big sign or doing anything destroying the aesthetic of the old shophouses. That’s how Penang implementing breathtaking space and supporting adaptive-reuse to show us how we can bring our past to be part of our future. In conclusion, the past is always a part of our future self. We Malaysian have so many unique cultures there is no where to be found in the World, a country based with 3 main ethnicities. The beauty of it was the MIX of our culture, this is something we have to preserve and prevail at the same time.
Student: Law Zhi Chang Student ID: 0323813 Tutor: Mr. Azim