Research Paper on Kampung Baru, Kuala lumpur, Malaysia TIBOURKI YOUSSEF ARCH 7161 THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG | 2019/2020
SUMMARY FOREWORD INTRODUCTION
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DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE
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History of Kampung Baru Description of the village and living style ANALYSIS OF THE VALUE OF THE SITE
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FUTURE OF THE SITE
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CONCLUSION
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SOURCES
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FOREWORD I would like to thank Chiara Maggiore a fellow traveler and curious eye, who accompanied me on site and shot most of the pictures in this research paper. I would also like to express my gratitude towards Azri and Amir (whom I met through Chiara) and who were my translators and guides in Kampung Baru. I would like to acknowledge the amazing hospitability of the people of Malaysia in general, but specifically that of Faycal the dad of one of Azri’s pupils. I would also like to thank the whole team of ARCH 7161, as I had to leave Hong Kong before being able to say goodbye, I hope we can see each other again soon. This research paper was a great way not only to discover a place, or a village but a culture and it was a pleasure to go on this journey and get help from total strangers.
INTRODUCTION The site I chose is located in Malaysia, which is a country in South east Asia, with approximately 32 million people living in it1, the population is very heterogenous, with multiple ethnic groups cohabiting there. 67.4% of them are Bumiputera (Malays) who consider themselves the autochthones of the land, they have their own customs and traditions, 24.6% of them are of Chinese origin, and 7.3% of them are Indian from the Tamil provinces. Malaysia grants its people freedom of religion, while making Islam the religion of the state, therefore the population is majoritarily Muslim 61.3% nonetheless the rest of the population is extremely different, 19.8% Buddhism, 9.2% Christianity, 6.3% Hinduism, and 1.3% Confucianism. This makes Malaysia an extremely heterogenous society, may it be socially, culturally, or religiously. Climate wise, Malaysia is equatorial, meaning temperatures are high most of the year, with two monsoon periods from April to October and from October to February.2 With all of that in mind, I have chosen a site in the Capital, Kuala Lumpur which is the biggest city of the country, the site, Kampung Baru has an extensive history, today it is very famous for its street food. The neighborhood is a bit controversial, as it is right next to the petronas towers and the government is pushing to «develop» it as soon as possible. The reasons why I chose this site first of all were that I ended up in Malaysia after leaving Hong Kong. And the fact that we needed to interview and visit people in their houses was made easier for me as I know the Muslim culture and understand its values and fundamentals quite well. I was also interested in trying to understand how the mediation between weather and materials was achieved here, especially with the technological advances that now enable us to control our interior’s climate. But most importantly, I was interested in exploring how the Malay deal with the rich traditional heritage and the new modern way of life.
DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE History of Kampung Baru Kampung Baru which literally translates to New Village, has been around since 1900, when the Sultan of Selangor at the time gifted the land which spans over 4 km² to the indigenous Malay people so that they could conserve their way of life in a city under colonial reign. It was also the scene of multiple ethnic protests and sometimes even killing during the late 60s. 3 4 It has endured multiple floods, the one that I have been told about is the 1971 flood which has forced multiple houses to be renovated and has pushed the village to rebuild a new gate that would represent the identity of the village at the time. When you first get to this place the pace of life changes, you are no longer in Kuala Lumpur’s bustling center, but rather in its «historical» center, this is what the Malay refer to as the seed from which the city sprawled. 1
Clear contrast between Kampung Baru and the rest of the city Image taken from google earth pro.
The new gate of Kampung Baru built in an islamic style following the floods of 1971
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In recent years, the village was also used to launch a series of protest movements against the government at the time (1998), which would mean that it is considered by most as an identitary landmark for allof Kuala Lumpur. Today, Kampung Baru is administratively part of Kuala Lumpur. However, from 1900 to 2013, it was actually almost a self-ruling zone, where the MAS or Malay agricultural settlement ruled. Malaysia is an extremely heterogenous country when it comes to ethnicities, and here in Kampung Baru the major ethnicity are the Malay people which is not the case for the rest of KL where everyone is mixed. One could say that Kampung Baru is The Malaytown of KL, since there is no such thing in the city; there is a Chinatown, a little India but no Malaytown, except for Kampung Baru which is a village in the middle of Kuala Lumpur, the bustling city surrounds and even suffocates it at times. It is a low rise zone where people take pride in living the authentic Malay life, with all the comfort of today’s society.
Description of the village and living style Kampung Baru is one of the neighborhoods of Kuala Lumpur where one can still find, traditional authentic Malay houses, these houses historically were built with simple techniques, using leaves and palm fronds. The early Malay hut was easy to construct, using round wooden pillars, the joints between different elements of the house were all done using lianas of different sorts. With the development of new tools, Malay builders could build longer roofs and more complicated structures, the stilts were shaped using an axe and were no longer round, the joints between elements of the buildings could be done by digging holes and using wood assembling techniques. The traditional Malay house was built to satisfy the basic needs of the Malays, and it is what we call today in contemporary architecture design by constraints, the original builders built to soothe theirs needs in the context of their chosen site which incorporated things that influenced their life such as the natural surroundings, the way of life of the owners, their economic status and the climate. The climate shaped the house and gave it it’s aesthetic. The iconic stilts that serve as a structural plinth for the whole building, were mainly used to lift the house up, allowing for air to flow and decreasing the dampness inside the shelter, it was also used as a means of protection from wild animals. Another important thing that shapes the architecture of the Malay house is the Malay way of life, a life style that keeps changing with time and adapting to the society it evolves in with the new technologies that appear.5 Kampung Baru incorporates all of these elements, which gives it a very different atmosphere, it has an almost rural feel to it and is at the same time viscerally urban. The pace of life here is dictated by three things, the first one being work, people would either work in Kampung Baru in the different food stalls, restaurants or in another part of the city, the second one being religion, Islam creates this almost punctual visit to the mosque, time stops every time the call to prayer is heard,
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and the third one being family, most people in Kampung Baru, either still live in a house with a family wider than the nuclear family commonly known in the west, to give an exemple, Faycal whom I interviewed, told me that he lived with his mother, and that the only reason his siblings moved out was that the house could not fit everyone anymore, he also pointed out to the fact that his aunt lived next door. This would mean that families tend to stick together here. When I first went to Kampung Baru, I was amazed by the fact that people would leave most of their personal belongings on their porches, their clothes were hanging on the fence separating the street from their property, the kids toys were almost on the streets. The streets themselves had a very human scale, cars could fit but by walking in the village one could feel that these spaces were designed for pedestrians, and that only made the differences between the rest of the city and Kampung Baru bigger. In Kampung Baru the main occupation is opening a shop or a restaurant, generally, people own a house and part of that house could become a restaurant, it could also simply be a food stall that is installed directly on the street, it is not as touristy as one might think, most of the customers are locals of KL craving malay food with the exception of some tourist groups looking for an authentic malay setting. The traditional houses in Kampur Baru however, adapted and changed with time, coping with the ever changing malaysian society, not only because of the economic changes, but also the technological ones.
Pictures : Typical scenes in Kampung Baru
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Pictures : contrast between the city and Kampung Baru.
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This greatly influences the materials but also the way the houses are inhabited, for exemple the fact that some house walls have been renovated changing therefore the material by which they are built from wood to concrete, the thermal efficiency of the house as a whole become much more deficient, to which the inhabitants’ answer is installing an A/C because To its dwellers, a house is often a status symbol. Because of this, every Malay aspires to build a comfortable house according to the dictates of his social and economic status.5 it would be then fair to assume that whatever technologies appear in the future will for sure change the way houses function and are seen but it will not necessarily change the identity of the inhabitants of said house. Today the main reason that was brought up when i asked why people changed part of their roofs from wood or tiles to zinc, (or other parts of their houses) the answer was economical, it is only because their old parts were rotting or were really degraded that people tend to choose cheap easily accessible materials. Hindering the change that would happen inside these houses because of technological advance would be the same as someone not building his house and carry on building houses made of bamboo and leaves (ancester of the Malay house cited before) it would make no sense, I truely think that nowadays people are looking for convenience and comfort more than ever, it would only be logic to give them freedom in having those comforts as it does not change their way of life but only improves it.
Section of a Malay house taken from The Architectural Heritage of the Malay World: The Traditional Houses (2005)
Picture : Exemple of a renovated house, zinc roof, concrete stilts.
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Analysis of the value of the site In Kampung Baru one of the striking observations that I had was that religion had a great deal of influence on how people live and behave around here, like I said before it is not only about the prayer, but for instance a practice that I have not seen in other muslims countries that I visited is the fact that they leave their shoes in front of their houses, in doing so not only are they drawing a clear line between inside and outside, defining a border of cleanliness they are also almost sacralizing their homes as it is the same practice that happens when one enters a mosque, «To the Malay dweller it was the place where serenity thrived and wherein was nurtured both feelings of love and calmness of the soul.»5 Besides from that, the people in Kampung Baru show a great deal of creativity when it comes to adapting spaces that were used differently before, for instance, in the episode 3 climate and the vernacular, we saw that the reasons why malay houses are lifted on stilts, is first of all to prepare for an eventual flood, but also that it is a space for the dead and the ghosts, but obviously, today, the city has a wide infrastructure to counter flooding, and the majority of the people are either muslims, or not superstitious anymore, so those beliefs and those specific needs have dissapeared, which means that people now have the freedom of doing whatever they want with that space, which they include in their daily lives, either as a sources of income like opening a shop or a restaurant, or maybe even a rentable parking spot6 or they simply use it as a storage space sometimes it even becomes a space for people to play, therefore shifting it’s spiritual value from a space reserved to the dead in past beliefs to a space that is fundamentally for the living, and from which life can strive. When I asked Faycal if he would ever move out of his house, he firmly refused, saying that this house was his ancestors’ legacy and that he would never sell it to corporates. His link to this house dates back from 1972. He has grown up here and he represents the third generation in his house, for him conserving the house is not really about the materials or the shape of the house, but it is mainly about the heritage that comes with it, the memories that were shared there, and the family’s identity that the house incarnates. Also in Kampung Baru, not only is there a defined identity on a family level, but there is also a shared identity throughout the whole village, as i was saying before after the floods of 1971, the village rebuilt a new gate (cf page 2) and that really reminded me of the importance of the gate at Lai chi wo, this is the same thing, in Lai chi wo the villagers had defined their values and put their elders on the gate meaning that they were realistically speaking defining their collective identity, the same is happening here in Kampung Baru, where the villagers pride themselves in that gate as it represents all of them as a collective unit.
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Example of the space under the house becoming a parking spot
Example of the space under the house becoming a playing space
Example leaving outside
of their
people shoes
Example of the space under the house becoming a storage space
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Future of the site Kampung Baru is a very historically and symbolically loaded, the site captures the Malay way of life in the middle of the city, making it an important landmark for Kuala Lumpur, not only does it represent the Malay identity, but it also redefines what the city might be, low rise communal living could be the next step in our cities and we are seeing it more and more, the culture of the suburbs is more and more growing and I could very easily see this becoming a model for developing community driven housing. When asked about the future of Kampung Baru, Faycal told me that it all depended on the people living here whether they agreed or not on selling their properties and that there is a 50% change of it being developed by companies. He also told me why he would never sell his property; his house today is legally owned by 30 people (multiple owners due to legacy policies) and that if he had to divide the money they would give him between 30 people it would represent nothing for his family. Most of the inhabitants of Kampug Baru are strictly opposed to having their home sold or destroyed, especially knowing how much the company that would buy that land would make (Kampung Baru is one of the most expansive areas of Kuala Lumpur) and in my opinion it is unlikely that this area would survive the horrific urban sprawl, we can already witness the high condominiums creeping into Kampung Baru, I think that the pressure from the contractors will keep growing and growing until the dwellers give up, which in my opinion is a very bad idea. We have examples of successfully conserved buildings and sometimes even neighborhoods throughout Asia, not so far we have examples in Singapore which is not that big of a city and still manages to keep its heritage. Kampung Baru should be conserved, and if architects have anything to learn from it, it would be its humble scale, the fact that everyone knows everyone and that even if there is a bustling city around the neighborhood, the village has a calm feel and atmosphere, and we as designers and builders should strive to achieve something like this. The main idea behind conserving a building or part of a city for me is not about the buildings techniques, or the materials nor is it even about history of the place, it is mainly about how people invest does spaces and how they adapt them to an ever changing society.
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Construction sites looming over Kampung Baru
The threat of high buildings getting closer
rise
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Conclusion To conclude, Kampung Baru is a very historically heavy place, it contains many of the identitarily defining elements of Malaysia, and it is one of the few remaining places in Kuala Lumpur where one can really experience and authentic Malay setting, destroying it simply to populate and densify further the city center of Kuala Lumpur would only make sense for a greedy corporation, for us architects, it should only be considered a waste, of potential but also of learning material, for me architecture is not about the building itself, it is about how the building we make interacts with the person using it, and this village offers so many things to learn and see. Kampung Baru is an extremely interesting place not only on the human level but also on the historical level, to know how this place evolved and changed is to know how people lived in it throughout the years, that is the essence of what makes architecture interesting, and that is why for me one should learn from vernacular architecture, a french proverb says that no one can serve you better than yourself, and that is true in architecture aswell, in that sense seeing how people create shelters for themselves how they tweak and adapt them to their needs, can only feed our creativity, and stimulate our critical sense on what is truely needed for a building to be functional, beautiful but most importantly adapted to the society that will use it, I am a firm believer that we should not be building the same buildings all over the world, human beings are 99% similar in their needs and behavior, but it is that 1% that architects should seek and learn from that 1% is what we should use to accomodate the differences of cultures, religions and economical prosperity. This village has been for me a great journey where I have been welcomed by multiple people in a country that is not my own to discover how they live, and how they interact with each other, i truely think that the setting in which a person grows up has a lot to do with how they turn out, and the fact that today, more and more people in westernised countries feel like there is less social interactions or that it is harder to interact has to do in my opinion with the fact that we grow up isolated from each other in buildings and neiborhoods that are nowhere near the human scale (high rises, big appartment block). In essence Kampung Baru is an amazingly interesting place, that should be conserved as long as possible.
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SOURCES 1-https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/malaysia-population/ 2-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia#Demographics 3-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampung_Baru,_Kuala_Lumpur 4-Annex : Interview of Faycal on 27/11/2019 5-The Traditional Malay House, Wan Nashim, Abdul Halim Nasir, Institut Terjemahan Negara Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 2011 (found here https://books.google.com.my/ books?id=_1vb4mZU6dIC&pg=PA7&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false)
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Research Paper Annex : Transcript of my interview with Faycal
Faycal, a father of four who has been living in Kampung Baru since 1971 I am joined by Azri and Amir who were nice enough to be my translators and guides. Keep in mind that if the transcription seems cut or incoherent is because they would start speaking malay and only include me on a specific subject later on. Interview was the 27/11/2019
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-Y : Do you know since when Kampung Baru exists ? -A: (after having translated) Since 1900, This land was actually a present from the sultan of Selangor. -Y : The sultan of what? -A: The sultan of Selangor -Y : Is it a state in Malaysia? -A : Yes, every state has one sultan. It’s the king, and this uncle (meaning Faycal) is from the third generation, the first generation was his grandfather. (I actually found out after doing some research that Malaysia functions on a rotational system where one sultan from each state would rule over all of Malaysia for 5 years) -Y : And how is life here? Is it isolated or is there some kind of community? Is there someone who represents Kampung Baru? -F : Kampung Baru is actually ruled by MAS, Malay agricultural settlement, the first ones who ran Kampung Baru (asks for translation) -A : Kampung Baru actually has districts Wujun passe (not sure of pronunciation) there are a lot of different districts here. -Y : And what is in the different districts? -A : it’s just a place, the name of the place, there is no difference, the culture everything is all the same. -Y: But who made the districts? -A : The sultan of Selangor, they gave the land and divided it by... i’m not sure how many districts. -Y : Do you know why there are separations or not? -F (laughing) : I’m not sure. -Y : My question is if there are separations in Kampung Baru, who made them is it the government or someone else ? -F : It is the MAS, who made them, they managed Kampung Baru since 1900 until 2013 when the government took it over. -A : There are four cultures (he means ethnicities.) gathered here, people from Melaka, Johor, Penang, and Minangkabau -Y : All of these cohabit in Kampung Baru? -A : Yes -Y: So are they from different parts of Malaysia? Or different countries and different parts of Asia? -A: They are all Malaysian -F: This is 1971 (While showing me a picture of Kampung Baru’s old entrance gate submerged in waters, during the monsoon of 1971.) this is the big flood of 1971, Kuala Lumpur, this is the old arch. -Y : Is it still up today? -A : No, that is the old arch. The one today is new! And it’s muddy here. -Y : Yes, there is a lot of mud here that is why all the houses are on stilts. -A : That is why we call it Kuala Lumpur, mud means lumpur in the malaysian language. -Y : Do you consider Kampung Baru a wealthy neighberhood? Or would you say it is more of a middle class here? -F : I would say it is middle class but also we have some wealthy people here, you know the malaysian bank it’s CEO is from Kampung Baru -Y : Does he still live here? -F : No not anymore but he still has land here. -F : If Kampung Baru is taken by the government we are offered 1000 ringgits (240 USD) per square feet my house is about 7000 square feet 14
-Y : Would you sell them your house? -F : If we sell, we’ll get about 7 million ringgits. (1.6 million USD) -Y : Would you do it? -F : No no, because it’s a legacy land now the name in the paperwork is about 30 names if we sell we have to split the money for 30 people, we have to all agree that we want to sell first. -Y : So there are some that want to sell and others that don’t. -F : Yes -Y : Would you say Kampung Baru is pretty safe? -F : yes it is a safe area. This is the original malay neighborhood of KL. -Y : So everything else is mixed? And the original Malay people are from here? -F: Yes -Y : Is this why there are so many Muslims people here ? -F : Yes -Y : So malay people are mostly muslin right? -F : Yes -Y : So Kampung Baru is mostly Muslim or are there other religions here aswell? -F : It is muslim all of it, and there are no Indians or Chinese, only Malay people here. -Y : Would you say that because the neighborhood is safe that everyone leaves their shoes on the streets and the doors are all open or would you say it is more cultural? -F : No, because all the place is not safe here, we are near a black area. (he means a ghetto/illegal settlements.) -A : Kampung baru is easily accessible, that is why if you ask here if Kampung Baru is safe, not really, because everyone can access easily. -F : Because people from that area they come here to steal shoes, clothes to sell them and buy drugs -Y : Would you say that between people that live in Kampung baru there is trust but outsiders are not trusted? -F : Yes! -Y : So there are people who live here and work here aswell right how does that work? They have a restaurant on the street, and their house is behind the restaurant and that is the case for you right? -F : Yes! -A : Most people today rent shops here even if they are outsiders, and they pay rent to the owner of the land. -Y : And how do you feel about this? Is there no problem in having someone that is an outsider rent a business here and work here ? -F : It’s okay, it’s not a problem. -A : As long as they come in a good way, it’s okay. -Y : Would you ever move out of here? -F : Never! I have been here since 1972 I never moved and never went away! -Y : So is there only one mosque in Kampug baru or are there more? -F : One mosque the big one and then we got suraw smaller mosques inside houses. -Y : What would you think will become of Kampung Baru in a few years do you think the government will be able to destroy it and rebuild something else? -F : Now the government is trying hard to take this place. -Y : Do you think they would succeed? -F : fifty fifty, because they said almost 50% of landowners are willing to 15
sell, they want to quick out the Malays from the city, there is a china town, little India, why would they not build a Malay place here? They want to destroy kampung baru and build condominium towers. -Y : So if they destroy Kampung Baru the Malay will have no neighborhood in Kuala Lumpur like you said, there is a little India a Chinatown there is no Malay place -F : Yes no Malay place -A : Before renovation this house was made out of wood -Y : Your house was made of wood? -F : Yes! -Y : And when was it rebuilt? -F : 1960 -Y : And when was is first built? -F : Not sure -A : He is the third generation. -Y : so were you there when they rebuilt it? -F : I was not born yet in 1960. -Y : And do you know why they changed the wood? -F : I think it’s because the wood was rotten. -Y : And was it more expansive to rebuild with wood? -F : Yes nowadays the wood is more expensive than concrete, we have three or four doors, for example, we have one building but four doors and four families, in one building -Y : Do you know why? -F : Because before they had a lot of siblings, big family, so parents upstairs and the siblings downstairs. -Y : So only the parents had their own room? -F : Yes -Y : But now only your family lives here right? -F : Yes but my mother lives upstairs, and two of my brothers are somewhere else because there is no more space and my aunt lives next door. (literally) -Y : So it’s not the same building is it? -A : It is the same building but a different door. -Y : I just have one last question, what do you use the space under your house, because your houses here are almost all elevated, so what is that space used for now that the city has countermeasures for floods? -F : we use it for parking restaurants. -Y : Oh so you make a restaurant! So now your restaurant is in that space? -F : Now they mostly use it for parking. -Y : so the parking is under the house? -A : Yes - Y : But so is his restaurant right? -A : People are different each one uses it differently.
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-A : It is up to you if you want to have a restaurant then you use a restaurant, if you want a parking space then it’s a parking each person uses it differently, some people just make parking space if someone wants to come here and can’t find a place to park they can just park under someone’s house and pay 5 ringit (1 USD) -Y : Ok that was it for me thank you very much for helping me and giving me some of your time!
Picture of me and Faycal after having completed the interview
Transcripted on the 28/11/2019 17