EARLY TOWNS
Facing Fort Cornwallis in Penang (c. 1907) was the Padang, and open ground used originally for military exercises, and at the other end the City Hall (1903).
From about the 5th century CE, trade with the Arabs, Chinese and Indians and with other Southeast Asians played an important role in changing the lifestyle of the early inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula. With exposure to outside influences, the early inhabitants became receptive to change, and with growth in economic activities, several coastal villages grew into early towns. These early towns on the Peninsula comprised Melaka and Alor Setar on the west coast, Johor Bahru in the south, and Kota Bharu, Kuala Terengganu and Pekan along the east coast. In these early towns, the local Malays often lived close to the palaces while the foreign merchants coalesced in trading areas on the coast, usually near the mouths of rivers.
The conquest of Melaka by the Portuguese in 1511 started a series of European interventions that were to change the rural nature of the early towns. Clearly aligned streets and, occasionally, town squares, were introduced, and masonry replaced timber in the construction of urban buildings. While the Portuguese used local laterite extensively as building material in Melaka, the Dutch built in brick. At the end of the 19th century, with extensive immigration under the British administration, new towns sprouted throughout the Peninsula, including Taiping, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Seremban and Kuantan, all of which grew in parallel with the growth of economic activities. These new towns were characterized by shophouses along their high streets. It was only after World War II that other building types, such as tall buildings, began to appear.
George Town in Penang, founded in 1786 by Captain Francis Light as a trading post for the East India Company, was the first major British outpost in Peninsular Malaysia. By the 19th century, it had become the largest town in the Peninsula and was served by a comprehensive infrastructure of roads, railways, telephones and telegraphs. Civic and government administrative buildings began to appear, surrounded by shophouses and fringed by the residential buildings of new settlers and traders. The town was a potpourri of different ethnic groups and had the cosmopolitan ambience of a busy entrepôt. George Town today has retained most of its urban fabric and efforts are being made to conserve its early character.
In Sarawak, Kuching was the first settlement to develop into a town. Its early development was inextricably linked with the Brooke Dynasty, which ruled Sarawak from 1841 to 1941. The transformation of Kuching from a bustling trading post under the rule of James Brooke, the first 'White Rajah', into a modern town was largely due to the efforts of Charles Brooke, the second Rajah who succeeded his uncle in 1869. During his 49 years' reign, masonry buildings were introduced, supported by roads, street lighting and a drainage system. By the end of his reign in 1918, Kuching had developed into an organized town with a waterfront bazaar, framed by masonry shophouses, and other civic buildings.