IN SEARCH OF A 'MALAYAN' STYLE
Architectural 'style' is the collective artistic and decorative expression of a period or school of architecture, such as Western Classical, Gothic or Mock Tudor, applied to a building type. Before Independence in 1957, it was accepted that there was no single recognizable style of 'Malayan' architecture. However, some major architectural styles were discernible among the great diversity of the country's buildings: the vernacular style of the Malay timber house; the traditions of temple and domestic building brought by the immigrant peoples from their different homelands; and the Western Classical idiom imposed by the British colonial power, notwithstanding the British 'Raj' or Mogul style which enjoyed a brief but enduring popularity. There was no single line of development. The various styles were built from the memories of immigrant builders and adopted from pattern books. Over time, and without conscious effort, each style came to influence others so that an eclectic mix often appeared in a single building. This style came to be known as Straits Eclectic. The most constant influences on all these architectural styles were the harsh tropical climate and the building materials available locally.
Although the Dutch bequeathed a distinctive architectural style, seen in the high pediments of the Stadthuys and Christ Church in Melaka, it was the British who left the greatest architectural legacy. The widespread use of the Western Neoclassical style, characterized by rows of stately classical columns supporting pediments, imposed an indelible urban character on all major towns of the country where it was applied with varying degrees of correctness to administrative and commercial buildings, churches, schools, palaces, mosques and shophouses. The exception was in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Federated Malay States, where the Mogul style was chosen for the new government offices—the Sultan Abdul Samad Building—as being more appropriate to an Islamic country. The Mogul style spread further afield, especially to mosques and other Islamic buildings throughout the Peninsula.
The beginnings of a Malayan style of architecture were most apparent in the dwellings of the various communities, where the successful blending and assimilation of different influences from the various cultural traditions reflected the people's adaptability and their innate artistic expression. The early houses of the British, derived from the Anglo-Indian bungalow, shared features with the houses of the Malays and other indigenous peoples, and to this house form other features and decorative elements were added by the urban Indians, Sumatrans and Chinese. The eclecticism of the Malayan style, however, was most highly developed in the country's ubiquitous terraced shophouses and townhouses whose facades reflected a variety of local and foreign architectural styles.
