City landmarks remembered

For the past four months, conservationists in northern Malaysia's fast-developing town of Kuala Terengganu have been campaigning against a plan by the state government to redevelop a landmark marketplace into a shopping complex and five-star hotel.

The 46-year-old Pasar Payang wet and dry market, a maze of about 200 stalls selling native crafts and products found in the region, has been declared unsafe by the Terengganu state’s public works department and a redevelopment plan was announced in February.

Kamarul Bahrin Ahmad, an architect and leader of the Save Pasar Payang Campaign, says the plan would rob Kuala Terengganu of a heritage building and would displace the traders in the market.

But Ahmad Said, chief minister of Terengganu, says the market’s redevelopment would be for the convenience of the traders, consumers and tourists.

For the past three decades, century-old shop houses and small town landmarks in Malaysia have been crushed by the necessities of progress such as intertwining highways, skyscrapers and shopping malls, as the country bids to become a fully developed nation by 2020.

While the government has been successful in preserving iconic structures with national historical values, it has proved wanting in conserving landmarks in small communities, says Elizabeth Cardosa, a leader of local conservation group Badan Warisan.

Architect Laurence Loh, who led the restoration of a heritage building called Blue Mansion in the northern state of Penang, has urged the government to do more in preserving the country’s rich built heritage, a blend of oriental and occidental design and construction.

“The challenge is how to balance urbanisation and the encroachment of development and the life as before,” he says. “Conservation is the act of buying time, giving space for people to sort out and manage change at a controlled pace.”

Zuraina Majid, commissioner of Malaysia's Department of National Heritage, insists the government cares about the country’s heritage as manifested by the passage of a comprehensive law that led to the creation of her office in 2006. But Zuraina said not all old structures can qualify as heritage sites since the law set criteria on what should be considered national heritage and what should be conserved.

“There are many things that are old, we have to prioritise which one we want to rescue, we cannot have more of the same because we don’t have the luxury of saving everything,” she says.

Badan Warisan, a pioneering non-profit heritage conservation organisation that has lobbied for the passage of the country’s national heritage law since the late 1980s, says Malaysia's old charm goes beyond national iconic heritage structures.

Cardosa, its executive director, points out that rows of century-old shop houses might not qualify as national heritage, but these structures could have historical significance to the development of the town and to the townsfolk residing in the area.

She cites the partnership between residents and conservationists in preserving and restoring an abandoned rubber plantation smokehouse in the one-street town of Lunas in the northern state of Kedah, which was founded in the early 1900s.

`While Badan Warisan helps in the various initiatives of the National Heritage Department, Cardosa’s group is also closely working with the planning department under the housing and local government ministry.

Last year, Badan Warisan launched workshops aimed at training city and town planners on how to appreciate and assess the historical and cultural importance of buildings in their areas of jurisdiction.