chapter 2 (after amendment)

2.0 Understanding More about Globalization

Our world is heading towards globalization, it depicts the process of regional economies, societies, and cultures which have become incorporated through a global network of communication, transportation, and trade. Globalization is often known as being driven by a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural, political, and biological factors.

Globalization has affected the world in a few different aspects for instance the industrial, financial, economic, health policy, political, informational, language, competition, ecological, cultural, social, technical, legal in another word ethical, and religious. From the reference of history of Malaysia, as it is located at a strategic sea- lane position in South East Asia which brought in a lot of trades and foreign influences. Hindu and Buddhist cultures were imported from India lead the early history. Besides that, Islamic culture has had a thoughtful influence on the Malay people in Malaysia. Followed by then, it was the influences which brought by the Dutch and British who came for trading and based in several parts of Malaysia.

The architectural style’s development in Malaysia started from pre- colonial years through colonial time and later to independence. As a result of a multi racial country, the architectural development is also influenced by these various cultures due to migration and trading of the Chinese and Indian during colonial era. Many other foreign cultural heritages and birthrights that existed in colonial time had affected the country’s development and apparently on the heritage buildings which are still remained until today.

2.1 Defining of Global Architecture

In the 1930s, the “International Style” was planned to be the “Architecture of Globalization”. For example, Corb built in India. Corb (Chandigarh) as in the name of the building. Unfortunately, the architect designed the building without really considered about the people’s needs even though he had big plans for it, and so it turned the building as a failure one.

Figure 1- Corb building in India

The media and press are the one who keep acclaiming the glob- trotting Gehrys who build the similar building all over the world. Besides that, it is also our culture of celebrity, with the proliferation of media which continue this “romantic” notion of the architect as super- artist to continue designing these signature buildings all over the world? Kenneth Frampton is one of the few architectural theorists who have promoted “regionalism”. Some architects cannot seem to make up their minds about whether architecture should designed to be a “modern” temperament with an imposed technology in every regional culture; or somehow they have made up their minds, instead of strongly advocating, is better to show what they have done as evidence. As technology implies to be “scientific” it may be regarded as independent rather than requiring justification by local cultures.

The Federal House in Kuala Lumpur is the best early example of the International Style architecture in Malaysia, it was once the home of Radio Malaysia. The building was used as a slab block consisted with offices with an adjacent block to house other public spaces. It is also one of the earliest buildings which used plastic as a building material. There are punched, round openings featured on the circulation block. The overall planning of the building has put into consideration of its shading and the use of materials.

Figure 2- The Federal House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2.2 What is “Vertical Density”?

In the era of globalization, development cities becoming prosperous as well as attracting newcomers of all classes. As the increase in population and richer residents of these successful cities require more personal space to sustainably accommodate these people.

Vertical density has two noticeably different expressions in many cities, which are one on the ground level and the other in the skyline. The world’s densest major cities are Hong Kong, Cairo and Mumbai which represent the urban development in the vertical and horizontal dimensions. The “cities of widespread poverty”- Cairo and Mumbai have an extreme concentration which spread in low- rise buildings in a congested environment and so, this is the density of poverty.

Figure 3- City of Cairo

Figure 4- City of Mumbai

Take Hong Kong and New York as a reference, the government in both cities claims that the buildings are forced to build upwards because of the scarcity of land.

Figure 5- Skyline in Hong Kong

Figure 6- Skyline in Manhattan, New York

The term “density” for many people today has a negative implication of crowding, poverty and scarcity of public space. On the other hand, Hong Kong and Manhattan suggested that their 70,000 people per square mile high density can show how affluent they are. But bear in mind how can a growing city cope with its restricted boundaries and still accommodate the needs of people who require more private space and amenities? This same goes to Malaysian’s needs even though this country is not as affluent as the other two mentioned above.

Figure 7- Skyline in Malaysia

The image above has shown the skyline in Malaysia. It shows how the city grows throughout the years into what we can see today. Each distinctive building has formed a landmark to the certain place which has brought in population and the prosper of tourism. Anyhow, most of the building in the country has its own distinct which applied some cultural elements into the design. This shows that Malaysia is a developing country but in the meanwhile it still remains its own identity without blindly erecting buildings which are having more or less the same design throughout the globe.