Globalization is somehow the most important force that has been shaping the soci- economic landscape of many countries during the past decade. Malaysia is one of the fastest globalizing economies of the world.
Since the country’s economy grew ahead of expectation at the 1970s, buildings like condominiums, resort hotels, commercial office spaces and shopping centres were built and eventually formed a many facets of skyline. As the shopping centres and office buildings were erected, corporate and private clients start to desire for a more ‘global’ look for their projects. This causes the architecture become more approached to form, function and imagery when the architects grew more aggressive. For example, appearance made from glass towers and curtain walling to portray ‘fashion’.
Along with the increase in urban immigration and middle class cause a demand in residential housing all over the country. Though large housing estates, distinguished by endless rows of link houses were criticized as insensible design but they are still the median of residential. Besides that, condominium living has became an image of affluent with the favorite option of higher class community. It results in more high- rise designs by marketing than by architectural values.
Vernacular restoration, Islamic symbolism and tropical design have all entered the vocabulary of Malaysian architectural identity. The strongest evident to show the implication of vernacular architecture to modern building design is the resort hotels. They achieve to strive a design which its environment reflects the surrounding cultural heritage but has yet still can be seen as a commercial or residential architecture. There goes a quick growth during the 1980s and there are several monumental building projects being built in the 1990s. These mega projects are such as the Petronas Twin Towers (KLCC), the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), and the new garden city of Putra Jaya. They have undeniably remained as the architectural landmarks until the 21st century.
Petronas Twin Towers
Figure 1- Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur
The Petronas Twin Towers is the world’s tallest twin towers which consist of 88- storey- high with two 44- storey side towers linked 170 metres above street level by a sky bridge. It is the new headquarters at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre since 1998.
It then became the international icon for Malaysia. Even though the design of Petronas Twin Towers reflects a dynamic image, but is also take the local tropical climate and Islamic architectural traditions into consideration so that it is all within Malaysian cultural context. The shape of the towers’ floor plate is based upon two interlocking squares forming an eight- pointed star; eight semicircles are inserted into the re- entrant corners or angles. This building form shows how important is geometry in Islamic architectural tradition.
Figure 2- Floor Layout Plan of Petronas Twin Towers
Menara Kuala Lumpur (KL Tower)
Figure 3- Menara Kuala Lumpur
It is a tall tower located on Bukit Nanas in the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is completed in the year 1996 and currently the eighteenth tallest freestanding tower in the world. The concrete structure will be one of the tallest telecommunications towers in the globe.
The intricate glazed façade for the Tower Head forms a striking feature of the structure. The tower consisted of an observation gallery, a revolving restaurant at the uppermost area, providing diners a panoramic view of the city and three levels of telecommunications, broadcasting and television transmission equipment.
The KL Tower has also becomes the Islamic falak observatory to look for the crescent moon to mark the beginning of Muslim month of Ramadhan, Syawal, and Zulhijjah, to celebrate fasting month of Ramadhan, Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Hari Raya Aidiladha. The muqarnas at the tower was built in the arrangement of glass on the domes of the lobby entrance to show the seven layers of the sky with the penetration of sunrays from the middle. The domes were designed and arranged in the form of the Muqarnas by Iranian craftsmen from Isfahan. After all, the designs represent the human journey for faultlessness in life.
Menara Telekom (Telekom Tower)
Figure 4 & 5- Menara Telekom Malaysia
Menara Telekom (Menara TM), also known as Bamboo Tower, is the headquarters of Telekom Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. This building has a height of 310m with 55 floors, which has influenced by a sketch of “bamboo shoot”. The unique part of the tower is its 22 open skygardens swapping every three floors. The unique curvy structure has formed an exclusive signal for Malaysia by signifying a young bamboo with strong foundations at its root and little leaves sprouting.
(to be continue...)
p/s: i know the underlined texts are very distracting but I have no idea on what's wrong with blogger and how to remove it so just bear with it.thx
It would be good if you chould show examples or images of what Malaysia went through (or is going through) from an architectural perspective of globalisation. Perhaps you can show a before-and-after comparison to show how globalisation changed the urban landscape. You also need to better integrate the case studies with the rest of the chapter, as your current analyses is more of a informative background on the buildings rather than showing how globalisation affected Malaysian architecture.
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