28 August 2014
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I just received an email with a petition to save Soonstead.
What is Soonstead you may ask? Well, it is mansion in Penang. One of the many
along Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, formerly known as Northam Road also known as
Millionaires Row.
For those of you not familiar with Penang, the nickname of
the road gives a hint as to the type of domiciles you find there. That stretch
of road which connects Gurney Drive and Georgetown was at one time the address
of choice for all those wealthy tycoons of Penang.
It is, or used to be when I was a child growing up on the
island, one mansion after another. The fronts of the buildings were large lawns
and the backs of the houses looked onto the sea. Now there are some hideous
modern developments on the road and the character of the place is being chipped
away. It appears that Soonstead is going to be next.
The plan is not to totally demolish the building, just parts
of it, and then there will be built on the land a high rise luxury hotel. That
seems to be the trend in Penang; keep some bits of these old buildings and then
build something large and modern around it.
I suppose in the minds of the planners, you are saving
heritage (Georgetown is a UNESCO heritage city you see), at the same time
making money hand over fist. Sounds nice in theory except that what usually
happens is the heritage building is dwarfed by an ugly monstrosity and you get
a sort of mutant amalgam. Next time you are in Penang, keep an eye out for
these mutants.
I suppose one question that could be raised is why should we
care about these old houses commissioned by rich men long dead? For me, the
first reason is that these buildings are beautiful. They are aesthetically
pleasing and they display workmanship and craft which are long gone. And
beautiful buildings need not be old mansions. Simple kampong houses too have
their own elegance and loveliness.
The trouble with kampong houses is that they are made of
wood and it is virtually impossible to find truly antique houses which are in a
state where they can be restored. And this raises another point. Most of our
heritage is not built of stone, they are made of wood.
There is a dearth of architectural history in Malaysia
because of our building culture (wood) and climate (hot and wet and rot
inducing). Therefore, whatever structures we have that can link us to our past
should be protected.
Why should they be protected? A pragmatic answer will be
that such sights helps to improve the tourist trade. People like to look at old
things and learn about history. It is therefore of some amusement to me to see
how tourism is dealt with in Melaka. It appears that it is not enough that the
town is rich with some incredible architectural specimens that reflect various
key stages of our history; there is some sort of pathological drive to make the
place a sort of amusement park and market for cheap tourist cack. This
distracts from the dignity and history of the town, which is a shame.
However, apart from money, it is important that we preserve and conserve these pieces of our past because they are tactile examples of what we were and from that what we have become. In other words they are part of our identity. In this period of time just before Merdeka day and Malaysia Day, surely we should be reflecting on identity and our heritage is most definitely a part of that. I certainly hope the Penang government will think along these lines as well.
If you think Penang's heritage mansions are worth preserving, sign this petition to Save Soonstead!
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