This is a recording of Eclecticism and Ornament in Malaya’s Vernacular Classicism, recorded on 28 February 2024.
This talk is part of the Online Winter Talk Series 2024 called Victorian and Edwardian Architecture in the Wider British World. Follow this link to book all of the talks.
Although the sun has long-since set on the British Empire, its architecture still casts a long shadow. For the 2024 Spring Lecture series the Victorian Society will be visiting Australia, Canada, India, South Africa, Malaysia and New Zealand, with a number of the lectures coming from those countries themselves. A range of themes or positions will be discussed, for the architecture of the colonisers to the legacy they left behind to the manner in which the foreign architecture was adapted and adopted by the indigenous peoples who understood the nature of the climate and materials of their own countries. The lecture series ends with an overview and analysis of Edwardian Baroque architecture in ‘Greater Britain’.
Eclecticism and Ornament in Malaya’s Vernacular Classicism by Dr Soon-Tzu Speechley
Between 1786 and 1957, Britain exerted colonial influence over the Malay Peninsula and its neighbouring islands. For most of this time, classicism served as the language of imperial rule, synonymous with British power. Yet elements of the style were quickly adopted, appropriated, and adapted – first by local elites and subsequently by the masses. Classicism came to be the language of mosques and market places, Quranic schools and Chinese clan houses. The Victorian penchant for ornament and eclecticism and the bombast of the Edwardian baroque would influence the development of a lively, and distinctly Malayan, vernacular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Malaya, British historicist styles were blended with influences from other cultures – from China to India, and the Malay archipelago. Malayan classicism was therefore a complex and contradictory style, rooted in the colonial encounter but also a language of cosmopolitan adaptation, resilience, and at times defiance. This lecture explores how the eclectic ornamental classicism of Victorian and Edwardian Britain came to influence Malaya’s own syncretic brand of classical architecture, resulting in a unique regional style.
Dr Soon-Tzu Speechley is Lecturer in Urban and Cultural Heritage at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include classical architecture and its reception in colonial Malaya, architectural networks in the British Empire, and Southeast Asian heritage. His first book, Malayan Classicism: From the Architecture of Empire to Asian Vernacular, will be published by Bloomsbury in December 2023. Born in Kuala Lumpur and based in Melbourne, Soon-Tzu is actively involved in the promotion of architectural history and heritage in Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia. He serves as Secretary to the Society of Architectural Historians Australia & New Zealand (SAHANZ) and Vice-Chair of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria)’s Built Environment Committee. He previously worked in Singapore and Penang.
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Image: 'Malay Mosque, Johor' [photograph of the Sultan Abu Bakar Mosque', circa 1930 (CC-BY licenses from KITLV )
