Penang Story Lectures: 5 Architects, 5 Houses by Dr Jon Lim

5 Architects, 5 Houses
Penang Story Lecture by Dr Jon Lim

Venue: MBPP Town Hall
Date: Saturday, 1st August 2015
Time: 9.30am – 12.30pm

For tickets please go here.

Abstract: The development of Straits architecture is succinctly expressed in the evolution of the Penang house. More than just a home, the house in this mercantile community was a statement of wealth, influence and cultural affiliations. Western advances in technology combined with Eastern tastes, craftsmanship and local ways of building to create distinctive habitats appropriate to the tropical climate. European architects such as Henry Alfred Neubronner, James Stark, John McNeill, Charles Geoffrey Boutcher, David McLeod Craik and Joseph Charles Miller designed the grand homes of the colonial and local elite. They were pioneers in the practice of modern architecture in early twentieth-century Penang, laying the foundations for future generations of local architects. With the inscription of George Town to the UNESCO World Heritage List, the heritage of the Penang house – noted for its architectural flair, inventiveness and stylistic diversity – is now world-renowned.

The Speaker: Jon Sun Hock Lim BArch, MArch (Melb), PhD (NUS) was born in Malaya in 1942. He lectured in the National University of Singapore’s School of Architecture between 1972 and 2002. His primary research interest is the architects of Singapore and Penang (1786-1942). Lim has actively collected oral history relating to the architects of Penang, and has researched the origins of the island’s architectural practice. His previous publications include a monograph entitled The Shophouse Rafflesia: A diffusion of a Malayan prototype in Southeast Asia (1992), and ‘Architecture of Southeast Asia’, published in the centennial edition of Sir Banister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture (1996). He also served as editor of Transforming Traditions, produced by the ASEAN Studies publication series (2001).

RSVP before Friday, 31 July 2015, 12 pm, contact info@pht.org.my / 04-2642631

 

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