Jiat-Hwee Chang “Natural” Traditions: Constructing Tropical Architecture in Transnational Malaysia and Singapore JIAT-HWEE CHANG University of California at Berkeley SYNOPSIS This paper seeks to understand the resurgence of tropical architecture in Malaysia and Singa- pore by examining the discursive constructions and practices of tropical architecture in Malay- sia and Singapore during the 1980s-1990s. Although tropical architecture is often hailed as “natural,” I argue in this paper that “nature” is inextricably also “political” in its entanglement with the larger politics of globalization, postcolonial development and cultural identity. The arguments in this paper are made through a close study of three built exemplars of tropical architecture in Malaysia– The Datai Resort, The Tanjong Jara Hotel, and The Salinger House. The Resurgence of Tropical architecture was preceded by Colonial tropical archi- Architecture tecture, as exemplified by the British Colonial Bunga- low in India. There exists the notion that “tropical The 1980s saw a resurgence of tropical architecture architecture” was a colonial invention1 and one may in Malaysia and Singapore’s architectural discourses. argue that the resurgence of tropical architecture in From key regional academic publications such as Tay the 1980s would inevitably be entangled with this colo- Kheng Soon’s Megacity in the Tropics (1989) and Ken nial and neo-colonial history of tropical architecture Yeang’s Tropical Urban Regionalism (1987) to popular but that is not within the scope of this paper. 2 The re- picture books such as Robert Powell’s Tropical Asian cent resurgence of tropical architecture brought about House (1996) and Tan Hock Beng’s Tropical Architec- diverging tendencies in architectural designs, from ture and Interiors (1994), numerous publications ecological tropical architecture to neo-traditional propagated tropical architecture and urbanism. This tropical architecture to modern tropical architecture, 3 resurgence of tropical architecture came after decades and became a highly contested domain;4 one of the of invisibility, when it hardly featured in architectural perceptible differences with its modern and colonial discourses. The last time tropical architecture featured predecessors is the emergence of a type of architecture prominently in architectural discourse in Malaysia and that appears traditional. This type of architecture ap- Singapore was in the 1950s and 1960s, during the pe- pears to be traditional because it bears certain formal riod of decolonization and nation-building. Tropical resemblances to traditional vernacular architecture and architecture then referred to the International Style it is often constructed out of similar local construction modern tropical architecture, as popularized in Max- material such as tropical hardwood employing tradi- well Fry’s and Jane Drew’s seminal book Tropical Ar- tional building crafts. However, this type of architec- chitecture in the Humid Zone (1956). Modern tropical ture that resembles traditional architecture needs to be Volume 7, Issue 1, Spring 2007 1 “Natural” Traditions: Constructing Tropical Architecture differentiated from the traditional architecture in that ment. Intrinsic to this enterprise is the quest for they are produced in contemporary conditions under alternatives to International Style modern architec- current social, cultural, political and economic con- ture, which is synonymous with failed development. texts. Moreover, the contemporary architect chooses This AKAA-initiated quest for alternatives reclaimed to produce this type of architecture as a conscious de- “traditional” architecture and reconstituted it as cision, selecting from a wide array of aesthetic choices both “natural” and “sensuous,” contributing to the presented to him. This emergence of an architecture resurgence of tropical architecture that appears tra- that appears traditional is especially apparent if we look ditional in Malaysia and Singapore. Tanjong Jara at the award winners of Aga Khan Award for Architec- Hotel and Datai Resorts will be used as case studies ture (AKAA) in Malaysia. Three of the four AKAA to illustrate the issues raised in this section. winners in Malaysia – Tanjong Jara Hotel and Rantau • Globalization and the politics of architectural Abang Visitors’ Center, Salinger Residence, and Datai identity: Appearing traditional is a way of articulat- Resort – fall under this category of tropical architec- ing architectural identity through the assertion of ture. Interestingly, although these three AKAA win- difference in the purported homogeneity of the ners appear traditional, their referents are not explic- globalized world. It was an outcome of the negotia- itly any type of particular traditional architecture per tions and contestations between Malaysia’s state se, despite apparently bearing certain formal resem- imposition of ethno-religious symbols in architec- blance to particular traditional architecture. Instead, ture as “visible politics,” the local architectural fra- they are considered primarily as tropical architecture, ternity’s assertion of the profession’s creative with the referent being directed towards the primacy of autonomy, and their appropriation of the discourses tropical “nature” with the associated abstract notions of critical regionalism (disseminating from the West such as environment, climate and ecology. and through AKAA) and Austronesian regionalism What led to the resurgence of tropical architecture in (as revealed by linguistic and archaeological research Malaysia and Singapore during the 1980s? Why was into the prehistory of Southeast Asia). The discus- “nature” valorized and reference to specific “tradition” sion in this section will be illuminated by the case suppressed in this recent resurgence of tropical archi- study of Salinger Residence. tecture? What are the larger socio-cultural, political I will argue that both “nature” and “tradition” are and economic contexts underlying the production of valorized in the resurgence of tropical architecture and the type of tropical architecture that appears tradi- deployed for an array of purposes within the above- tional? What are the repercussions of this type of ar- mentioned themes– to validate and revive subjugated chitecture and how could it be understood in relation traditional architecture in the quest for alternative to its predecessor of modern tropical architecture? I paradigms of development; to deflect the questions of attempt to answer the above questions by examining problematic traditions in a multicultural, multiracial the global, regional and national architectural dis- nation; to unify diverse traditions in a vaguely defined courses surrounding the production of tropical archi- region; and to differentiate and thematize places in tecture in the 1980s, focusing specifically on dis- order to encourage new modes of consumption. How- courses produced by institutions such as AKAA, Ma- ever, despite all these different strategies of deploying laysia and Singapore Institutes of Architects. I situate “nature” and “tradition” by different agents, they are, this resurgence of tropical architecture in relation to inevitably, also very much structured by the hegemonic the complex interactions (entailing confluence, confla- logic of capital accumulation. Instead of understanding tion, disjunction and contradiction) within and be- “nature” and “tradition” as timeless and immutable tween the following themes: entities, I argue that “nature” and “tradition” are con- • Architecture and the politics of development: tinuously constructed and re-constructed, valued and AKAA is an enterprise that seeks to promote alter- de-valued according to the various strategies outlined native paradigms of development in response to the above, and complicit with the capitalist modes of pro- perceived failure (by the developing countries in duction and reproduction. general and the Islamic countries in particular) of the hegemonic Eurocentric paradigm of develop- 2 EXPLORATIONS a graduate student journal of southeast asian studies Jiat-Hwee Chang Natural Nature: Tropical Architecture are collapsed in Lim’s statement about tropical archi- and Constructing Nature tecture, justifying the underlying ideology of environ- mental determinism. What is interesting about such an In many discourses, tropical architecture tends to be ideological statement lies as much in what is left un- presented as “natural,” or as self-evident for the “na- spoken as what is said. ture” of the tropics. As Jimmy C. S. Lim, the architect of the Salinger Residence and one of the foremost Interestingly, such a “naturalization” of tropical ar- practitioners of tropical architecture in Malaysia, puts chitecture has a colonial precedent. When the concept it: of tropical architecture was first invented and pre- sented in a paper to the Royal Institute of British Archi- We have plenty of sun, so I keep the sun out. We tects in 1868, the author of the paper T. Roger Smith have a lot of rain, so I attempt to keep the rain out. rationalized the built form of British India Colonial We need a lot of shade, so I provide it by having a lot of trees. With a lot of leaves we should not have bungalow as determined by the responses to the harsh any gutters as blocked gutters are useless. Because Indian climate.9 Under Smith’s environmentally de- we are living in a hot climate, we should have cross terministic formulation, the significance of the domi- 5 ventilation and as much space as we