Methodology of Classifying and Characterising Architectural Styles of Malay Classical Buildings

• Published in: IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science
• Main Author: Ab Kadir T.A.Q.R.; Kassim P.S.J.; Salleh E.; Abdullah A.
• Format: Conference paper
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Physics 2022
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85142231193&doi=10.1088%2f1755-1315%2f1067%2f1%2f012033&partnerID=40&md5=5418f698d5d86e23b0615ea47680d8cc

This study attempts to classify and characterise Malay aristocratic architectural styles through the elements and language of its frontages as the guidance of designing, conserving, and identifying Malay rules and languages. It is vital to recognise, bridge and restructure the Malay architectural language, which ruptured historically because of the impact of colonialism. The focus is to find visual and formal similarities distributed within a specific common region of the Malay world which span the years of colonisation between the 1700s to 1930, and overcome the enormous diversity of this typology and phenomena across the region and eras. The historical and cultural mapping of 60 palaces and aristocratic buildings were conducted to classifies the architectural styles based on the visual, language and typological similarities. The studies then argue that the hybrid forms found in the later eras of colonisation represent the Malay stylistic categories. This study aims to identify a standard set of rules or vocabulary that can aid regionally appropriate design and appreciation of the palaces studied through field observations, measured drawings, and surveys of regional palatial and mansion types. This vocabulary will prove helpful to designers, preservationists, conservationists, heritage agencies, historians, academics, and architects. The findings will contribute to developing a formal taxonomy of style that spans traditional to modern and contributes to defining the 'generic' and the 'variant' in a classification based on archetypes. This can be the initial reference for developing the identity-making of future urbanscape with the essences of the traditional Malay world. © 2022 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.