In Malaysia, more than 75% of the population lives in cities. Urbanisation is accelerating at lightning speed, turning the urban fabric of Kuala Lumpur, especially, into a unique site that defines Southeast Asian urbanism, similar to other cities such as Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh. Parallel to the development of towns, globalisation is an external force that shifts how cities are used and experienced. While this phenomenon is sweeping through most cities, reading the city fabric still relies on Western-centric theories such as Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City, where cities are read based on their legibility. Does this offer a way to read about Southeast Asian tropical cities?
In particular, the global-local dichotomy leading to the discourse of the global city ends up in the homogenization of the Southeast Asian cities. The economic prosperity of cities led to the emergence of internationally positioned skyscrapers like the Kuala Lumpur Petronas Twin Tower and, more recently, the Merdeka118 Tower. While global aesthetics are valued, there has been insufficient focus on the understanding of Southeast Asian urban aesthetics founded upon the everyday urban fabric that reflects Southeast Asian urbanism.
The Great Asian Street: Shophouses and the kaki-lima
Let’s get down to the streets. This is where the storytelling of the city begins.
With the recent efforts to regenerate the old Kuala Lumpur as a creative and vibrant city, the ‘third place’ phenomenon is rather unique. Today, they have become a third place in the city for socialising. Third place was coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg (1999), who differentiated them into first place (home) and second place (work). The street offers a setting for third place. In Southeast Asian cities, streets are lined by the vernacular typology of the shophouse. While working on the ground and living on the upper floors have been common, the shophouses today have become urban typologies that bring urban life closer to the street.
Extended towards the street by the five-foot way known as kaki-lima, the typology of such urban arteries is unique to the Southeast Asian tropical city due to the need to protect spaces from heat and rain and act as an extended commercial space. It is a continuously roofed walkway, typically five in width, fronting the shophouses, offering a space to pause and to interact; at times, it is a place for selling and buying, a space for eating, a space for chatting and so on.
Discrete Spaces
In recent years, the rejuvenation of the old Kuala Lumpur has seen a return of many cultural influences as a generator of events, be it entertainment, art, tourism or food & beverage. It also created a series of private spatial interventions fueled by culture and creativity that evoke curiosity. A few notable buildings include the Zhongshan building, REXKL and the Godown Arts Centre, and spaces such as quirky café that are almost hidden and popularised by social media and fast becoming urban nodes that activate the city.
Urban Living Room: The Quest for Shade and the Everyday
Shade has been a significant intangible element of tropical urban space, an antithesis to the Western perspective of public space, such as the plaza and the piazzas that celebrate a bath of sunshine. In Southeast Asia, if left unshaded, these public realms are almost deserted, leaving the urban void to be underutilised. Hence, the urban voids that see the gathering of people are those of spaces in between buildings.
While life at the forefront is neat and perhaps at times pretentious, the traces of everyday urban life can be seen through the alleys known as lorong. These inverted micro-spaces are temporal, but they form the everyday community of the urban fabric and appear to be at ease. At the micro-scale, the transformative power of urban acupuncture, a design tactic promoting urban regeneration at a local level, consolidates the social infrastructure of the city that presents the city as an urban living room. The local community hybridised these spaces to form functional everyday spaces like the market. The informalities of such spaces bring surprises and intimacy of space within the Southeast Asian metropolis.
Complexities and Contradictions of Urban Life
The complexities and contradictions of Southeast Asian urbanism offer a fragmented and contested urban setting rather than a unified experience of the city. Unlike the gridiron modern city, the cobbled mediaeval town, or the hyperdense metropolis, urban life in Southeast Asia is unique in its quest for tropicality, intersecting with its diverse culture, politics, and economic standpoints.
Reference list:
Oldenburg, R. (1999). The Great Good Place. 3rd edition. New York: Marlowe & Company Publications.
