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Houses and shophouses

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Houses and shophouses

Houses and shophouses constitute the principal built environment of the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, encompassing the traditional Malay house, the colonial official residence, and the urban shophouse that emerged from the tin and rubber booms of the late nineteenth century. Together they form a continuum of domestic and commercial architecture that reflects the region’s ecological conditions, its indigenous building traditions, and the transformative pressures of colonial administration, immigration, and industrialisation. The literature on these structures spans more than a century of scholarship, from early descriptive sketches to sophisticated typological analyses and economic histories of the building industry that produced them.

The Traditional Malay House

The Malay house is a modular, post-and-lintel structure whose fundamental plan is reducible to a minimum of nine, twelve, or sixteen foundation points, with the sixteen-point plan offering the greatest scope for variation while remaining analytically tractable [1, pp. 41–44]. The construction is entirely post-and-lintel: strong corner posts connected by horizontal beams that carry the floors and form lintels, with walls entirely non-load-bearing. The joints are wedged mortises, not nails or lashings, which imposes precise dimensions on every member and permits the entire frame to be dismantled and re-erected elsewhere [1, pp. 45–47]. A critical distinction insisted upon by Roger N. Hilton is that the posts rest on masonry foundation stones — making them stilts, not piles — a feature he argues has been systematically ignored in the literature, including by Nguyen Van Huyen’s influential 1934 monograph [1, p. 46].

Standard post size is 5 inches dressed all round (125 mm), with a standard span of 9 feet (2.70 m) between post centres, dimensions established by trial and error over centuries; deviation produces structural failure, as Hilton witnessed in a 4-inch Negeri Sembilan house that “shook frighteningly” [1, p. 45]. The uniform interval between posts was traditionally calculated by measuring from fingertip to fingertip across the outstretched arms of the mistress of the house and adding one half, i.e. 1½ depa [2, p. 80]. The non-load-bearing walls and floors were of different kinds of local materials, and the house could be enlarged by increasing the number of posts [2, p. 81].

The building process was a communal affair. The first step was the selection of an auspicious site; a soil which was “a greenish yellow, fragrant scented, tart-tasting loam” would bring prosperity to the occupiers, and the house should be on ground sloping from south to north to “bring absolute peacefulness” [2, p. 79]. It was general practice to orientate the house east–west to minimise the heat of the sun, though principles of geomancy might produce a different result [2, p. 79]. For guidance in both supernatural and technical aspects the villager might need the services of a bomoh or pawang, or employ a Malay carpenter. For labour he would call on “his sons and neighbours” as part of the traditional reciprocity of village life [2, p. 79]. After clearing and levelling the site, a party set off into the forest to select, fell and extract the timber required for the main frame, timing their departure for the end of the dry season so that the impending rains would raise the river level sufficiently to float the logs [2, p. 79]. The trees selected were often cengal (Balanocarpus heimii), a hard dense wood whose aesthetics of appearance were a factor as much as its strength [2, p. 79].

The erection of the central post (tiang seri) came first and was attended by special ceremony, including tying round it pieces of cloth. The outer posts were assembled as frames with horizontal beams attached and placed on their pillars, without any attachment, the weight of the structure holding them in place [2, p. 80]. Much of the literature describes the differences of size, structure and style of Malay houses, but there was a basic technique which determined their essential characteristics: housebuilding in a Malay village was a craft but not a profession, and there were no builders as such [2, p. 81].

Regional variation exists across four Peninsula zones — North West, Central West, East Coast, and Southern — but despite the region’s extraordinary immigrant diversity, including Minangkabau, Javanese, Bugis, and Banjarese settlers, the house type remains remarkably unified; migrants adopt the local Malay form rather than importing their homeland styles [1, pp. 52–57]. Hilton extends the analysis beyond the Peninsula to the Acehnese, Gayo, Batak, Minangkabau, Javanese, Iban, Bugis, Toraja, Cambodian, Thai, Burmese, and Japanese houses, applying his definition as a diagnostic test [1, pp. 58–65]. The evolutionary argument culminates in a proposal that the Malay house derives from heavily built “megalithic” ancestors — specifically the Batak and Minangkabau houses of Sumatra — which in turn trace to the Dong Son piled dwelling of North Vietnam. The sway-backed roof, found in Toba Batak, Toraja, and certain Negeri Sembilan houses, is identified as the key linking feature, carrying a shared folklore of ancestral arrival by boat [1, pp. 47–48].

A Burmese Buddhist house at Nyaung U near Pagan, encountered by Hilton in 1963, conformed in every respect to the Malay definition, including posts on stones, demonstrating that the architectural type can exist independently of Malay language or Islamic religion [1, p. 64]. The Javanese house, despite sharing a basic 16-point plan and mortised construction, is classified as non-Malay because its short piles deny the utilisable under-floor space that is essential to the Malay type [1, p. 60].

The Shophouse and the Colonial Building Industry

Until 1875 there was no building industry in the western Malay states; in the villages cooperative effort produced the houses and other structures that were required, and the larger residences of the ruling class were built by mobilising villagers in the same fashion but on a larger scale [2, p. 79]. The colonial administrators had at first to use the same resources and techniques to get what they required. In 1879 Isabella Bird found the district officer at Kuala Selangor still living in “a wretched habitation” within the ruins of the fort “with a wall of stones and earth round it” [2, p. 80]. Frank Swettenham, sent to Bandar Langat in August 1874, and his disconsolate police escort at first occupied “a very unattractive residence … an old stockade with walls made of logs of wood … a high-pitched roof of palm leaves, very far from watertight” [2, p. 80].

The transition to a new building industry was driven by the tin boom. The sharp rise in the price of tin late in 1879 led to a population increase at Kuala Lumpur of one-third in a single year and contributed to the decision to move the state capital upriver from Klang in mid-1880 [2, p. 86]. Overcrowding and inadequate hygiene made the rubbish-strewn streets “pestilential,” and a fire, once started, spread rapidly across the narrow lanes; one of the worst occurred on 4 January 1881, making 500 people homeless and causing damage estimated at $100,000 [2, p. 86]. In 1884 the complete rebuilding of central Kuala Lumpur began, leading to “the substitution in all the principal streets of brick houses with tiled roofs for the adobe, or wooden huts, thatched with palm leaves” [2, p. 86].

In rebuilding their business premises in more robust materials the towkays made better use of the site by adopting the model of a two-storey shophouse already common in the Straits Settlements in place of the previous single-storey shacks [2, p. 87]. At first they did not decorate the upper storey frontages in “Chinese baroque” style, but embellishment soon came [2, p. 87]. The government’s substantial public works programme included rebuilding its main offices at a cost of $30,000, a new market ($43,000), much-needed additions to its hospitals and a new Residency [2, p. 86]. A new Chinese theatre “of permanent materials” was built with a capacity of 3,000, and the three largest Chinese groups — Hakka, Cantonese and Hokkien — each built “very handsome” kongsi houses [2, p. 86].

The expansion in building materials was substantial. Between 1886 and 1888 the number of brick kilns in Selangor more than doubled — from 15 to 33 — as did the number of lime kilns, from 8 to 16 [2, p. 87]. There were growing signs of pressure on resources: hardwood timber “balks” that had cost $1.90 in 1887 had risen to $4.50 in 1888 despite the opening of a new sawmill [2, p. 87]. Yap Ah Loy had diverted labour from his mines to opening a brickfield in the late 1870s, from which the “Brickfields” area of Kuala Lumpur derives its name; his products were of “excellent” quality, though the hoped-for export trade to Singapore did not materialise [2, p. 85].

The regulatory framework for building development was initially uncoordinated. The title to a town plot might stipulate that a building of specified minimum value should be erected within a short period, and rules for the rebuilding of central Kuala Lumpur in 1884–6 prescribed a minimum street width in the form of a “road reserve” that was not always observed [2, p. 91]. Fire precautions prohibited using inflammable materials such as wood and atap in town buildings. Health and amenity objectives gave rise to a number of building rules — the “five-foot way,” “sanitary lanes” (for nightsoil carts) at the back of shophouses, the concentration of noisy or smelly activities in buildings in particular parts of the town [2, p. 91]. The establishment in 1890 of a “Sanitary Board” in Kuala Lumpur, the first of many in the Malay states, gave the government a mechanism for coordinating town services and policy, including the approval of new buildings enforced by a requirement for the submission of drawings [2, p. 92].

Official Residences and Conservation

The official residences of British governors and high commissioners form a distinct category of house that serves as material evidence for understanding the shifting administrative hierarchies, economic fortunes, and social world of the British colonial professional class in Malaya from the early nineteenth century through the 1930s [3]. J. M. Gullick traces the origins, construction, and subsequent fates of these buildings in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and Kuala Kangsar, arguing that the pattern of construction, contestation, and eventual abandonment of official houses in the states forms a central narrative of colonial administrative culture [3].

Suffolk House in Penang was built c. 1808–1810 by W. E. Phillips on a former Francis Light pepper estate, and its steady decline after Penang lost its capital status to Singapore in 1826 is tracked through progressive stripping of its architectural pretensions and ultimate sale [3, pp. 124–125]. The Penang Residency was completed in 1890 at an actual cost of $50,000 against an approved estimate of $43,000, with a further $1,800 spent on grounds improvement in 1890–92 [3, p. 127]. Carcosa, the grand mansion built for Swettenham as first Resident-General of the FMS (1896–1898), was sited on twenty-four acres excised from the Lake Gardens, with four acres developed as gardens and the remainder as open park land; it was opened in August 1898 with a lavish fancy dress ball [3, pp. 132–133]. King’s House, the High Commissioner’s residence in Kuala Lumpur, took three years to complete (1910–1913) because the original contractors went bankrupt during the rubber price decline [3, p. 135]. The Kuala Kangsar High Commissioner’s residence, erected 1906–1907 on the site of Che Mida’s house, was converted to a residential school by 1930 and subsequently demolished [3, p. 137].

The conservation of traditional and colonial buildings became a significant concern from the 1950s onwards. Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Mubin Sheppard (1905–1994) is identified as the central figure in Malaysia’s architectural conservation movement, with institutional and practical work already underway in the early 1950s, catalysed by his dual roles as British Adviser to Negeri Sembilan and, after independence, as the first Director-General of the National Museum [4]. The Ampang Tinggi Palace, built in 1865 of cengal timber without metal nails, was dismantled in January 1953 and re-erected at Seremban by March 1954; General Templer officially opened it as the Negeri Sembilan State Museum on 20 May 1954 [4, pp. 53–55]. The Kampong Laut Mosque in Kelantan, a timber post-and-beam structure approximately 16 m × 16 m, was dismantled on 3 November 1968 and re-erected at Nilam Puri; only 20 per cent of the original materials could be reused, and the project cost an estimated RM16,500, funded largely by members of the Malayan Historical Society rather than government allocation [4, pp. 58–64]. The restoration of Gedung Raja Abdullah in Klang, built in 1863, was completed on 27 January 1992 under the auspices of Badan Warisan Malaysia, which Sheppard helped found in 1983 [4, pp. 80–82].

Roofing and Decorative Elements

The traditional roof of the Malay house was thatched with atap (palm-leaf thatch), protected at the ridge by a double row of thatch called perabong [5]. Winstedt’s 1929 illustrated note presents a labelled sketch of a traditional Malay house with a glossary of 23 Malay architectural terms, ranging from foundation elements such as tiang (pillars) and susoh (wedges) to roofing components including kasau jantan (main rafters) [5]. The craft of making genting (hand-formed clay roof tiles) in the Trengganu and Kelantan east coast was documented by Rudin Salinger in 1997, drawing on fieldwork in the Besut District and oral histories from four elderly tile makers [6]. The craft is essentially Thai in origin, having been introduced from Singhora (Patani) and subsequently adapted by local and Chinese communities in Kelantan before spreading to Trengganu [6]. A standard genting tile measures approximately 24 cm in length, 14.5 cm in width, and slightly more than 1 cm in thickness; the kayu jerial battens are spaced at roughly 13 cm centre-to-centre [6, p. 107]. A single kiln firing holds ten laksa (100,000) tiles arranged in a herring-bone pattern, requiring two chords of wood (typically rubber wood) and approximately two weeks total for heating and cooling [6, pp. 106–107]. By the time of Salinger’s fieldwork, only a few kilns remained in operation, primarily in the Bachok District of Kelantan, as demand declined with the shift to zinc roofing and modern construction [6, p. 101].

The “house-horns” found on Dusun gable ends in North Borneo — and their counterparts among the Hovas of Madagascar, the Naga peoples, and other Southeast Asian groups — were argued by I. H. N. Evans to have originally served a protective, apotropaic function against evil spirits rather than being merely ornamental [7]. The Dusun term sinasangau likely derives from kinasangau (“there were in past time horns”), implying an earlier use of actual animal horns in the gable position [7, p. 165]. The Hova Malagasy term tandro trano and the Malay tandok rumah are etymologically identical, confirming a shared Malayo-Polynesian lexical root for the feature [7, p. 166]. Evans identifies the Dusun roof-beam (tiningusan) as a recognised spirit-assembly point in religious ceremonies, providing a cultural rationale for placing protective horns at the gable ends [7, p. 167].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on houses and shophouses reveals a clear evolution in scholarly priorities over more than a century. The earliest contributions are descriptive and illustrative: Winstedt’s 1929 note provides a labelled sketch with a glossary of structural terms, and Noone’s 1948 article offers a detailed account of a single village in northern Perak [5], [8]. The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of systematic typological analysis, with Hilton’s 1956 paper “The Basic Malay House” establishing the modular framework that his 1992 synthesis would extend across the Indo-Pacific [9], [1]. Sheppard’s 1969 article on Trengganu and Kelantan house forms represents the regional comparative approach of that period [10].

The 1990s marked a shift towards economic and administrative history. Gullick’s 1998 article on governors’ houses and his 2012 article on the building industry both draw extensively on primary archival sources — governors’ memoirs, Colonial Office papers, Legislative Council records, and annual reports — to reconstruct the material conditions of colonial administration and the emergence of a professional building trade [3], [2]. Salinger’s 1997 ethnography of genting making represents a parallel concern with documenting intangible cultural heritage before its extinction [6]. The 2010 article by Zuraini Md Ali on Mubin Sheppard’s conservation career synthesises the post-war period, pushing the effective starting point of Malaysian conservation back to the early 1950s and centring an individual biography as the organising framework [4].

Key debates in the literature include the question of whether the Malay house constitutes a single architectural type or a family of regional styles (Hilton’s position being that the type is unified and the styles are variable) [1], the distinction between stilts and piles as a diagnostic criterion for “Malayness” [1, p. 46], and the extent to which the building industry of the late nineteenth century represented a genuine break from traditional practice or a gradual adaptation of existing skills to new materials and demands [2]. The historiographical record also shows a growing recognition that the shophouse, the official residence, and the traditional village house are not separate subjects but interconnected facets of a single built environment shaped by the same economic forces and administrative decisions.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. R.N. Hilton (1992). Defining the Malay house JMBRAS 65(1): 39–70.
  2. J.M. Gullick (2012). The builders JMBRAS 85(2): 79–98. Read on JSTOR
  3. J.M. Gullick (1998). Governors’ houses JMBRAS 71(1): 123–137.
  4. Zuraini Md Ali (2010). Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Mubin Sheppard: pioneer in the conservation of historical buildings in Malaysia, 1959-1994 JMBRAS 83(2): 47–91. Read on JSTOR
  5. R.O. Winstedt (1929). The Malay house JMBRAS 7(3): 459. Read on JSTOR
  6. Rudin Salinger (1997). The making of traditional clay roof tiles or genting JMBRAS 70(1): 101–110.
  7. I.H.N. Evans and G.E. Marrison (1951). Dusun and other “house horns” JMBRAS 24(1): 162–168. Read on JSTOR
  8. R.O. Noone (1948). Notes on the kampong, compounds, and houses of the Patani Malay village of Banggul Ara, in the Mukim of Batu Kurau, Northern Perak JMBRAS 21(1): 124–147.
  9. R.N. Hilton (1956). The basic Malay house JMBRAS 29(3): 134–155.
  10. Mubin Sheppard (1969). Traditional Malay house forms in Trengganu and Kelantan JMBRAS 42(2): 1–9. Read on JSTOR