Entry 6: Chinese Architecture in Malaysia

Continued from the last post which is about Dutch architecture style, here comes the Chinese architecture that we have in Malaysia.

Chinese is the second ethnic community in Malaysia. The most eye-catching Chinese architecture in Malaysia that we can identified clearly are likely from Buddha temple. For a Buddha temple, overhang eaves which made up of clay roof tiles, ornamented figures by animal, human, flower, etc. located on roof ridges, big entrance door or an arched door in the middle of the temple, windows with different geometric shapes and sizes and colourful mosaics are commonly seen in a Chinese temple in Malaysia.   (Chinese Architecture, n.d.)

Thean Hou Temple @ Kuala Lumpur

Red and yellow are most commonly seen in a temple and this is because Chinese culture who believes that red colour will bring them good fortune and good luck while yellow colour represent royalty and bring them power. Other than these, there are also gold and orange which can also be seen in a Buddhist temple. Gold which represents wealth and orange represents good health.  (Bortoli and Maroto, 2001)

To differentiate the traditional Buddhist temple and modern temple in Malaysia, there are few standing out features which can be seen generally. One of the features which is the design of overhanging eaves. Both of the temples are still having the common of using overhanging eaves but for the design, traditional will have more ornamented figure on the roof ridges whereas the modern temple has lesser ornamented figure and might only have the clay tiles for overhangs eaves.

The example of traditional temple as Chinese architecture in Malaysia:

The example of modern temple as Chinese architecture in Malaysia:

Other than the overhanging eaves, the colour of both temples are also a contrast.

For traditional temple, the colour that they have used are mostly a combination of red, yellow, green, gold and orange for rooftop, walls, ornamented figure, etc. while the temple which follow the changing of modern era, it have been modernised and the colour of the temple are more clean and using only plain colours.

In summary, the most commonly seen Chinese architecture which is the Buddhist temple have their own characteristics and design to show their identity of different significant of the temple.

Stay tuned for the next post!

Reference:
Professor Dr. A. Ghafar Ahmad. (2008) CHINESE ARCHITECTURE (no date) Available at: http://www.hbp.usm.my/conservation/chinese__architecture.htm (Accessed: 10 June 2016).

Bortoli, M.D. and Maroto, J. (2001) Colours Across Cultures: Translating Colours in Interactive Marketing Communications. Available at: http://globalpropaganda.com/articles/TranslatingColours.pdf (Accessed: 10 June 2016).