Entry 8: Late-Modern Architecture in Malaysia

After all about traditional or leftover architectural styles in Malaysia, here comes the late-modern architectural buildings. Even though Malaysia is not futuristic as countries like Japan, American, United Kingdom, but yeap, we can see our country is growing with great modernise architecture too.

The changing and transformation in architecture field from historical buildings to modernised high rise buildings that we have in our township is an achievement that we need to be glad and proud of as Malaysian.

Here are the some fascinating examples of Malaysia architecture buildings:

PJCC – The POD Pavilion, Petaling Jaya – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

As a new urban centre and a landmark for the area, “the developer of ‘The Pod’ wanted to host his on-site offices and sale’s showroom in an iconic pavilion that would reflect the spirit and the architectural style of the whole development.” (Lomholt and admin, 2011)

The inspiration from this architecture pavilion is from a water droplets in nature, the structure of ‘The Pod’ is creating a dynamic spherical form which shows a modern twist. The form of shapes in this pavilion are creating a series of elliptical sections of variable widths and lengths. (Lomholt and admin, 2011)

The windows which following the spherical structure creates the attractive part where it allows the natural day lighting to show in the office during daytime BUT when it comes to the night time, the design of artificial lighting on the round-layered surface ceiling brings out another mood of the atmosphere.

Starhill Gallery - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The geometric surface which started from the facade towards the whole entire building which creates and reflective effects. This shopping gallery which designed by Sparks Architects becomes one of the most iconic shopping gallery in Kuala Lumpur.

Starhill Gallery Facade

Stephen says, “Unlike many street-facing malls in Kuala Lumpur, our new façade for Starhill Gallery is firmly engaged with the public realm and generates valuable visual connections along this section of Bukit Bintang via the heavy footfall. We have designed a beacon for Starhill Gallery that celebrates its relationship with the city.” (Ho, 2013)

Street Facing Facade

As we may see, the façade design is a wrap out of the existing building with a crystalline glass and stone panels. ‘The new façade resembles the "wet drapery" of the ancient statues of Greece and Rome, and the beautifully crafted gowns on sale inside Starhill Gallery.’ (Ho, 2013)

From my point of view, the design of Starhill gallery stands as a trademark of the Bukit Bintang area is definitely because of the architecture design of the building. The strange and unique exterior catches every people’s attention who walks by the area.

This is never only the architects’ achievements, yet it is a big step of growth for our country in the architecture field. These barely seen architecture buildings in Malaysia are truly leading us to become a better country with all these futuristic and modernise architecture buildings.

Stay tuned for the next post! 

Reference:

Ho, L. (2013) Starhill gallery / spark architects. Available at: http://www.archdaily.com/341299/starhill-gallery-spark-architects (Accessed: 20 June 2016).

Lomholt, I. and admin (2011) POD pavilion, Kuala Lumpur building, Malaysia. Available at: http://www.e-architect.co.uk/malaysia/pod-pavilion-kuala-lumpur (Accessed: 20 June 2016).