Project 1 : Theorizing Architecture ( Part 1)

Name : Tan Heng Yee (0314941)

Tutor : Mr Shen Fei

Site : Sentul

Architect : Robert Venturi

Sentul lies just 3km north of the heart of Kuala Lumpur, is fast becoming a city of contrasts, with some of the nation’s poorest citizens living side by side with the very rich. During colonial times ,it earned the nickname Railway Town because most of the residents were employed by Malayan Railway with had a biggest and finest integrated engineering workshop in the world ,Sentul Works. Once upon a time, Sentul was the home and workplace of thousands of railway workers, a majority of whom were Indians. Now , the new YTL development in Sentul bring in many new high-income family to move in, create economy gap within the residents.

In the book of Complexity and Contradiction by Robert Venturi, he emphasize on embracing the contradiction and complexity by recognizing the various paradoxes present in architecture and the society that architecture accommodates.. Venturi criticize modernism for rejecting the complexities and being exclusive as oppose to accommodating. The problems should welcome and the uncertainties should be exploited.

In Sentul , the restoration and conservation of KLpac in its original physical appearance (western-most brick train sheds) show that the willingness of YTL developer in adapting old building with new modern building(eg: Fennel). However , the contradiction are only adapted in term of physical appearance. When we look deeper , the site of KLpac which sprawled over 5.2ha ,used to be the largest train depot ,Sentul Works where the local residents works and seek for their income ,here is where they share their common memory. Now ,Klpac is privatise and do not involve much the local residents into using the space.Instead of embracing the paradoxes of society,local people from certain society level are being marginalised.

Not only klpac ,the high and medium prices houses in Sentul ,for example The Maples ,The Saffron ,The Tamarind and etc are gated and guarded ,tucked away in a lush green environment while the urban poor are given houses located in former mining land ,near landfilles ,adjacent to sewage treatment plant for example Bandar Baru Sentul Flat .

The idea of Contradiction juxtaposed by Robert Venturi can be seen as mixture of different architectural style of architecture coexist in parallel .From the elevation , the juxtaposition of curved (Sentul KTM) ,symmetry(modernism shophouses ) and zigzag form of buildings (The Fennel) create contradictory direction. These contradiction in the visual experience are even richer when walking along the road.Not only the architecture , the two different social life of people interact and interwoven ,it create an interesting social scene.

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