Ecology, Structure and the Regalia: Framing the Evolving Language of Malay Architecture

Abstract

Discourse on Malay Nusantara architectural language generally focuses on its evolving timber elements, construction and expressions. Its abstractions into the modern context must be discussed, yet questions always remain on the method in separating structure, non-structural elements, and ornamentation within a theoretical framework based on the history of South East Asia. Though Sabriza (2008) usefully categorises such language and its elements into three groups, structural, non-structural, and ornamental, a more fundamental and universal framework is needed. Based on the use of Gottfried Semper’s four elements of architecture as an armature, this chapter uses such fundamental frameworks to develop a classification of architectural language based on the vernacular into essentially four elemental groups. Semper’s four elements are seen as parts of a fundamental style, universally linked to the vernacular, in which formal elements of architectural expression arise from vernacular elements of language, although material and technology may have evolved. These resolve a gap and polar binary between the language of the ‘modern’ and the traditional timber-based architectonics of the region.

Endnotes

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