Muzium Seni Bina Malaysia

Malacca town in general

Malacca is the 3^rd smallest state in Malaysia. It has a population of about 800 000 people. Out of this, 10% are Indians,  30% are Chinese, 50% are Malay and the rest are Eurasians. ‘Eurasians’ started from 1511-1641 when the Portuguese came. The Dutch then took over until 1775 when the British came. The Japanese came and took over in 1941, and later though, in 1947, the British took over for good.

Names like ‘Ferrera’, ‘Gomez’etc., are for people of Portuguese descendants who are, by default, Catholics. On the other hand, those with surnames unpronounceable, are usually of Dutch descendant. They are, by default, born Protestants. All these people of Portuguese and Dutch descendant tend to look dark and a lot like Malays.

Malacca town also has a rather rural environment. The roads are wide and the buildings of the places we visited were more or less grimy and dilapidated.  There was a lot of spacious ground though, and most of the buildings we saw, if not all, were low in height. There was not a single building the height of our Singaporean HDB flats. A reason as to why there were less, if not no high-rise buildings/residential buildings, is probably because Malacca, being big in comparison to Singapore, there is more land for people to own their own property/houses and thus, a lesser/no need for a single building to have to house numerous people, resulting in a lesser need for high-rise buildings. There were also quite a number of roads and alleys with two point perspectives, not just one. There were diversions and such.

The adverts in the town were about food/beverages, road/street directories and shops names. In parts of the town where we visited, there were trishaws as a form of transport for mostly tourists. There were also a lot of motorcyclists and cars along the roads in Malacca. This is probably because Malacca is quite huge and it is hard to get to places fast on foot, therefore, explaining the sometimes, regular flowing, heaps of traffic.

St John’s Fort

This Fort was constructed by the Dutch in the third quarter of the 18^th century to guard against attack from the landward side. The fort rests on St. John’s hill, the site of an earlier chapel dedicated to John the Baptist.

St Francis Xavier Church

This Gothic church was built by the French priest Father P. Fabre in 1849. It was dedicated to St. Francis Xavier who was one of the earliest Catholic missionaries active in Southeast Asia. At this site originally stood an old Portuguese mission. The church is essentially identical to its original construction, except for the portico which was added in 1963. The interior though, is little changed except for the floor which was cemented in 1920.

A Formosa Fortress

A Formosa is one of the oldest surviving remnants of European architecture in Asia. It was once part of a mighty fortress but the tiny gate called the Porta de Santiago, is all that history has spared. The fortress once consisted of long ramparts and four major towers. Once was a four-story keep, whilst the others held an ammunition’s storage room, the residence of the captain, and an officers’ quarters.

This particular area was full of sporadic tourists and is right next to the Malacca Sultanate Palace.

St. Paul’s Church

The ruins of St. Paul’s church stand at the summit of St. Paul’s hill near the remains of A Famosa fortress. This site was originally occupied by the ‘Chapel of the Annunciation’ which was built in 1521 by Duarte Coelho in gratitude to the Virgin Mary for saving his life in the China sea. However, in 1548, the Archbishop of Goa in India handed over the church to the Jesuits who began renovating it in 1566. The present building was completed in 1590, with the tower on the right side of the sacristy added in 1593.

Malacca Sultanate Palace

This building was all brown and huge. The roof design was slightly like the design of a witch’s hat and that makes it very unique. The three-storey building is divided into eight chambers and three galleries including chambers of the Royal band, weaponry, decorative arts, emissaries and gifts, a recreation hall, an audience hall and an Islamic hall.

 The people in charge of the area allow you to walk around inside the building and there were quite a number of tourists. The galleries depict the famous clash between the legendary warriors Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat, traditional costumes and the royal bedchamber. Exhibits include prints and photographs of the Melaka Sultanate, a model of the Sultan Mansur Shah Palace, Malay weapons, Malay traditional wedding dress, jewelleries and brassware.