Baitul Rahmah: a Final Evolution of The Malay Classical Style Amidst Change

Noorhanita Abdul Majid (Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, International Islamic University Malaysia ( IIUM))
Puteri Shireen Jahn Kassim (Department of Applied Arts and Design, Faculty of Architecture, IIUM)
Tengku Anis Qarihah Binti Raja Abdul Kadir (Centre of Studies Architecture Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying (FSPU), Universiti Teknologi MARA)
Abdul Razak Bin Sapian (Professor, Kuliyyah of Architecture and Environmental Design)
Abu Dzar Bin Samsudin (Phd Student, Department of Applied Arts and Design, Faculty of Architecture, IIUM)

Cultural Syndrome
Vol 2, No 1 (2020): Cultural Syndrome

The paper highlights the significance and position of the Baitul Rahmah, an early 20th-century mansion in Kuala Kangsar, Perak, Malaysia, as a key milestone of stylistic  evolvement of local vernacular architecture. Its form embodies, a typological variation  at a time of growing Colonial imperialism, while its grammar and language refers to early modern  stylistic expression reflecting the fundamental principles of indigenous architecture. The Baitul Rahmah brings to light how a final evolution and epitome of  the vernacular projects an identity as a cosmopolitan manifestation.  Its internal ornamentation recalls the stylized forms of local motifs and reflect a form of control and minimalism; i.e. an ‘ornamental decorum’. Its wood-carved expressions seem stylised into increasing ‘modernised’ simplication and  modularity, while  its masonry- timber structure reflect the identity of hybridity  in architecture which symbolise the tensions of local communities as they step into the 1900s into a global context.