SULTAN ABDUL SAMAD BUILDING
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JALAN RAJA,
KUALA LUMPUR
AN INTRODUCTION
The Sultan Abdul Samad Building is the icon of Cosmopolitan Kuala Lumpur’s Growth and Resilience. The Sultan Abdul Samad Building has been a major landmark in Kuala Lumpur for several decades and is synonymous with the capital city of Malaysia. It has been listed as National Heritage since 2007 by the National Heritage Department. This heritage building is located at 325 Jalan Raja, across the road from Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) and the Royal Selangor Club, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This building currently houses the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture, Malaysia. The prominent architectural appearance, culture and history of this building have attracted a lot of foreign and even local tourists. The tourism sector has been a major industry that contributes to Malaysia’s economy as foreign exchange revenue. From the fact that Malaysia expects RM100 billion in tourism revenue in 2020, it shows that the Government emphasizes the tourism industry as a major contributor to the economy, and the Sultan Abdul Samad Building has played an essential role in developing the tourism industry and Malaysia’s economy.
HISTORY OF SULTAN ABDUL SAMAD BUILDING
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The Sultan Abdul Samad Building is named after the reigning sultan of Selangor at the time it was constructed - Sultan Abdul Samad (1804-1898). The land on which this building was built was once a vegetable garden belonging to the early Chinese settlers in the city under the third Kapitan Cina (Captain of the Chinese Community) Yap Ah Loy.
After replacing Klang as the state capital of Selangor in 1880, and subsequently as the capital of the Federated Malay States (FMS) in 1896, Yap approved $50 a hectare of land bought by the British for the development of Kuala Lumpur.Sir Frank Swettenham who was appointed as Resident in the state of Selangor in 1882 mooted the development plan to shape Kuala Lumpur during this era.
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The Sultan Abdul Samad Building was initially designed to house the colonial state government of Selangor but upon completion it housed the entire FMS administration. It was named as the “Sultan Abdul Samad Building” in 1974.Initially the Selangor State Secretariat, this building houses the Selangor State Government Treasury, the Federal Treasury, the Office of the Attorney General, the Office of the Accountant General and the Marriage Registry.
During that time, the Post Office and the Sanitary Board were also located in the same building. When Selangor moved its administrative offices to Shah Alam in 1974, the Sultan Abdul Samad building was extensively renovated to house the nation's judiciary. Between 1978 and March 2007, the building housed the country's superior courts: the Federal Court of Malaysia, the Court of Appeals and High Court of Malaya. This building is an icon of the capital city, which has been the centerpiece of many historic events.
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It is witness to the declaration of independence, and it was in front of this building that the Union Jack was lowered and replaced with the national flag of Malaysia (now known as Jalur Gemilang) on August 31, 1957. On Jan 1, 1982, the clock tower became the venue for another historic event when the time between West Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore were standardized. National day parades have been held in front of this building for decades as have many other significant national events.
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Before this building became the administrative centre, the British colonial administration was located atop a hill on Bluff Road (now Bukit Aman). To accommodate the need for more office space and to make it more accessible to the public, then state engineer of the Selangor Public Works Department (PWD) Charles Edwin Spooner suggested a new building lower down the plain.
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Spooner was transferred from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1892 and his idea was to prepare plans for a general office building with fire-proof document storage rooms and a post office. His idea of building a central quadrangle, similar to colonial buildings, was turned down because it was too expensive. After that, A.C. Norman, the Selangor government architect who was involved in the restoration of town buildings and country houses in the west of England, was assigned to design the building. Norman's idea was to present a "Classic Renaissance" style with a pillared front.
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However, Spooner did not like the design, as he felt that the adaptation of the Arabic-North Indian architectural style was more suited to Malaya, which had a predominantly Muslim population. Spooner thus instructed Arthur Hubback, who worked under him and assistant architect R.A.J. Bidwell, to design a building in the Mahometan or Neo-Saracenic style – an eclectic mixture of Gothic and Italian as well as Islamic elements. The construction of this design was more expensive at an average expense of $152,000.00 Straits Dollar. Spooner submitted Bidwell's plan to William Maxwell, a resident of Selangor (1889-1892), and it was approved.
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
The building was initially designed by A.C. Norman and his assistant R. A. J. Bidwell in the Classical Renaissance style, but Spooner prefers a different design called the Mahometan style.It was then reworked by Bidwell under Spooner's guidance in a style variously described as Indo-Saracenic, Neo-Mughal, or Moorish. Later A. B. Hubback who had just start working for the colonial government in Malaya as a senior draughtsman also worked on it. Although the building has been formally credited to A.C. Norman, since only his name appears on the architect's foundation stone and his ground plan has been maintained, the actual design is largely the work of R. A. J. Bidwell, with contributions from A. B. Hubback, who also designed the fixtures for the building. It took 3 years to complete the building thoroughly.
Construction began on September 3, 1894. The foundation stone has been laid by H.E. Sir Charles B.H. Mitchell, the Governor of the FMS on October 6, 1894. The building had been completed within 3 years and had been officiated by Swettenham, who had been promoted to Resident-General of the FMS by then.
The construction of Sultan Abdul Samad Building began in September 1894 and was completed in 1897. The foundation stone was laid on 6 October 1894 by Sir Charles Mitchell, governor of the Straits Settlements. Sir Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell GCMG was a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Marines and a colonial administrator.
The building sits on an area of 1.034 hectares, with the floor of the building occupying an area of 4,208.5 square metres. It stretches some 400 feet along the east of Jalan Raja and has in many ways, come to symbolise the City of Kuala Lumpur. The Sultan Abdul Samad building had to fit into a triangular site with the Gombak River running along the diagonal border. At one end, the building has a deep plan with open balconies breaking up the mass and at the other end the linear plan has been opened up to form a courtyard.
Column
A column is a vertical structural member intended to transfer a compressive load. For example, a column might transfer loads from a ceiling, floor or roof slab or from a beam, to a floor or foundations. Design of Sultan Abdul Samad Building was influenced by architecture style of Indo-Saracenic. We could notice there are various pointed arches, columns, pinnacles and onion-shaped domes are designed as the exterior of the building. These features were mixed with the European forms and building function.
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There are many columns at ground and suspended floor of the front facade of the buildings. The space in between the columns consists of various style of arches. At first, the space between the columns with arches were left empty. After several years later, grilled screens were fixed in between the spaces at lower level for security purposes.
The columns of Sultan Abdul Samad Building look very similar with the columns designed with classical order of architecture. These columns consist of some characteristics of Gothic Architecture. The columns are generally constructed with stone. To form these stone column, granular aggregate is inserted into column shaped and then compacted to enhance the load bearing capacity of soil and fill mate.
Internal & External Wall
Wall is a vertical structural element of a building that used to enclosed or divide into rooms. Wall can be built in a variety of ways and materials such as bricks. The technique of wall construction varies from one material to another. The function of wall is mostly to supports top floor and roof including overload, provides sufficient heat resistance, satisfactory sound resistance and adequate of fire resistance.
The Sultan Abdul Samad building is constructed by 4 million bricks where the brick is arranged in strongest bond which is English bond and it is suitable for thick walls 1 brick and above. The arrangement alternates between the brick head and the brick sides. Brick overlays are used while the half-bricks are stacked and fastened after the first bricks on the sides of the bricks to get the right overlays. It has no continuous vertical connection and is very good for wall construction.
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During colonial times, most of the buildings are made up from red clay bricks with one thick brick size. Sultan Abdul Samad Building is one of the buildings that use red clay bricks with English bond for brick laying. English bond is made up of alternating courses of stretchers and headers. This produces a solid wall that is a full brick in depth, is easy to lay and is the strongest bond for a one-brick-thick wall.
Staircase
Stairs are used to create a pedestrian route between different vertical levels by dividing the height between the levels into manageable steps. Sultan Abdul Samad Building consists of two stories, with 3.5metres wide verandas on both floors. The front facade of the building faces the Merdeka Square and stretches over 137.2metres along Jalan Raja. It seems to be symmetrical in elevation view, where a 41metres high clock tower acts as the central to separate two circular towers that have the same height of 17metres stand on each side of the porch. All three towers are topped by a copper-clad onion dome; however, only the two lower circular towers in which each contains an external staircase for access to the upper storey.
Dome
Onion dome is believed to symbolize burning candle and manifesting aesthetic and religious attitude. The curved shape of the dome is appealing to look at and experience, both inside and out of the building. Dome also look spectacular when made from copper, which discolors to green with age. Other metals can be used, however these are expensive options for roofing. The reason Sultan Abdul Samad Building construct copper dome because it is high on visual impact, strong and durable.
Floor
Roof
Sultan Abdul Samad Building has a very special floor plan, which is roughly in F-shaped pattern with an extended top bar of the letter F to represent the frontage. From the top view, we could notice that the roof of Sultan Abdul Samad Building is sloping downloads from a central ridge in two opposite directions, in which the central ridge is the highest point among the roof components. This type of roof is known as multi-pitched roof.
As climate of Malaysia is categorized as equatorial, rainfall is typically heavy throughout the year. To prevent waterlogging, the roof is designed as pitched roof to direct the rainwater away. Pitched roof also has better thermal insulation than flat roof to promote efficient insulation within the internal accommodation. These features of pitched roof ensure that the roof of the building to have longer life span and more susceptible to hot and humid weather condition in Malaysia.
There are three different shapes of the multi-pitched roof of Sultan Abdul Samad Building, which are cross gable roof, cross hipped roof and domed roof. This is because this building comprises of F-shaped floor plan, which is more complicated than other buildings.
FEATURES OF ATTRACTIONS
The Old Day Origin Design
The modern architectural form of the pre-Industrial Revolution era represented the ideas of ‘the machine age’ with minimal exterior expressions and open floor plans. During the nineteenth century, Malaysia was colonized by the British Empire and therefore the architectural form was defined by the colonial era, which mixed modern architecture with the traditional form. Such example can be seen in the iconic of Sultan Abdul Samad Building.
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Built entirely of red bricks, it has a 2-meter wide verandah around both floors that allows light and air to flow in. The red bricks are exposed and are lined with white plaster arches and stripes that have become known as the blood and bandages style. Indian patent stone with Islamic geometric design was used for flooring.
The Clock Tower
This building has three towers topped by onion-shaped domes with cooper coverings. The highest is the Central Clock Tower, and the two shorter towers to the left and right of the main tower serve as circulation towers with stairways leading to the upper floors. It features an immense 41.20 meters (135 feet) clock tower that was erected for the first-time during Queen Victoria's 1897 birthday parade, a central porch, three cooper domes topped with cooper chatris and various shape arches (key hole, ogee, pointed and horseshoe).
In view of its immense architectural, historical and cultural significance, this structure has been listed as a National Heritage building in 2007 by the National Heritage Department under the National Heritage Act 2005. The Federal Government in 2009, allocated RM2.37 million (USD 764,516) through the Department of National Heritage for restoration of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building façade.
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Today, the red bricks are modernized with LED lighting, and the building remains magnificent after many rounds of restoration and renovation. During nights of important days, such as Independence Day, the tower will glow and twinkle with its beautifully colored lights.
