Penang Watch

Finally there are some push to put the Macalister Rd colonial building to public use! There has been extended `thinking aloud' during the last state govt where  nothing seems to move-thus contributing towards the dilapidation of the strategically located building of heritage vintage! There are questions however if the Museum's new appointees are conservation qualified or politically linked? An MCA member Lee is seen among the new Museum board -is he one of the Opposition appointees accepted into the state government on a `merit' consideration? Are there no other more heritage-qualified personel in Penang other than such appointees?

Thursday June 12, 2008(Star)

NST Online » Local News
2008/05/28
Pre-war heart of Penang is crumbling
By : Phuah Ken Lin

A dilapidated pre-war house in Lorong Aboo Siti. The Penang Island Municipal Council may subsidise repairs.

Cracking crediblity of MPPP to stop conventional piling which is destructive to pre-war houses around?
This is not the first time that cracks occur in pre-war houses around construction site where piling is done-specifically using conventional `hammer piling' method. There has been call to make `micro-piling' mandatory-but it seems that the `leaky' MPPP is still allowing the destructive conventional piling using older equipments. Whose fault is it then when the cracks in the buildings cause collapse in the pre-war houses? The MPPP must stop the piling or take full responsiblity should any mishaps were to occur!

Look like there was scant regards to conserve the core area of Penang's heritage zone!

(From Penangmedia)

Friday November 30, 2007

Money in old shophouses

TAIPING: Owners of pre-war shophouses here are likely to become millionaires if a buy-over proposal made by the Taiping Municipal Council is accepted by the Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry.

“What we fear is that the ministry may not have the necessary funds to buy over such premises,” council president Omor Saad said after chairing the monthly full board meeting here yesterday.

He said buying over such premises was among the options being proposed by the council in its effort to turn Taiping into a heritage town, a move that has received the strong backing of the ministry.

“Once such premises are bought over, the ministry can then proceed with the task of maintaining them,” said Omor.

Another option being proposed was for the setting up of a heritage fund, also with the help of the ministry, he said.

“Those who decline to accept the buy-over can request for the necessary maintenance funds from this fund,” he said.

Omor said based on prevailing market demand, pre-war shophouse here could easily be sold off for more than RM500,000 per unit.

Omor said so far, the council had identified 83 such heritage shophouses.

(Many shophouses here, irrespective whether they are old or new, have been converted to swift hotels, producing quality bird nests which could fetch up to RM6,000 a kilo).

Snakes Temple without snakes-that sums up the dilemma of Penang's dated tourism offers for decades now. So tinkering with the architecture will only go so far to improve the snakeless temple. The rot started when the state government allowed the B Brown factory to be built between the snake temple and the hill where the snake come from. That was many decades ago-but the damage is permanent. No amount of rebuilding of th temple can help. Lesson: don't break something when you can't improve it. The damage can be ireversible!