The malaysian pavilion is an eye sore!

The Malaysian Pavilion in the World Expo Shanghai is the mother of all “Sakit Mata” (Eye Sore), a terminology I borrowed from the now defunct “Sakit Mata” column of the Majalah Akitek. Not to say that I am biased towards Minangkabau Architecture, I believed such form does not in any way represent Malaysia as a whole, as it only represents Negeri Sembilan. Where the hell does the Architect or Designer have his idea from and please… lah, go back to the school of Architecture and brush up on the History of Malaysian Architecture.

There was no design competition for such an event. If Malaysian Architect has only this to showcase, might as well engage another Architect Celebrity liked Pelli to put another pair of “Jagung” over the replica of KLCC. The neighboring country has Durian, now we are stuck with the Jagung, for God grace. Yet, it is still better then the… oh shit! Oversized Minangkabau structure (sorry no offence to people of Negeri Sembilan). 

Surprisingly, PAM (Malaysian Institute of Architect) with its all embracing 1 Malaysian Architectural Policy (MAP) is silence over such an outrage and does it means to say, silence means consent? I read from the news which among other, states:

“… Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen, who opened the Malaysia Pavilion yesterday, said the ministry was discussing with a local authority in Jiangsu province to move the pavilion to Wuxi city after the expo. Wuxi has a park that exhibits some of the most beautiful architectures and she sees it as a way to promote Malaysia further.” 

What? Keep it for posterity? Please…lah don’t spoil the landscape of WuXi. Bring back the shit for all of us here to dissect. You will never know what you can get from it. Perhaps I must agree with one of the blogger who said, this is what you get when the Architect wants to be a politician and a politician wants to be an Architect. Perhaps PAM would initiate its membership drives together with the political parties. Not a bad idea at all!

It is strange that the iron lady of MCA (Malaysia Chinese Association) has nothing to say about her root which may have originated from Minangkabau or rather she may be confused with the term Minang as in MingRen, loosely translated from Chinese as the Ming Dynasty descendent, riding a “Kebau”, an oxen. Then, our history must be rewritten.

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