The Entity - Identity Relationships of Old Shop Houses in Perak Through Facade Design

Abstract

Since the 19th century, old shop houses remaining in Malaysia have been a primary indicator of the country’s physical landscape which can inform significant historical background of early cities and towns. The old shop houses testify in the uniqueness and diversity of the nation’s architectural gems, which were shaped by the Malay, Chinese and British entities. The current study attempts to understand the influence of varying entities towards the architectural identities that the old shop houses’ facade bear. Purposive sampling of 16 towns in the state of Perak was made to gauge information on the earliest row of shop houses at each of the towns. Both secondary and primary data were then leveraged based on documents analysis, interviews and measured drawings to explore the relationship link between the entities and identities through the old shop houses’ facade design. The findings suggest that there is a relationship between the entities and identities, in the sense that the early entities were influential in determining the identities of the old shop houses’ facade design. Interestingly, the Malay style was found to be the most dominant identity depicted by the facade design of the old shophouses from the 16 towns of Perak.