Sightings is a series of posts based on curious specimens of visual culture collected around Malaysia.  If you see any worthy examples, email us at arteri DOT malaysia AT gmail DOT com.

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Description: A 17-floor tower with a reticulated pre-cast terrazzo façade, partially obstructed by a number of Malaysian flags in varying sizes. A banner on the tower’s rectangular top says:

JUBLI EMAS PARLIMEN MALAYSIA

1959 – 2009

Location: The Malaysian Houses of Parliament.

Notes:

Built in the early-1960s, the Malaysian Parliament complex was designed by William Ivor Shipley, an architect and Public Works Department employee.

(If its handiwork is any indication, the PWD of that era was a particularly inspired place. Just look at Masjid Negara, a modernist paragon of early-nationhood hope, with its fan-like non-dome and angular lines. The mosque was a collaboration between Howard Ashley, Hisham Albakri, and Baharuddin Kassim – PWD staff.)

Less happily, perhaps, Shipley’s interest in modular stuff resulted in the standard government office block of the 1970s. Even so, those blocks are examples of impeccable design when compared with the bad taste of Putrajaya.

Bad taste seems to be the norm, these days. Parliament’s deer-park grounds are slowly being subsumed by growing parking space. The place’s current sheathing – FLAG, flag-flag-flag, flag, FLAG – is quite menyakitkan mata. Flags are not only on the tower, but line the entrance and cover its perimeter fence.

The sheer inundation of flags around town seem to reflect some official insecurity. It makes up for the fact that, this past Merdeka, almost no one felt moved enough to fix flags on their own vehicles …

(ZS)

On the way there … flags.

Flags!

OMG. Flags.