Time and Date  

: 

Thursday, 19 February 2009, 10.00am to 11.30am.

Venue  

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CIT Auditorium, Computer Centre Level 2, NUS       

Student's Name 

: 

Imran bin Tajudeen

Title of Thesis   

: 

Constituting and re-constructing the vernacular heritage of maritime emporia in the Nusantara: Historic adaptation and contemporary accentuation.

Abstract 

: 

‘Vernacular’ practices, while perpetuating specific traditions, simultaneously reflect the movement of people and ideas and their ‘adaptations’ to new circumstances and opportunities. This dialectic becomes particularly pertinent in the heterogeneous milieu of maritime emporia. This study outlines the ports of Nusantara – Austronesian Southeast Asia – as a field for the comparative typological analysis of historic vernacular urban artefacts. Their regional-native ‘lingua franca’ shared forms and histories of expunctions and displacements are highlighted, necessitating a reconsideration of the location of architectural history and urban memory.

This body of evidence is then juxtaposed against various generic-nostalgic ‘accentuations’, constituted and reconstructed in both written and built forms, that presumptively essentialise the native vernacular as rustic and static. The closed discourses of interpretation behind these stereotypical representations, interventions and reinventions are critiqued. Finally, historic architectural worth, authoritative valuation and the price of official restoration practices are distinguished in order to reappraise heritage intervention strategies.