Bugis and Makassarese Architecture and Urban Neighbourhoods in Singapore
Public Lecture by Dr Imran bin Tajudeen
Saturday 28 October 2017
2:30 PM – 4:30 PM, MHC Auditorium
Malay Heritage Centre (Istana Kampung Gelam), SingaporeHeld in conjunction with Sirri na Pesse: Navigating Bugis Identities in Singapore, special exhibition in the Malay Cultural Festival 2017, Malay Heritage Centre, Singapore.
The name “Bugis Town” appears on a map of Singapore from 1825, where it is larger in extent than even the generous area allotted for the Bugis trading community and labelled “Bugis Campong” in the so-called “Jackson Plan”, Singapore’s town plan drawn up by Lieut Jackson by Dec 1822 (and not to be confused with Kampung Bugis at Kallang). The old “Bugis Town” of early nineteenth-century Singapore seems to have persisted in its original location for a few years longer despite Raffles’ directives of Oct 1822 to remove the Bugis from the area around what is today Bugis Junction. In any case, Bugis and Makassarese merchants and traders in Singapore actually lived and owned properties all across Singapore Town — including in the areas we label “Chinatown” today.
In this talk we review a slice of nineteenth-century Singapore urban social history by focusing on the Bugis and Makassarese–two mercantile groups from South Sulawesi, eastern Indonesia–as seen from old maps indicating the neighbourhoods of as well as pictorial evidence on the traditional houses, shophouses, and other buildings that were constructed by the community. We will look at both examples that have been lost through demolitions as well as surviving buildings still standing in our midst–including philanthropic endowments called waqf (wakaf).
More information on the subject of the talk can be found here.
Talk brought to you by: Malay Heritage Centre Public Lecture Series & Singapura Stories.
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