by Dr John Ting, Assistant Prof. of Architecture, Univ. of Canberra.
Tuesday 15 Nov. 2016,19:30
The Canteen, Chinahouse @ the Old CourtHouse, Kuching
Public talk, in English, free, no registration required.
Jointly organised by the Friends of Sarawak Museum and the Sarawak Heritage Society.
The location of James Brooke’s original court in Kuching followed Malay tradition by being located in a Malay nobleman’s house, built for him by Sarawak’s Bruneian governor in 1841. He began to develop the court as an institution when he established his first courthouse across the river, on the commercial side of Kuching in 1847. Three different courthouses had been constructed on this location. The third courthouse was then extended four times during the reigns of Charles and Vyner Brooke before World War II, resulting in the building we know today. Dr. Ting will explore how the Rajahs adopted and changed indigenous spatial practices as part of their diverse approaches to governing, and how the development of their courthouses reflected their governance.
Dr. John Ting is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Canberra. He has also taught tropical design and Southeast Asian architectural history at other Australian architectural programs. In addition to his PhD in Architectural History from the University of Melbourne, he has a degree in architecture from RMIT University and is a Registered Architect in Australia. He is currently also the consulting architectural historian on the Old Sarawak Museum Conservation project. Dr Ting has studied extensively Sarawak buildings and architecture of the Brooke era and is the leading expert on this subject.