Wednesday 7 April 2010

So Our Architects Are Not Good Enough eh?

This video showed that Minister of Tourism, YB Dato Seri Ng Yen Yen underestimating Malaysian architects who will not understand the construction and nature of Shanghai. Fair enough, but I do think we are allowed to "collaborate" with other local organisations. Very close example - Norman Foster and GDP Architects or the best example - Cesar Pelli and KLCC Architects for our very own Petronas Twin Towers.



Project Info: 3,000 sqm site at Shanghai World Expo
Dear friends, please tell me that I heard it wrong. She actually said:

1. She only understand when she was briefed IN Shanghai, not BEFORE. ok, sound fine with me. with the benefit of the doubt I assumed that she is indeed a busy 'wakil rakyat' (trans. people's representative)
2. She is very confident of the local company which did the design and construction of this pavilion.
3. You can't take things from Malaysia. Aik, cannot ar? We have a new thing called globalisation and for this reason, the internet will be handy for research and learning. Time to travel has been minimised by the advent of our aviation industry with hundreds of flights a day direct to Shanghai.

Please tell me I didn't misheard what she said because this pavillion's design is simply appalling!

The minister's comments should be recorrected because she is implying that Malaysian architects are not good enough. To me, this is a generalisation but the finalised design of the pavilion is just pathetic.

I hate to say this; I think I can do better design than that. Learn this Malaysia: please organise an open competition for this sort of things so that we dont get bombarded by racial-slurs and comments as this article on ArchDaily:

Malaysia Pavilion for Shanghai World Expo 2010

This is a disgrace to the architecture industry! No wonder we are having the 'brain drain' phenomena at the moment.

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