Charles Reade: Town Planning British Malaya, 1921-1929 by Kamalruddin Shamsudin

Abstract

Reviewed by: Charles Reade: Town Planning British Malaya, 1921-1929 by Kamalruddin Shamsudin Rosilawati Zainol Charles Reade: Town Planning British Malaya, 1921–1929. By Kamalruddin Shamsudin (KLDIN). Kuala Lumpur: Kamalruddin Shamsudin, 2015, 373 pp. ISBN: 967-12232-0-6 Kamalruddin Shamsudin was the Deputy Director-General of the Federal Town and Country Planning Department of Malaysia (PLAN MALAYSIA) between 2006–2014. He has written and lectured on Charles Reade's seminal contributions to town planning in British Malaya since the 1990s. Charles Reade: Town Planning British Malaya, 1921–1929 highlighted the plight of Charles Reade in promoting urban planning, then still largely a fledgling notion in Malaya. Reade's background and experience were explained in an easy narrative which allows readers to understand the actions taken by Reade in his journey. Town improvement is the primary motive for legalizing town planning in the British colonies. Reade had already seen the worst of cities due to unbridled industrialization in the West when he worked as a journalist in many parts of the world and wished to prevent a similarly haphazard development in Malaya. Reade's predicament was far from easy. The earlier chapters in this book show the struggle he faced to install the physical aspects of the urban planning concept, and to ensure that cooperation between different parties in a municipality could be forged without unnecessary recourse to public funds. His talks in a conference [End Page 134] brought him to notice and had led to Reade's appointment as Government Town Planner in South Australia in 1918. It was the success he enjoyed with thispost in South Australia that enabled him later to lend his expertise to the Federated Malay States (F.M.S.) in 1920. Reade's ideas on town planning were explained in his talks. His talks and exhibitions in Australia and Malaya were well received, at which he described the current town and country planning practices in Europe and Britain. The media also played a critical role in disseminating the ideas that Reade tried to promote. The author emphasized that Reade acknowledged that he would be facing a massive challenge in Malaya with peoples of different cultures, comprising local communities and immigrants. In addition, Reade's revolutionary action in the replanning and redistribution of building lots in Malaya was not supported by existing regulations. Without the requisite legal regulations, the town planning practices envisioned by Reade could not be implemented. Reade would have found frustrating the fact that the haphazard development which had been foreseen could not be addressed by planning regulations then in place. Kamalruddin Shamsudin (also known as KLDIN) explained the difficulties in putting together the Town Planning Enactment 1923. Although there was no Malayan land law at this point to support this enactment, it successfully laid the foundations for modern town planning in Malaysia. However, this enactment was reviewed eight months after it came into being, and it would not be easy to discover its potential. Nevertheless, by installing this enactment, Reade had started an urban planning trajectory in Malaya which would be used later in Malaysia. This far-reaching measure has led to the institutionalization of town planning in Malaysia and the creation of the Federal Town Planning Department, which has survived until today and has recently been rebranded as Plan Malaysia. KLDIN revealed Reade's many unknown and forgotten contributions behind various prominent institutions in Kuala Lumpur, namely the Victoria Institution, the Petaling Golf Links, and the Merdeka Stadium, all located in the vicinity of Petaling Hill. The author also highlighted Reade's work in Kuala Kubu Bharu, a small township carefully crafted and adapted to suit the Malayan tropical setting, reflecting an early attempt to experiment with the idea of a garden city that was taking hold throughout Britain and its overseas possessions, such as in Egypt and Australia. In the final chapters of this book, the author described the Town Planning Administration (1921–1929). Although the town planning concept has been around since the pre-classical period, its practical application was not seen until the end of the 19th century. Thus, under Reade, the Federal Town Planning Department consisted of qualified engineers and surveyors on secondment from other agencies...