putrajaya

[el_empty]

have you guys been to putrajaya? what's it like? tell me... what do you like about it? what don't you like about it?

(i was there many moons ago, and it was still one big fat giant construction yard back then)

[Thirdshifter]

Its gorgeous. Impressive. A must see. A lot of tourist. A lot of New buildings. One thing is, there's not enough trees. It feels like its built in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway i still think its a waste of money.

[Schye]

There are many man made lakes with fabulous bridges across them ... and i agree with Third, a waste of $$ as I think those money could be used in other fields which can benifit our country more than how it is being used now.

[jagganatha]

Putrajaya is a masterpiece of its own class. Never seen anything like it. Ya I have to admit the lack of trees but jus entering the vicinity of putrajaya says it all from the street lights to the signboards. You should definately visit it..

[ElansarGelmir]

There are many man made lakes with fabulous bridges across them ... and i agree with Third, a waste of $$ as I think those money could be used in other fields which can benifit our country more than how it is being used now.

I think it's a long term investment... To attract tourists, u know... but then, i think it failed to.

[el_empty]

how do you think the main building, the perdana putra(?) reflects the ideological state of malaysia? how does it uniquely represent malaysia (and not just any islamic country)?

[kucingbiru]

it's like seeing a middle class guy driving a McLaren.

[Thirdshifter]

how do you think the main building, the perdana putra(?) reflects the ideological state of malaysia? how does it uniquely represent malaysia (and not just any islamic country)?

It doesn't. The buildings are influenced by Iranian,Iraqi and turkey Architecture.

I didn't see any minagkabau style Roof or Kapitan style interiors. Heck i can't even find one Kedai Mamak.

[naturesimple]

i just went there not long before. there r a few problems
1) shops not enough. there only got 1 floor which something like central market.
2) definately hot!!! cause lack of trees gua....
3) required to pay for every park that visitors enter!!! for ur information there is a lot of places to visit such as the ...dunno wat garden, dunno wat bridge, and dunno wat mosque. these places situated quite far from each other n have to reach there by car.
4) too big. that's a problem cause waste land n money

[phantom]

hmmm,have you ever wonder why Dr. M moved our our adminstrative capital from KL to Putrajaya?Absolutely not to shrink our nation's wealth per se but rather becoz of his long term vision which of coz some malaysian didn't see,don't see and won't see.

KL is not a planned-city.Canberra on the other hand is a planned capital,so do DC to some extend.When you planned and built a capital,you make it more efficient for the country leaders to function well and function best.It even cut down the time and blah blah blah for the ministers to travel from their homes to their offices.And hence giving leaders the much needed space to make the proper decisions to rule the nation.

Putraya failed to attract the visitors?Are you darn sure about it?Becoz Putrajaya is indeed the must-see place for most tourists out there.it's like DC.what the used being in DC when you dont see the white house?

about the design...hmmm,masjid kapitan keling in penang is a well-designed mosque,dont compare it to putrajaya.Putrajaya is not not depicting the malay culture but rather the islamic designs borrowed from other muslim nations.Please tell me,are our mosques truly malay/malaysian or are they borrowed-designs from the moorish cultures?I think it is trying to depict muslims designs than the malay.

Putrajaya is a well-built city,almost every minute detail was taken into account,even the lamp posts are well-moulded to attract people's attention.That's for me is a thing to admire.

BUt then again,like what Pak lah said in DC,what the used buidling smart schools when ppl inside them are not smarts?

the same goes here,what the used erecting super-duper buildings when the ppl working inside those fancy buidlings still dont care whether they arrived late for 5 minutes to their works,or backstabbed others@<hidden>@<hidden> memberi-pendapat about others.Or else spent hours inside the cafes and yet bringging their salaries to feed their wifes and children.

Having the 1st class world's capital and yet having SOME OF the 3rd world mentality ppl working there for me contradict each other.Just hope we have more hardworking denizens calling putrajaya as their humble homes.

[el_empty]

(by the way - post some pics of putrajaya of your own here! :D_)

but doesn't it make more sense for the architecture to make a clearer depiction, and if there is a need, to use a more vernacular/domestically recognizable element?

and i question the intention of using muslim vernacular, supposedly because we're a muslim nation? we chair the OIC? not long ago, our new arts and culture minister, rais yatim, did say that we should not "arabise our own culture." (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/001621.php)

and what's this lamp-post that everyone's talking about? what does it look like?

my only recollection of putrajaya is that its roads are curved and windy - which again, ideologically, metaphorizes the difficult bureaucracy in a government. great capitals have straight roads (and signs!) usually traversed by a large usually-ceremonial avenues. and their buildings usually depict clearly their functions, and most importantly convey a sense of relationship with the other buildings in the vicinity.

who're the architects/planners of putrajaya anyway?

[weich]

hmm....as for the architecture, it looks good but maybe it's a way for Malaysia to appear as a land where Muslim countries can look to...an indirect way of attracting foreign direct investments, etc....a way to get those rich Middle-eastern businessmen to put their money here!

but buildings are long-term investments, you can't design a building that will look "old" 10 or 20 years into the future...e.g. Penang Bridge....originally looked upon as a white elephant...but now, a 2nd bridge to Penang is proposed to relieve traffic....

too early to tell I would say if it's a waste of money or not =)

anyway, quick google search for putrajaya pics resulted in the following:

http://reddevil11.fotopages.com/

http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/212bd/22ab2a/

[kucingbiru]

and that middle class guy says, "i need that McLaren, because one day when i'm rich, i need it. i need to show the world what i have, even though my kids at home are hungry".

[Thirdshifter]

Reply to phantom.

Putrajaya is not a white elephant it is a functioning administration capital. Just like those huge and fancy Palace that Saddam hussein built. For his own god damn ego. I didn't see any super political change in Malaysia. The economy is pretty much the same too.

Putrajaya is beyond first world. It's Beverly hills. All that is there is expensive. Even the light poll that everyone keep mentioning. I bet one of those cost more then putting 10 street light in a Kampung at Kuala selangor. Which probably needs it more. Maybe 100 of those polls is the equivalent of paving the Kampung roads there too.

Putrajaya was not a necessity. How can i agree with putrajaya when recently i watched NTV7s Edisi Siasat and their a couple with 3 children living in the jungle with Plastic tarp as their roof and bushes as the walls. They can't even afford to buy cloths so the kids are wearing the same thing everyday for months. Thats just one case that actually made it to the TV. Try go into a rubber estate.

El_empty,

I believe most of Putrajaya is a direct copy of Persian/Arab architecture. For an example the Putrajaya mosque is almost a duplicate of a mosque found in Baghdad Iraq. I forgot the name of it but if you google it up youll probably find it.

[ElansarGelmir]

Hmm... a little digressed here... but why Malaysia always borrows architecture designs/cultures from the middle east countries? Shouldn't we amplify our own culture instead? We have the Minangkabaus, the Malay designs, and being a multi racial country, shouldn't we have designs from other ethnics as well? Why always revolves around middle east?

[kucingbiru]

Hmm... a little digressed here... but why Malaysia always borrows architecture designs/cultures from the middle east countries? Shouldn't we amplify our own culture instead? We have the Minangkabaus, the Malay designs, and being a multi racial country, shouldn't we have designs from other ethnics as well? Why always revolves around middle east?

xenocentrism.

or maybe just to show the world how "islamic" malaysia is. crap!!

[yekban81]

I went there once. Of what I saw there, I can generally label them as overdesign. In other word, a waste of money. The brigdes look very artistic but their design are a bit exaggerating. I noticed that the lamp post has different designs for certain places. Have you noticed the dustbin? I don't think it's just an ordinary cheap dustbin; I think it's made of copper at least at the outer surface.

I visited their power source centre where air-cond supply will be generated by state-of-art gas boilers. I am impressed with that.

[retroque]

malaysia despite its small size,tend to do big and mega projects in order to impress and to be recognize by other countries.

tourist and foreign leaders are shown the grand putrajaya,the magnificent klcc etc2.

ironic isnt it ,that while we spend so much to have world class 'dustbins' made of copper (??)....,some of our fellow msian dont even have enough money to go to school.

and they justify their actions by saying "untuk menaikkan nama malaysia di mata dunia".

i say the hell with it,they're just trying to boost their own image and doing it for the sake of their own ego.


wohohoou...didnt realize my post this time sounds a little bit emotional.but im not gonna edit it.:D

[kucingbiru]

oh actually they care about poor people. they care about the poor people of kelantan (also terengganu before the last election), as seen on RTM 1.

[kucingbiru]

when the country faced economic downturn a few years back, they cut the funding for jpa overseas scholarship. a lot of deserving students were left stranded in local univerisities, despite completing the prep. but the mega project had to go on. it's a better investment for the future.

Confusedguy says, u sponsor a student to the best university, he wont be starving. U build putrajaya, no one in malaysia will be starving.

:?:

[phantom]

kucingbiru wrote:

xenocentrism.

or maybe just to show the world how "islamic" malaysia is. crap!!

what is crap??????
care to understand where minangkabau originated mister?
am pretty sure,they have chosen the most beautiful designs available.and being that,it's from the muslim architectual designs.so cry of foul,they wont change the designs.

[phantom]

3rdshifter:

Putrajaya was not a necessity. How can i agree with putrajaya when recently i watched NTV7s Edisi Siasat and their a couple with 3 children living in the jungle with Plastic tarp as their roof and bushes as the walls. They can't even afford to buy cloths so the kids are wearing the same thing everyday for months. Thats just one case that actually made it to the TV. Try go into a rubber estate.


perhaps for you...it's for me,a neccesities...how come some ppl in malaysia can work hard and climb the socioeconomic ladders,when others just watched and yawned?

if you give someone a fish,he'll survive for a day,if you teach him how to fish,he'll survive for his lifetime.

[Thirdshifter]

3rdshifter:

Putrajaya was not a necessity. How can i agree with putrajaya when recently i watched NTV7s Edisi Siasat and their a couple with 3 children living in the jungle with Plastic tarp as their roof and bushes as the walls. They can't even afford to buy cloths so the kids are wearing the same thing everyday for months. Thats just one case that actually made it to the TV. Try go into a rubber estate.


perhaps for you...it's for me,a neccesities...how come some ppl in malaysia can work hard and climb the socioeconomic ladders,when others just watched and yawned?

if you give someone a fish,he'll survive for a day,if you teach him how to fish,he'll survive for his lifetime.

Apparently you are not getting the point. The couple has 3 children and none are schooled becase their parents can't afford it. They rather have these kids helping them make money. Also the goverment can't help them because the Husband is only 29 y.o and our current policy in Malaysia requires the applicant to be at least 35. Too bad he wasn't discovered before election or else he wouldve got a bungalow.

[ElansarGelmir]

perhaps for you...it's for me,a neccesities...how come some ppl in malaysia can work hard and climb the socioeconomic ladders,when others just watched and yawned?

if you give someone a fish,he'll survive for a day,if you teach him how to fish,he'll survive for his lifetime.


Hey, not everyone living in poverty is lazy... Do you have the evidence that they dun lift a finger to find small crumbs? they are not given the opportunity... The problem is not he doesn't know how to fish. The coastal shore and the sea is being monopolized by ppl of higher classes... so how can they ever step into the sea without the appropriate equipments to compete with those high-tech guys? That's actually happening in Malaysia. The poverty margine is still high (so claimed the BTN) in rural areas, and it's not due to slothfulness, rather incapable of competiting with ppl of the urban area. And imagine all those money that can be used to curb poverty in Malaysia is channelled to mega projects like the white elephant Times Square, H Tower, and Putrajaya. If you want a grand metropolis (is that what they are trying to build?), make sure that every citizen can live survive at that standard.

[phantom]

Apparently you are not getting the point. The couple has 3 children and none are schooled becase their parents can't afford it. They rather have these kids helping them make money. Also the goverment can't help them because the Husband is only 29 y.o and our current policy in Malaysia requires the applicant to be at least 35. Too bad he wasn't discovered before election or else he wouldve got a bungalow.

aint the gov providing free foods and free clothes for the poor to at least be in school.i am sure that they are kids who are receiving clothes and food supplies and even small allowance from the gov to go to school.now that edisi siasat has brought up this issue,i'm pretty sure the gov will act wisely.

i sense you are oozing with sarcasm,too bad that you dont see the good things the gov is doing.and what da heck,i dont care.



Hey, not everyone living in poverty is lazy... Do you have the evidence that they dun lift a finger to find small crumbs? they are not given the opportunity... The problem is not he doesn't know how to fish. The coastal shore and the sea is being monopolized by ppl of higher classes... so how can they ever step into the sea without the appropriate equipments to compete with those high-tech guys? That's actually happening in Malaysia. The poverty margine is still high (so claimed the BTN) in rural areas, and it's not due to slothfulness, rather incapable of competiting with ppl of the urban area. And imagine all those money that can be used to curb poverty in Malaysia is channelled to mega projects like the white elephant Times Square, H Tower, and Putrajaya. If you want a grand metropolis (is that what they are trying to build?), make sure that every citizen can live survive at that standard.


i am sure that they are enough grandeour ppl to live in the metropolis if the gov plan of building one.

look,during the economic turmoil,the gov has said that,by building up the construction industry,the gov could help 89 other subindustries.this was a key point during that bad circa.can you name me a single industry that could help 89 other industry to grow?

helping the constructions industry to rose was the great tool used to help other industries and thus,allowing other chain of industries to blossom.just by targerting the crux,the gov managed to inject the "flow" into our nation's wealth.what goes around,comes around.

as simple as that.they gov was not dumb to channel huge sum for their "darn ego" alone.

[kucingbiru]

kucingbiru wrote:

xenocentrism.

or maybe just to show the world how "islamic" malaysia is. crap!!

what is crap??????
care to understand where minangkabau originated mister?
am pretty sure,they have chosen the most beautiful designs available.and being that,it's from the muslim architectual designs.so cry of foul,they wont change the designs.

excuse me, was i the one who suggested minangkabau design??

[phantom]

alah,tersalah org lah tu. :oops:

[masterof_none]

I've heard ppl talking about 'help the poor people first , before doing these white elephant projects'. I fully support the idea. I think in this dog-eat-dog market economy, the poor is getting poorer and the richer just got better. Therefore, the govt. is in the right position to distribute the taxpayers money back to the people. (in fact, that's what canon of taxation is all about)

However, are we dreaming to be a communist state?.To wait until we're all sharing the same wealth, then only we need to move on?

I like the idea of moving in parallel. do both things at once. Helping poor people + building things.

True, that Putrajaya's design might be an exaaggeration, but if we're Malaysians students keep quarreling about the dustbins, we;re not going anywhere. This thing has been done, and we need to move on.
the only thing left for us is to assess constructively and suggest what's need (or need not ) to be done in the future. And this is the most imporatant thing : consider which one really we can consider as
'a waste' .

The Penang bridge is a good example. Is it a waste?. yes, but it was a waste couple of decades ago when it's seriously underutilized. it's a waste of Penangites money. But as things go mobile, it bring wealth to the Penangites themselves. Is it a waste now? well, if the revenue brought by this bridge is more than the cost, certainly, it brings wealth to that Penangites and the rest of Malaysians. That;s what we call investment.

Now, following the Penang Bridge analogy (or the PLUS highway project) rather than calling Putrajaya a waste, I like to call it an investment too. although in some sense, it looks like it is a waste.

Pro :
1. Strong building symbolize a strong country, thus, suggest a strong government with a political stability. Score lots of point - investors.
More FDI = Higher GDP.

2. Beautiful panorama. Score point- tourist attraction. more tourism, more $$ = higher GDP.

3. Turn some random 'ladang kelapa sawit' into an administrative capital.
More economic activity than before, more income (multiplier effect and everything).

Cons :
1. A huge initial outlay - present income go down. (but if it's an investment, it's like building an airport

2. Less trees. Hotter than before.

3. Operational cost is high.

4. the Beverly Hills.
....

so, if we calculate those things and it turns out that we gain more benefits than the huge initial outlay, I would say that Putrajaya is a success. But of course, it is now really underutilized. we can get more income from it. what's the effect on the society?

less money to be distributed to the poor at the present. but if we gain more money in the future, and the percentage of distribution to the poor family remain constant, the overall impact of Putrajaya is that, it would benefit Malaysians. Of course, the 'election' thing that some of the people refer to is all over the place. it's not only Malaysia.

Plus, you'll be surprised to see that in the US, there are lot of homeless people around. If you are americans, do you want to argue that the govt should help these homeless people first, rather than sending rover to Mars?

That's why we need to do things in parallel.

(Bottom line:Is this beverly hills of Malaysia worth the cost? )
The answer : look at the revenue brought by Putrajaya 10 years (or maybe less) down the road.

[Thirdshifter]

to sum what master of none said, We would not know if putrajaya is a mistake after atleast 7 years. Well 7 years from now maybe we would have that is just phase one of 42 at putrajaya.

[masterof_none]

to sum what master of none said, We would not know if putrajaya is a mistake after atleast 7 years. Well 7 years from now maybe we would have that is just phase one of 42 at putrajaya.

I wonder how many phases does Putrajaya has. Is it completed yet?
I think I just pass through it once. (2001).
I actually don't mind if it expands, and it would be fully utilized.
The question is whether we could achieve the level of full employment, and whether it's worth the cost.
If it;s worth the cost, there's no reason why we should not transform more ladang kelapa sawit into an urban area.

(More trees please. ).
I saw couple of pictures on the internet. I realized that Palo Alto has more trees than Putrajaya.

[el_empty]

someone somewhere in some thread cited a good example, the empire state building. it was built during the height of the recession, and for many years upon completion, it remained barren and empty. and today many proponents of klcc and putrajaya and all the other billion dollar brickworks cite the same logic - perhaps in a few years the *.jayas will bring back some positive returns.

but on a more level ground (pun!) they are *not* exactly quite parallel. almost all our projects are built using public funds, our national reserves, our tax, etc. whereas the ESB was built by a joint-corporation between GM and duPont and others - huge corporations.

but shifting our attention back to putrajaya, the one thing that saddens me, from the perspective of architectural history, is that the land that putrajaya (and all the other jayas around it) sits on has little or no significance in terms of historical precedent. there was never an organic growth that catalysed the building of this project. in fact it was inorganic to such an extent that everything was excavated and trailblazed to create that artificial landscape we call our capital.

capitals inherently define the state of our nation, and when someone asks, how does putrajaya represent our country? what do we say? what is it in the architecture of the city that tells us the history of the nation? its trials and tribulations? the racial diversity? our myths and legends? where are the country's (real) heroes?

[kucingbiru]

hmm, Saddam's palace isnt so bad after all. it's an investment for the future. or maybe it's bad, because it's not Malaysia.

[Randomphantom]

I've been there maybe a year ago. Vast landscapes devoid of life, highways that seem to go on forever... although I have to say the architectural designs are very beautiful.(whatever minangkabau style they employ) Going there feels somewhat like going to another country. Where everything is preplanned, signs are nicely placed and even the roads feel different.

I can see a trend in which Malaysia tries very hard to maintain an image and impress others, all in the name of promoting tourism. In the end, everything is all superficially rosy on the outside, but we Malaysians know better. Helping the poor n needy in Malaysia? Why not we just forget about the issue altogether, after all Malaysia is a progressive nation and doesnt have time to bother with these types of 'distractions'.

[topdog]

although I have to say the architectural designs are very beautiful.(whatever minangkabau style they employ)
i've only been there once and that was 3 years ago. don't remember seeing any minangkabau or malay architectural styles. all i saw were arabic domes.

well at least 'putrajaya' doesn't sound as bad as 'cyberjaya'

[jagganatha]

ya i have to agree regarding the designs.. they are not very malaysian.. :? :?