Patrick Comerford
During our five-week stay in Kuching, I visited more than half-a-dozen museums in the city, although it was disappointing to find that some of them seemed to be closed each time I arrived.
The Borneo Cultures Museum is a striking, five-storey building in Kuching city centre, on the opposite side of Padang Merdeka facing Plaza Merdeka shopping centre. Its distinctive architectural design, with its golden arched roof and rattan-effect lattice of rhombus widows, is said to reflect Sarawak’s traditional crafts and cultural heritage. It is a striking, giant structure that has ambitions to be recognised as a world-class museum and a globally-engaged centre for history and heritage.
This new museum was four years in the making and it has become a landmark in the centre of Kuching. The building was designed by the Sarawak architect John Lau Kah Sieng, who began his practice in 1977. His portfolio spans Africa, Hong Kong, China, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.
The museum was built at a cost of RM308 million and has a combined floor area of about 31,000 sq m, making it the second largest museum in South-East Asia.
The museum exhibits are spread across five levels and each gallery in the museum offers a different experience, while the top floor offers unexpected breath-taking views across the city.
The theme in the children’s gallery on the second floor is ‘Love our Rivers’. ‘In Harmony with Nature’ is the theme on the third floor, the ‘Time Changes’ gallery is on the fourth floor, and the ‘Objects of Desire’ gallery is on the fifth floor. The building also has an auditorium and event spaces.
A pedestrian bridge links the Borneo Cultures Museum with Borneo’s oldest museum, the Sarawak Museum across the street on Jalan Tun Abang Haji. However, each time we went to visit, the Sarawak Museum seemed to be closed.
The Sarawak Museum was established by Charles Brooke, the Second Rajah, in 1860 through the influence of the great naturalist, Alfred Russell Wallace, who worked on developing the theory of evolution alongside Charles Darwin. Brooke and Russell set up a temporary museum at the Market Place, along Gambier Street, that opened in 1886. A proper museum was built and opened in 1891, and renovated in 1911.
In its architectural design, the Sarawak Museum looks like a 19th century faux Normandy townhouse. The museum was once regarded as one of the country’s finest museums and housed an extensive collection of artworks and handicrafts that showcased the cultural tapestry of Sarawak.
The museum grew slowly, maintaining the indigenous pride, identity and tradition of the people of Sarawak, and survived the Japanese invasion and World War II. The former curator, Tom Harrisson (1911-1976) is known for his discovery of a 39,000-year-old skull at Niah in 1976, resulting in a reappraisal of the origins of early humans in south-east Asia. Harrisson frequently visited Indigenous peoples to collect the artefacts in the museum, although the bulk of his collection was later moved to the Borneo Cultures Museum.
The museum is also an important academic research centre and since 1910 has published the Sarawak Museum Journal annually.
The Natural History Museum was built in 1908 and was known as the ‘Second Ladies Club’. It was once used as an administrative office and later showcased a collection of natural history.
This building is adorned with Rajah Brooke’s birdwing butterfly, so named by Alfred Russel Wallace. The exhibits have included a collection of Borneo mammals, invertebrates, reptiles, birds, fishes and shellfish, including species that may be extinct or almost extinct.
The Natural History Museum is now being used to store zoological and archaeological specimens, including the finds excavated in Niah. Although it is not open to the public, researchers and students can apply for access to the collections.
The Islamic Heritage Museum, close to the Borneo Cultures Museum, was originally established in 1930 as Madrasah Melayu Sarawak and the building was first used for training teachers in advanced Malay education.
It has seven galleries and the displays include Islamic history in Sarawak, Islamic architecture, science and technology, economy, education and literature, costumes, music and personal belongings, weaponry, decorative arts and domestic tools, and a Quran collection.
I believe it also has a pleasant, central courtyard garden. But, once again, however, it seemed to be closed each time I went to visit it.
The Tun Jugah Foundation Gallery on the fourth floor of the Tun Jugah Tower was established in 2000 to preserve and promote traditional Iban textile weaving, to enhance understanding of Iban textiles and weaving traditions and to showcase the rich material culture of the Iban people.
The museum is managed by the private Tun Jugah Foundation, set up to honour a long-serving Iban politician who died back in 1981. There is an impressive collection of Iban textiles, spanning both antique and contemporary pieces, along with Iban silverware and jewellery.
The museum has five main galleries, and while we were there skilled weavers were at work, offering an opportunity to learn about their crafts and skills.
The Chinese History Museum at the east end of the Main Bazaar is on the waterfront and close to the Tua Pek Kong, the largest Chinese temple in Kuching. The museum is housed in a building dating from 1910, first built as a courthouse for the Chinese community, and later used as the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
The opened in 1993 and tells how 19th century Chinese migrants opened up western Sarawak to agriculture and mining.
The exhibits include musical instruments, jade, ceramics, photographs – including the Mok watchmaking shop on Carpenter Street – and two half-size carvings of a Chinese emperor and empress.
I have already written about my visits to both the Brooke Gallery at Fort Margherita and the Ranee Museum.
The Brooke Gallery at Fort Margherita, sitting above the banks of the Sarawak River, is also a museum, housed in a modest castle or fort built by the Brooke rajahs in 1879. The castle is named after Charles Brooke’s wife, Ranee Margaret de Windt, and the museum tells the story of the Brooke dynasty in Sarawak.
The Ranee Museum is a separate museum in the Old Courthouse curated by the Brooke Trust and focuses on Margaret’s life and legend and her lasting impact on Kuching and Sarawak. The exhibition tells her story through paintings, music, literature and crafts, and includes her personal collections.
Until recently, the Pavilion Building, beside the Round Tower and opposite the General Post Office on Jalan Tuan Jaji, once housed the Textile Museum, but this too seems to be closed these days.
The eye-catching building, with its shuttered windows, was designedby the Singapore architectural practice of Swan and Maclaren in the style of a New Orleans Creole townhouse, and was the first building in Sarawak to use reinforced concrete. It was completed in 1909, and housed the Medical Headquarters and Hospital for Europeans until the mid-1920s. It was then used by various government departments and was the Japanese propaganda centre during the occupation in World War II.
It was extensively restored in 2005, and opened as the Textile Museum, with a remarkable collection of traditional Borneo textiles.
The Old Printing Works also has museum associations. The former Government Printing Office was built in 1908 at the junction of Khoo Hu Yeang Street and Barrack Road, on the former site of the first Ladies’ Club.
When the Printing Office moved out in 1951, the building was extensively renovated to house the newly-formed Kuching Municipal Council, later Kuching City South Council. When the council moved to new premises in Jalan Padungan, the building was the Kuching Resident’s Office until 2014. It is now occupied by the Sarawak Museum Department.
