Consuming The Porous City : George Town, Penang
Khoo Salma Nasution

The term ‘porous city’, introduced by Walter Benjamin and his collaborator Asja Lacis (credited more to the latter) in their 1925 essay on Naples, serves as an analytical lens in contemporary writings on architecture and urbanism. This essay applies the concept of porosity to urban history and heritage conservation, from building materials to city boundaries, to the legibility of historical layering.

Initially, rent control delayed the redevelopment of the old city, and UNESCO listing later placed George Town on a unique developmental path. A port city in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, George Town has long been fertile ground for civilizational exchange and expressions of intangible heritage, particularly related to religious diversity. UNESCO’s 2008 listing of the Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca cited these outstanding universal values, as well as the largest collection of shophouses and townhouses in the region.

Built on a swampy promontory, George Town developed a townscape of artisanally-intensive and environmentally-responsive vernacular forms, later guided by building codes for ventilation and sanitation. Two features of the shophouse represent innovations of tropical urbanism: the skywell, which moderates the interior microclimate, and the mandatory five-footway, which functions as pedestrian shelter and social space.

Urban projects in the old city contend with layers of history, occasionally sparking contestation among indigenous, migrant, colonial, and contemporary narratives. The challenges of preservation are illustrated by various projects: dewatering around an underground car park and the discovery of a canal system, the remaking of a pocket park, the proposed redevelopment of a municipal market, the redesign of the clan jetty waterfront, and the re-introduction of moats in Fort Cornwallis.

While heavy-handed approaches risk turning historic sites into ersatz heritage, new residents and street artists are embracing the ‘aesthetics of decay.’ Aging long-time residents are increasingly outnumbered by tourists and guest workers, leaving many shophouses vacant or underutilized. In this fragmented landscape, creative entrepreneurs engage in micro placemaking, attracting weekend visitors to savour Penang’s street food, street life, and a sense of the past.

During annual festivals and processions, crowds suddenly reappear, reclusive residents perch themselves by windows or on five-footways, and streets are reclaimed by pedestrians, reaffirming the ‘porous city’ as a stage for enacting rites of belonging. These traditional celebrations allow us to imagine the strategies needed to mend the fractured connections between the inner and outer city – disrupted by late 20th-century zoning and eroded public transport policies – through a comprehensive, whole-city approach to urban resilience.

Khoo Salma Nasution is a writer, publisher, social historian, and an advocate of heritage and environmental protection. A leading author of Malaysian place-histories incorporating social history and environmental history. Co-founder of heritage and sustainability initiatives which advance knowledge at the intersection of culture, community and environment.

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Organised by the Australian Centre for Architectural History, Urban and Cultural Heritage