The Blue Mansion

By Lin Lee Loh Lim, Penang: L'Plan Sdn Bhd, 2002, 62 pages, paperback, US$12.00. Reviewed by Christine Choo in the September 2004 issue.

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The mansion of Cheong Fatt Tze located in Leith Street, Penang, was built at the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and embodied the best of Eastern and Western influences in a colonial environment. It was his favourite home built for his favourite consort, his seventh wife, and is said to have outstripped all his other homes in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore, in beauty, refinement and architectural interest. The Blue Mansion records in beautiful colour and presentation, the story of Cheong Fatt Tze, the architecture and history of the mansion and the successful and loving restoration by conservators, architect Laurence Loh and his social psychologist wife, Lin Lee Loh-Lim.

Cheong Fatt Tze was a penniless Hakka Chinese labourer who left China as a sixteen year old in 1856 and travelled to Southeast Asia to make his fortune. Through hard work, sound business sense, good luck and a good marriage, Cheong established himself as an exceptional entrepreneur and businessman with international links and reputation. He was a great philanthropist and a man of his time who could afford to live a flamboyant lifestyle enjoying the finest of everything -- wine, women, homes, influence. Cheong Fatt Tze's mansion, located in a corner of old Penang among other former gracious homes of Hakka millionaires, stands out from the rest as it was built in the style of a Chinese courtyard home large enough to house a number of generations of the family. The other mansions were built in the more Westernised Anglo-Indian architectural style. Nevertheless Cheong Fatt Tze's mansion incorporates a certain eclecticism. Its orientation and style are based on sound feng shui principles of Chinese geomancy. The fine craftsmanship and decorative features include Chinese guilding, timberwork and roof ornamentation, as well as Art Nouveau glass panes made in England and Victorian cast iron decorative works made in Glasgow.

The vision and efforts of the conservation team have been acknowledged through the project being awarded the Malaysian National Award for Conservation in 1995 and 'Most Excellent Project' in the UNESO Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation. Beyond the form itself, the restoration of the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion signifies a commitment to the preservation of the best examples of a built environment, and how such faithful and painstaking restoration can contribute to our understanding of the history of a place, an era, a family and community. A visit to the site is invaluable in providing another angle or insight into the life and times in multicultural colonial society in Penang. There was also another agenda, As Loh-Lim indicates,

the social-psychological impact is more insidious. It leaves an imprint on the unconscious, involving one piece in the jigsaw, becoming a major catalyst as well as a landmark and a turning point. In the historic city of George Town, the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion restoration was viewed as a pioneer test case for heritage sites and as a focus of a much needed local regeneration. (Page 60)

Citation

• Christine Choo. 'Review: The Blue Mansion by Lin Lee Loh Lim' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), September 2004. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 10 September 2010].

Back Cover Blurb

• The definitive book on the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion - the historical background to the man, 'China's last Mandarin and first capitalist', for whom, upon his death in 1916, British and Dutch authorities ordered flags to be lowered to half-mast - the history of the house - the architecture of the house including plans, elevations and sections - the restoration with descriptions of original methodology and materials.