This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2014) |
Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion | |
---|---|
General information | |
Type | Boutique hotel |
Architectural style | Straits Chinese Eclectic |
Address | 14 Leith Street, 10200 George Town, Penang, Malaysia |
Town or city | George Town, Penang |
Country | Malaysia |
Coordinates | 5°25′17″N100°20′06″E / 5.421408°N 100.334947°E |
Groundbreaking | 1897 |
Completed | 1904 |
Renovated | 1995 |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 2 |
Website | |
cheongfatttzemansion | |
Type | Cultural |
Criteria | ii, iii, iv |
Designated | 2008 (32nd session) |
Reference no. | 1223 |
Region | Asia-Pacific |
The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion is a government gazetted heritage building located on Leith Street in George Town, Penang, Malaysia. The mansion's external decorations and indigo-blue outer walls make it a very distinctive building, and it is sometimes referred to as The Blue Mansion. [1] Built by the merchant Cheong Fatt Tze at the end of the 19th century, the mansion has 38 rooms, 5 granite-paved courtyards, 7 staircases and 220 vernacular timber louvre windows. [2] It served as Cheong's private residence as well as the seat of his business activities in Penang.
The mansion is eclectic, but mainly reflects Chinese architectural styles of the Imperial Period with some European elements such as louvered windows and metal balustrades. [3] Features of the house include Gothic louvred windows, Chinese cut and paste porcelain work, Stoke-on-Trent floor tiles made of encaustic clay in geometric pieces all shaped to fit to a perfect square, Glasgow cast iron works by MacFarlane's & Co. and Art Nouveau stained glass windows.
The mansion was originally built with careful attention to the principles of Feng Shui. The domestic annexe is built in front of it to prevent any road being built to create a T-junction in front of it; it has water running through a meandering network of pipes that begin from the eaves of the roof, channelled through the upper ceiling, down the walls collecting in the central courtyard before being channelled away from the property via a similar network of pipes, in this case, underneath the entire flooring system and is built with a step in the middle to create a slope (to ride on the dragon's back). The distinctive blue colour of the mansion is the result of mixing lime with natural blue dye made from the indigo plant. The blue was very popular in the Colonial period and the dye was imported from India to Penang by the British. The lime-wash was very effective in a tropical weather as it absorbed moisture and cooled the house whilst dispelling moisture without damage to the structural integrity of the walls. Though white was the most easily available colour, the indigo-blue was chosen because it was highly prized by all communities, adding stature to the mansion.
The mansion was purchased from Cheong Fatt Tze's descendants in 1989 by a group of local Penang individuals to save the edifice from encroaching development and possible demolition. The property operates as an 18 Room Hotel-cum-museum as part of the adaptive reuse of an ongoing restoration project which has won awards from UNESCO. Tours are offered in English three times a day to central parts of the house. In 2016, a restaurant called 'Indigo' opened on the first floor of the mansion. [4] The mansion has been featured in various films including the 1993 Oscar-winning French film Indochine starring Catherine Deneuve, The Red Kebaya, Road to Dawn , 3rd Generation and the critically acclaimed The Blue Mansion in 2009 by Singapore director Glen Goei of Forever Fever fame. The mansion has also been featured in programs broadcast on various international television channels (CNN, BCC, The History Channel, Discovery Travel & Living). Most recently the mansion served as one of the locations for the Hollywood blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians.
Indochine is a 1992 French period drama film set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s. It is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement. The screenplay was written by novelist Érik Orsenna, screenwriters Louis Gardel and Catherine Cohen, and director Régis Wargnier. The film stars Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Pérez, Linh Dan Pham, Jean Yanne and Dominique Blanc. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 65th Academy Awards, and Deneuve was nominated for Best Actress.
A shophouse is a building type serving both as a residence and a commercial business. It is defined in dictionary as a building type found in Southeast Asia that is "a shop opening on to the pavement and also used as the owner's residence", and became a commonly used term since the 1950s. Variations of the shophouse may also be found in other parts of Asia; in Southern China, Hong Kong, and Macau, it is found in a building type known as Tong lau, and in towns and cities in Sri Lanka. They stand in a terraced house configuration, often fronted with arcades or colonnades, which present a unique townscape in Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, and South China.
The Kek Lok Si Temple is a Buddhist temple within the city of George Town in the Malaysian state of Penang. Located at Ayer Itam, it is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia and an important pilgrimage centre for Buddhists from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia. The entire complex of temples was built over a period from 1890 to 1930, an inspirational initiative of Beow Lean, the abbot. The main feature of the complex is the seven-story Ten Thousand Buddhas Pagoda commissioned by the late Thai king Rama VI, featuring 10,000 alabaster and bronze statues of Buddha and the 36.57-metre-tall (120 ft) bronze statue of Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy. The 10,000 Buddhas concept belongs to the Chinese Mahāyāna school of Buddhism while Rama VI was king over a Theravāda country and Buddhist tradition.
Cheong Fatt Tze, also known as Tjong Tjen Hsoen, Thio Tiauw Siat or Zhang Bishi was a Chinese industrialist, politician and philanthropist. Spending the majority of his life residing in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, he was a powerful Nanyang business magnate and a first-class Mandarin of China; he was made Consul-General in Singapore and economic advisor. He was once regarded as the richest man in Malaya, with a reputed net worth of 80 million taels worth of silver, which brought him the moniker "the Rockefeller of China". He died in Batavia from pneumonia.
St. Xavier's Institution, at Farquhar Street in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, is the oldest Lasallian school in Southeast Asia and one of the Catholic Lasallian schools in Malaysia. While it has a history dating back to 1787, the present-day institution, named after St. Francis Xavier, was only established in 1852.
Teluk Bahang is a suburb of George Town within the Malaysian state of Penang. It is located 13.6 km (8.5 mi) west of the city centre near the northwestern tip of Penang Island. Established as a fishing village, Teluk Bahang has evolved into a tourist destination, with a number of attractions built within the vicinity of the town.
The architecture of Penang reflects the 171 years of British presence on the island, coalescing with local, Chinese, Indian, Islamic and other elements to create a unique and distinctive brand of architecture. Along with Malacca, Penang is an architectural gem of Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Unlike Singapore, also a Straits Settlement, where many heritage buildings had to make way for modern skyscrapers and high-rise apartments due to rapid development and acute land scarcity, Penang's architectural heritage has enjoyed a better fate. Penang has one of the largest collections of pre-war buildings in Southeast Asia. This is for the most part due to the Rent Control Act which froze house rental prices for decades, making redevelopment unprofitable. With the repeal of this act in 2000 however, property prices skyrocketed and development has begun to encroach upon these buildings, many of which are in a regrettable state of disrepair. The government in recent years has allocated more funding to finance the restoration of a number of derelict heritage buildings, most notably Suffolk House, City Hall and historic buildings in the old commercial district.
The Goddess of Mercy Temple, also known as Kuan Im Teng or Kong Hock Keong, is a Mahayana Buddhist temple within George Town in the Malaysian state of Penang. Located at Pitt Street, it was built in 1728, making it the oldest Buddhist temple in the state.
The Red Kebaya is a 2006 Malaysian period drama film released by Golden Screen Cinemas, directed by Oliver Knott and produced by Andre Berly and Ramli Hassan. The film premiered in Malaysian cinemas on 23 November 2006 and is rated PG13.
Hsieh Yung-kuan, Kapitein der Chinezen, also known as Cheah Meng Chi (謝夢池), Cheah Choon Seng or Tjia Tjoen Sen (謝春生), was a Hakka businessman and bureaucrat from Meixian, Guangdong, China, who was Chinese Vice Consul in Penang from 1895–1903 and from 1906-1907. He was also a founding director of the Deli Bank in Medan, Indonesia.
Medan Hokkien is a local variety of Hokkien spoken amongst Chinese Indonesians in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. It is the lingua franca in Medan as well as the surrounding cities in the state of North Sumatra. It is also spoken in some Medan Chinese migrant communities such as in Jakarta. Medan Hokkien is a subdialect of the Zhangzhou (漳州) Hokkien, particularly of Haicheng (海澄) subdialect. It borrows heavily from Teochew, Deli Malay and Indonesian.
Glen Goei is one of Singapore's leading film and theatre directors. His broad ranging body of work embraces the full gamut of the performing and visual arts and includes film, theatre, musicals, large scale shows, World Expos, dance, music, and architectural design.
The Blue Mansion is a 2009 film directed by Glen Goei. The film had its world premiere at the 14th Pusan International Film Festival and was released in Singaporean theatres in an edited NC16 version at the request of the distributor on 22 October 2009. The uncut version was classified M18 by the Media Development Authority. The film was the opening film of the Berlin Asian Hot Shots Film Festival 2010 and was in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2009 and the Shanghai International Film Festival 2010. It debuted in Kuala Lumpur on 18 March 2010 and was shown in Penang during the George Town Festival 2010.
Tjong A Fie Mansion is a Dutch colonial-style two-story mansion in Medan, North Sumatra, built by Tjong A Fie (1860–1921) a Hakka merchant who came to own much of the land in Medan through his plantations, later becoming 'Majoor der Chineezen' in Medan and constructing the Medan-Belawan railway.
The Lou Kau Mansion is a historical house in Sé, Macau, China. Built in 1889, the mansion is one of the designated historical sites in the Historic Centre of Macau, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Pinang Peranakan Mansion in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, is a museum dedicated to Penang's Peranakan heritage. The museum itself is housed within a distinctive green-hued mansion at Church Street, George Town, which once served as the residence and office of a 19th-century Chinese tycoon, Chung Keng Quee.
Penangite Chinese are ethnic Chinese Malaysians of full or partial Chinese ancestry who either hail from or live within the State of Penang. As of 2020, 45% of Penang's population belonged to the Chinese ethnic group, making ethnic Chinese the largest ethnic community within the state.
Leith Street is a narrow road within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the city of George Town within the Malaysian state of Penang. Once known as an enclave for rich Hakka tycoons, it is home to the famous Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Media related to Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion at Wikimedia Commons