Old Ceko Market (after)

On 15 June 2008, Kuching Ceko market in the heart of the city was shut down for future developments. Hawkers were all relocated to a newly built facility - Stutong market on the outskirt of the city.

The demolition date is still unknown. There is rumours that the hotel-shopping centre development might be aborted and a new scheme might be to extend the waterfront promenade. Whatever development might occur there, the most important heritage of Kuching will be lost forever. Adjacent businesses that closely associated with the markets are considerably affected as well as the livelihood of locals from nearby villages.

See link Kuching Sanctuary Hotel and Mall Kuching development

The market is currently devoid of life like a ghost town. The online article titled 'The last day of Ceko Market' recorded the account of incident around the time before and after the closure of the market. Recommended Read !

See link Old Ceko Market (before)

Below are some of the photos found at Flickr:


kuching city
Originally uploaded by ammirul7277


Garment Store Bazaar - 1929
Originally uploaded by framptop


Forceful notice
Originally uploaded by szejia


History
Originally uploaded by Michael Loke


Time Passing By
Originally uploaded by framptop


Kuching
Originally uploaded by Jason Ambarita


Old Kuching Wetmarket in HDR
Originally uploaded by sayap+dewa


Old Kuching Wetmarket in HDR
Originally uploaded by sayap+dewa


Old Kuching Wetmarket in HDR
Originally uploaded by sayap+dewa


Left behind all the memories
Originally uploaded by framptop


Nobody here
Originally uploaded by framptop


hdr-pasar ikan ceko/fish market(in memory)
Originally uploaded by eshump-moo-dane


It All Begin Here
Originally uploaded by framptop

Kuching Waterfront and the old markets

Photos show views from the same location - the eastern end of the Ceko old market overlooking
river edges of the Sarawak River. The southern edge (left of photo) is lined with market's buildings, dockyards. Fishing boats unload catches here at the loading docks (shown on second and third photo below). Sampan (small boat shown on the first photo) bring village residents from the northern side of the river to shop at the old markets everyday. Life like this has been going on for nearly a century.

"The wet markets are strategically sited. Boats bringing in produce can unload their goods at the back, while housewives on a shopping expedition approach the airy hall from the road." Quote from Sarawak sketchbook

Check this link to see the proposed plan to turn this stretch of waterfront into another modern leisure paradise which can be anywhere in the world. In other words, is this development necessary ? in the expense of one unique feature of the city? and also erasing city-working river relationship?

See post Kuching old Ceko Market


Kuching Waterfront 2
At Flickr by SamCotton

Photo by Desmond Ong

Photo by Desmond Ong

'Place of No Return' - the Transformation Ahead

If you are already familiar to Kuching's unique character, you can see this proposed development will drastically transform the opposite original waterfront to a planned city like Canberra or Putra Jaya.

http://sarawakdotcom.blogspot.com/2007/11/dewan-undangan-negeri.html

Sanctuary Hotel and Mall Kuching development

The building going to replace the current Ceko Market and Brooke Dockyard. The extent of adjacent old shops along Gambier Street and Jalan Pasar affected is unknown. I'd say the larger old precinct is threatened. Large part of Kuching's history will be erased.

See post Old Ceko Market (before)
See post Old Ceko Market (after)
See post Kuching waterfront and the old market
See external link Last day of Ceko Market


See link for more detail:
Kucing Berjanggut: Sanctuary Hotel and mall Kuching

An argument of our Contemporary City = Generic City

These are some of the important quotes argue against the current trend cities are transforming into modern monoculture:

"[Tragedy] I don't believe anyone will ever be able to make any city council understand that from an urbanistic point of view, the most attractive parts of the city are precisely those areas where nobody has ever done anything. I believe a city, by definition, wants to have something done in those areas. That is the tragedy." quote by Architect Rem Koolhaas & Designer Bruce Mau, published at S,M,L,XL

"The loss of Singapore's historic center foreshadows a disturbing global phenomenon. It is sad enough when a people and a city expunge their own cultural achievements, but in the twentieth century, throughout the world, where historic architecture in old cities is lost, it is frequently replaced with the new architecture of an international modern monoculture. Whether in northern or southern climates, in Asia, African, European, or American cultures, the generic buildings of modern development change little in response to their geographic and social surroundings. Just as American fast-food chains offer identical dishes, with the same names, in the same wrappers, by waiters in matching uniforms, so most of the new architecture of Singapore primarily reflects the economic formulas of modern speculative development." quote by Anthony Tung, published at Preserving the World's Great Cities. The destruction and renewal of the historic metropolis

From Louisana Manifesto, architect Jean Nouvel stated : "In 2005, more than ever, architecture is annihilating places, banalizing them, violating them. Sometimes it replaces the landscape, creates it in its own image, which is nothing but another way of effacting it. "........ "The global economy is accentuating the effects of the dominant architecture, the type that claims “we don’t need context”. And yet debate on this galloping frenzy does not exist: architectural criticism, invoking the limits of the discipline, is content with aesthetic and stylistic reflections devoid of any analysis of the real, and ignores the crucial historical clash that – more insistently every day – sets a global architecture against an architecture of situations, generic architecture against an architecture of specificity. Is our modernity today simply the direct descendant of the modernity of the 20th century, devoid of any spirit of criticism? Does it consist simply of parachuting solitary objects on to the face of the planet? Shouldn’t it rather be looking for reasons, correspondences, harmonies, differences in order to propose an ad-hoc architecture, here and now? " ......."In the name of the pleasure of living on this Earth, we must resist the urbanism of zones, networks and grids, the automatic rot that is obliterating the identity of the cities of all continents, in all climates, feeding on cloned offices, cloned dwellings, cloned shops, thirsting for the already thought, the already seen in order to avoid thinking and seeing."

"Distinctiveness is key, for although cities draw from each others' experiences the danger is that pioneering cities around the world quickly become textbook case studies for city officials. Cities then tend to adopt generic models of success without taking into account the local characteristic and conditions that contributed to those successes. The result is a homogeneous pastiche of buildings - aquariums, convention centres, museums, shops and restaurants - that prove to be remarkably similar the world over." Quoted from The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators

State Assembly Building at the river front #1

Sarawak State Assembly Building (under construct.)
At Flickr by netaholic13

The DUN - Dewan Undangan Negeri (State Legislative Assembly building). The bulk size of this building will dominant the skyline of Kuching city. It is built on the site where originally covered with thick vegetation prominently forms the unique image of Kuching. Now with the clearing had been done to the water edge, you can see the beginning of urbanising the other side of the river.