The quest for an architectural identity in Malaysia is a post-colonial response to the need to build a nation and to the fact that there was no discernible national architectural style when the country, then known as Malaya, became independent in 1957. There was, however, a rich tradition of vernacular housing embodied in the kampung house; and it was the kampung house which first provided Hijjas with a reference point.

The kampung house is characterised by a high-pitched roof with gables at either end. The house is raised on stilts and has shuttered windows, usually with a decorative, carved timber fanlight above. The stairs at the front lead to the anjung, a covered public porch where guests are greeted and the family relaxes.

The other key spaces are the elevated serambi or verandah, and the rumah ibu, the private part of the house. These are traditional elements which have been played out in contemporary Malaysian architecture for a long time but more so since the 1960s, either explicitly or implicitly. In the case of HKAS, vernacular and Islamic elements have tended to be subtle and implicit.

The post-war period also saw substantial migration from rural areas to the cities, creating a demand for new housing, schools, hospitals and office buildings, even new satellite cities such as Petaling Jaya.

Located just outside Kuala Lumpur, construction in this area began in 1953. The functionalism of the International Style lent itself to the urgent need in the 1950s and 1960s to provide shelter and amenities in the fast-growing cities. It was simple and economical and offered an aura of modernity in contrast with the over-designed and retrogressive colonial architecture.

But things began to change in the 1970s with the introduction of reinforced and prestressed concrete and curtain walling. HKAS saw the rapid introduction of new technologies, including computers, as a challenge which involved thinking big, taking risks and taking responsibility for constructing a quality built environment serving the contemporary needs of the new Malaysia—by now one of Asia’s emerging ‘tiger economies’.

Accordingly, in the mid-1980s, the practice took on the role of pacesetter. In the process, a set of themes emerged which, in different permutations, have characterised the majority of the buildings to come out of HKAS.

HKAS’ driving force has been its empirical and exploratory approach, avoiding formulaic self-repetition by starting every project with the assumption that it is unique: a unique client, a unique programme and a unique context. There are always the givens of compliance and common requirements. It is the not-givens that trigger the firm’s sometimes lengthy, sometimes rapid internal design processes.

Hijjas himself speaks of three key considerations which he credits the late Australian architect Harry Seidler for spelling out to him: rationality, economy and aesthetics.

Rationality is a legacy of his Western training in a Modernist ethic—namely, that there needs to be a rational reason for any decision to do with how the building is built. Hence, the importance of repeatedly asking ‘Why?’ until an irrefutable answer is forthcoming. Economy is about showing respect for the client’s budget and an ethical commitment not to waste resources.

Finally, the building not only needs to have a powerful aesthetic presence, but that presence needs to be coherent and also to answer the question: ‘Why?’. In other words, there is no room for gratuitous decoration or visual statements. In the work of HKAS, vernacular and Islamic expressions are never mere pictorial borrowings. Instead, they are abstracted into archetypes which resonate at subliminal levels for the observer. Moreover, they are integrated into the form of the building, rather than applied to its surface, so that they become an expression of the form and material of the building.

The interaction of art and architecture is a constant theme in the work of HKAS, Hijjas’ unitary vision, epitomised in his own residential compound, Rimbun Dahan. For most of their public buildings, HKAS specifies public art and landscaping — for example, the fountains and sculpture at Menara Apera-ULG, and the landscaping, water feature and sculpture at Menara Maybank.

A complementary theme, and largely one Hijjas’ is predisposed towards, is namely the preoccupation with rhythm which so often lends buildings their elegance. This rhythm is often a function of countervailing tensions or an equilibrium of opposites: weight versus lightness, monumentality versus human scale, density versus transparency, regularity versus asymmetry, and linearity versus the curvilinear.

HKAS has always had a bioclimatic bias, wanting to work with the climate, not against it. Passive solutions to heat, humidity and heavy, driving rain link the entire history of architecture in Malaysia and Southeast Asia— although the introduction of air-conditioning in the late 1940s often proved to be a disincentive, with the erection of inappropriate glass curtain wall buildings and large areas of exposed concrete generating massive ambient heat.

From the late 1990s, HKAS reinforced its commitment to passive climate control strategies (sun-shading, natural ventilation and landscaping) by engaging with the notion of the intelligent building and ensuring that services are as efficient as possible (for example, significantly more cost-effective and environmentally friendly underfloor air-conditioning).

This commitment can be attributed to the transition taking place in the practice, led by Serina Hijjas and the office’s younger generation, that gravitates towards a different sense of place, a different kind of content, and a different type of responsibility for a building.

Malaysia today is a part of a global economy and a global culture. Whatever one thinks of that, it is a fact that the contemporary sense of identity where we see ourselves and our culture as very much a function of the multifarious interactions which take place in our lives.

Hence, where HKAS’s buildings were once powerful, uncompromising and unified, delivering their message in a single, bold statement, now perhaps they are more of a conversation.

The once unified form is breaking down into a cluster of separate but complementary forms, the façade is becoming more playful and ambiguous and the internal spaces less fixed and ceremonial, and more fluid and interactive.

This diversity, as both process and solution, is reflected in HKAS’ enthusiasm for entering competitions — to ensure that the practice continues to reinvent itself by taking on new challenges. It has had considerable involvement in the administrative capital of Malaysia, Putrajaya, which led to projects in the Middle East, including a university in Riyadh, various master plans, and residential and mixed-use developments.

The Malaysian government was determined to further open up and modernise its economy through initiatives in energy efficiency and sustainability, which was in turn a response to Europe’s ‘intelligent building’ drive of the ‘80s.

A similar European phenomenon, the ‘humanised’ office tower, was also emerging and led by Foster Associates (now Foster and Partners) where Serina worked until 1991. Foster’s influence would carry over into the HKAS studio – and Menara Telekom – upon Serina’s return, resulting in a complementary partnership between her and Hijjas, he focusing on the planning and sculptural aspects while she focused on the sky gardens and the detailing. Foster’s Commerzbank in Frankfurt would in part inspire the building, but initially three schemes were put to the client – ‘to test ourselves’, as Hijjas puts it.

Both for HKAS and for Malaysia, the building was highly innovative. Growing familiarisation with computers enabled the firm to take on increasingly complex engineering challenges; working with consultants, the firm pushed its computer sophistication further, exemplifying the new trend to work with international consultants and suppliers.

HKAS’ collaboration with Australian structural engineer Peter Gabor allowed Menara Telekom to achieve 16-metre free-span office areas devoid of any internal columns. The partially prestressed structural system also allowed sky gardens to fill the triangular voids between the core and the office wings on every third floor, alternating on either side of the tower. A 21-storey steel antenna tower extends the torsioned form to the top on one side, while the shorter elevation terminates in a helipad.

The building also uses a mix of air-conditioning and natural ventilation. The sky gardens are crucial in that regard, not just for accessing fresh air but for reducing ambient temperatures (by 3–4°C in the case of Menara Telekom), acting as buffer zones between the interior and exterior climates and ameliorating the impact of the tropical climate in general. The sky gardens also shade east and west elevations, and give building users the convenient opportunity to retreat to the outdoors that is closer than the ground floor lobby.

The tower continued HKAS’ interest in pure curved forms as a means of achieving greater expression. Serina argues that there is still a preference for the single, unified form in Malaysian architecture and maintains it remains Hijjas’ preference, but not without first a constructive debate within the practice about future directions: unified form as against dematerialised form; a single, intense and immediate experience of the building as against a layering of experiences; instant recognition as against gradual revelation.

The Malaysian government was determined to further open up and modernise its economy through initiatives in energy efficiency and sustainability, which was in turn a response to Europe’s ‘intelligent building’ drive of the ‘80s.

A similar European phenomenon, the ‘humanised’ office tower, was also emerging and led by Foster Associates (now Foster and Partners) where Serina worked until 1991. Foster’s influence would carry over into the HKAS studio – and Menara Telekom – upon Serina’s return, resulting in a complementary partnership between her and Hijjas, he focusing on the planning and sculptural aspects while she focused on the sky gardens and the detailing. Foster’s Commerzbank in Frankfurt would in part inspire the building, but initially three schemes were put to the client – ‘to test ourselves’, as Hijjas puts it.

At the boulevard’s southern terminus is the elevated Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC) which reinforces the metaphor of Malaysia’s global role. Typologically, the building is related to the Bintulu Development Authority in that it grows out of the hill on which it sits. Its elliptical form is metaphorically related to the pending perak, a ceremonial belt buckle, as a Malaysian cultural archetype.

PICC differs from a typical convention centre in that it has a radial plan. The gull-wing roof is as imposing and volatile as any of the others designed by HKAS during this period and tops the two upper levels which emerge, highly transparent, out of the crown of the hill.

The correlating round horizontals planes of PICC, Dataran Gemilang and the half-ring of four high-rise towers — the tallest 4G11 Tower also designed by HKAS — contrive to give prominence to Putrajaya’s urban skyline at its southern-most tip.

Where PICC used the pending as a visual code, the boulevard references the cross-weaving of traditional Malay crafts such as rattan baskets, pandan mats and songket (a brocade textile featuring textured cross-weaving in gold and silk, often used for ceremonial shoulder cloths). The cross-weaving of the songket, in particular, is reflected in the boulevard’s paving and softscape design, and would be a recurring motif in HKAS’ explorations.

This is one reason why he has always had a problem with the more literal-minded applications of cultural identity to built forms: they imply a static culture, more like a museum artefact than a living culture. HKAS’ recent and current work — now rebranded as HIJJAS Architects + Planners — confirms its ability to exploit contemporary materials to generate metaphors appropriate for the character and aspirations of contemporary cultures.

Beginnings has been adapted from the 2008 book Concrete Metal Glass: Hijjas Kasturi Associates, Selected Works 1977–2007 by Edition Didier Millet. Video from Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia.