Delusion of Grandeur: from one generation to the next?

Years ago, when I came back from UK, I wondered about the Komtar building which seemed to stick out of Penang Island like a sore thumb, or a phallus symbol if you like. At the time, it must have been 4-5 times the number of storeys of its nearest rival high rise building.

For years, it was an object of neglect because of it being out of place and especially out of reality during those early years of 70s and 80s when Penang was not ready for such a high rise building. There was even a fire which proved beyond our fire department's capability to handle.

It was launched by Tun Razak himself with a symbolic pile in 1974. Now, 36 years later, his son being the 6th Premier, seems to have a similar urge to launch another tower above all others. Have we not learned from that lesson? Pakatan government was handed this monster of a building to sort out in 2008 and they managed to do a good job. It would have been better without having to have this humongous building to deal with, especially when the objective is to save public expenditure.

Looking ahead, if ever Pakatan Rakyat could take over Putrajaya, many BN leaders would envy in terms of the glamour of the PM living in such a palatial setting, but a sensible PR leader would find the upkeep difficult to justify, unlike our present PM who could even consider a Rm65 million renovation allocation for an already luxurious official residence. I cannot help repeating the comparison with British PM's No.10 Downing Street which is nothing more than a big terrace house! We natives seem to have a higher expectation than those damned colonialists!

Excerpts and pictures from Wikipedia:

KOMTAR (Full Name: Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak), or more accurately KOMTAR Tower (Menara KOMTAR in Malay) is Penang's tallest building and the sixth tallest building in Malaysia. It is located in the heart of George Town. When the skyscraper topped out it was the tallest building in Asia. However, by the time construction was completed it had however been surpassed by Seoul's Korean Life Insurance Building (KLI 63 Building).

The 65-storey tower is a 12-sided geometric block, 760 ft (232m) tall, sitting atop a 4-storey podium. The complex comprises office and retail commercial space as well as public and recreational facilities. It was designed by Architects Team 3 (AT3) of Singapore.[1]

KOMTAR occupies an 11-hectare site and is the single most ambitious urban renewal project undertaken by Penang Development Corporation, the development arm of thePenang state government. The master plan is divided into five phases for implementation. The complex is named in honour of the second Prime Minister of Malaysia, the late Tun Abdul Razak bin Hussein. The first piling of the building's phase one was done by Tun Razak himself on 1 January 1974. Part of the complex's first phase podium block was completed in 1978.

Today, the five phases of development are still in various stages of completion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOMTAR



Fire
In January 1983, a fire broke out at the 43rd floor of the building and destroyed the floors above it. Firemen were unable to put out the flames as it was too high up. The flames eventually burnt out after approximately eight hours. The building was still under construction at that time and it was the worst highrise fire in the country after the Campbell Shopping Complex and the Bank Bumiputra fires, both of which took place in Kuala Lumpur.
KOMTAR Revitalisation Project

The podium block on which the tower sits on is the KOMTAR Shopping Complex, Penang's oldestshopping mall, the first phase of which was opened in December 1976. The long-time anchor tenant at the mall, Super Komtar, a local department store chain folded in 2005. Another department store, Aktif Lifestyle occupying the adjoining block, has also ceased operations. Both sites have since been left vacant and the KOMTAR shopping precinct continues its demise.

In May 2008, the new Penang State Government reaffirmed its commitment to revitalise KOMTAR by calling off the relocation plan of its administrative offices to Bayan Mutiara. Upgrading works at KOMTAR Shopping Complex were completed in December 2008. A new anchor tenant named 'Pacific' took over as the main anchor tenant. With a floor space of over 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2), business commenced on 17 December 2008. Chief

Minister Lim Guan Eng opened the new Pacific Department Store & Supermarket Komtar. In 2009, Komtar Walk was opened outside Pacific's main entrance. It features food stalls and an open space.

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