The Townhouse and Temple On Church Street
In Georgetown, Penang Chung, Keng Quee became known as the city's great connoisseur of architecture.
In 1893, Chung, Keng Quee acquired two adjacent properties along Church Street on Penang Island. The first was the former headquarters of the Ghee Hin - the Hai San had ousted them in the 1870s. The second was a Chinese school, the Goh Hock Tong (or Ng Fook Tong in Cantonese) meaning Five Luck Villa. He offered the school an alternative site in Chulia Street, where a new building was completed on 1898.
Chung, Keng Quee converted the former Ghee Hin headquarters into his townhouse and office and named this, Hye Kee Chan (海记栈), or Sea Remembrance Store. It has interior fittings including Victorian cast iron columns from Walter Macfarlane & Co of Glasgow (also known as The Saracen Foundry).
Macfarlane was also responsible for the beautiful iron gates and fencing of the former Five Luck Villa building which was converted into a personal temple (Shen-chih hsueh-shu where Shen-chih was his fancy name and hsueh-shu means a traditional-style private family school).
In the temple stands a life-size bronze statue of Chung Keng Quee. The statue was commissioned by the Engineers' Institute that he had generously donated a new building to. It was created by Benjamin Creswick and a facsimilie of it was shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1903. On the base of the statue will be found the signature of Benjamin Creswick, and an imprint, Broad and Sons, the bronze founders in Birmingham who cast the statue.
Today, Hye Kee Chan is more commonly known as the Pinang Peranakan Mansion. Open to the public, it serves as a museum showcasing the lifestyle, customs and traditions of the Peranakans or Straits Chinese - an example of adaptive reuse.
Read more about this topic: Chung Keng Quee
Famous quotes containing the words temple, church and/or street:
“The divinity in man is the true vestal fire of the temple which is never permitted to go out, but burns as steadily and with as pure a flame on the obscure provincial altar as in Numa’s temple at Rome.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In my dreams is a country where the State is the Church and the Church the people: three in one and one in three. It is a commonwealth in which work is play and play is life: three in one and one in three. It is a temple in which the priest is the worshiper and the worshiper the worshipped: three in one and one in three. It is a godhead in which all life is human and all humanity divine: three in one and one in three.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Christopher Cross: You shouldn’t be alone in the street so late at night.
Kitty March: I was coming home from work.
Christopher Cross: You work this late?
Kitty March: Mmm, hmmm.
Christopher Cross: What do you do?
Kitty March: Guess.
Christopher Cross: You’re an actress.
Kitty March: Oh, you are clever!”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)