New mission to make Fort Cornwallis, Penang, a must-visit, and not-boring, experience
Loh-Lim Lin Lee: “We want you to leave Fort Cornwallis, saying “Wow”. In two years’ time, nobody will come to Penang without visiting the Fort.”
For the psychologist-lecturer-turned-conservator-researcher, who pioneered story telling in Penang and brought the story of 19th century Chinese merchant Cheong Fatt Tze to life, through the Blue Mansion, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a storyteller in conservation and heritage.
“The technology is so exciting, whether it’s Augmented Reality, AI or audio,” said Loh-Lim Lin Lee who, with her architect husband, Laurence, restored the 19th century mansion in Penang in the early 1990s and opened it as a boutique hotel, blazing the trail for others to follow. Speaking at WiT Indie in Penang last week, she spoke of how and why she introduced guided tours of the mansion to give the public access to the house. “The house was a place where people lived, ate and celebrated life’s events and we wanted to share that feeling with everyone, not just hotel guests.”
The guided tours still run two or three times a day and are often sold out. Lin Lee guides a tour personally once a week. There are also self-guided audio tours and she says both do equally well. “There doesn’t seem to be much difference in age or demographic, the price is the same – RM25. I suppose it’s a question of preference,” she adds.
The newly-renovated south moat of Fort Cornwallis. Photo credit: Think City
Today, she is bringing her knack of storytelling and love of history to the RM20 million Fort Cornwallis restoration project, spearheaded by the George Town Conservation and Development Corporation, a collaborative venture between the Penang Chief Minister Incorporated and Think City, with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture serving as the technical advisor.
The project involves excavation and restoration of the fort’s century-old moats as well as conversion of its conserved storerooms into a museum, slated to open its doors by the end of this year, “offering visitors insights into the fort’s storied past through curated displays and exhibits”, according to Think City managing director Hamdan Abdul Majeed.
Lin Lee’s role in the project is “museology and interpretation”.
She knows she has a hard task ahead of her. A recent poll based on an analysis of Google review data on more than 3,500 tourist attractions worldwide placed Fort Cornwallis as the second most boring attraction, after the Water Puppet Show in Hanoi.
Laughing, she says, “I guess our objective is to make it not the second most boring. A historic site is not worth anything without effective interpretations. The 10 restored store rooms will be turned into historical timelines. We are going to make a visit to the fort an entire interpretative experience with storytelling, audio, videos and AI, and have lots of activities – such as giving kids little bricks – like Lego – made of the same material as the Fort so they can play and create.
“Fort Cornwallis played a critically important role during World War 2 and we will tell the story in engaging ways. We found three pre-war bicycles, and we will use AI to create images of Japanese soldiers, to animate the whole story.”
“One story not often told is how after the British surrendered, the Japanese were still bombing Penang and two men climbed up to the top of the fort, waved a white flag to declare, ‘we’ve surrendered, stop bombing us’.”
You can see Lin Lee’s eyes light up as she talks about how she and her team will bring the Fort’s history to life and make it engaging to visitors. “It’s amazing what you can create now. We want you to leave Fort Cornwallis, saying “Wow”. In two years’ time, nobody will come to Penang without visiting the Fort.”
Asked to name a historical attraction which has made good use of technology to tell its story, Lin Lee picked the Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian, China. (Video credit: Lin Lee)
“It is the most significant archaeological find in mankind’s history. The challenge is, how do you make archaeology interesting? It is the most important discovery by man, yet it is the least visited among Beijing’s attractions. And when you think about it, the Peking Man is just one skull whereas in Malaysia, we have the Perak Man, which is a full man. So how do you tell an engaging story around one skull?
“The old museum was boring, so they built a whole new museum using AI – where kids can play games with prehistoric animals. There is an immersive projection room which tells the whole story of the Peking Man. There are projections on the rocks and you feel you’re living with him, running, hunting … ”
Fighting the Blue Mansion’s early war – “it nearly bankrupted us”
Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion: “Approach conservation with humility. It is somebody else’s genius, not your design, so you have to slowly, gently let that building reveal its secrets to you.”
Lin Lee and Laurence, who run Arkitek LLA, fought their own war with the Blue Mansion. After acquiring the house around 1989, it took them six years to complete the repairs. Then in 1996, the construction of a nearby high-rise car park block using percussion hammer piling caused extensive damage to the mansion.
“We were seeing these cracks appear on the walls, it was terrifying,” recalls Lin Lee. The ensuing legal battle to have the construction stopped took “nearly four years of our lives. It nearly bankrupted us”.
Their fortitude and perseverance paid off. “Because of what happened to us, the state government issued a blanket ban on hamper piling in the entire Georgetown area and in 2008, Georgetown got UNESCO World Heritage status. It was a big victory,” says Lin Lee.
After the legal battles came the next part – what to do with it? “Just because you have a lovely building doesn’t mean it will be successful,” she says.
While Lin Lee says it is important to have a business plan, “Laurence and I didn’t know what we were doing. We just wanted to save this incredible building. I always joke, Cheong Fatt Sze called us, come save my house.
“Today, when someone buys a heritage house, they pretty know what they want to do – hotel, café, restaurant, gallery. It wasn’t like that back then. Where we are today is not where we started, we are not hoteliers. We had stacks of business proposals about what we could do with it, lots of possibilities, but none of them felt right. One was to turn it into an exclusive town club, much like the China Club in Hong Kong, where only the elite would gather.
“It’s important to do what feels right. Cheong Fatt Tze had this large extended family, they ate, slept, lived, celebrated life events – everyone who was part of the clan was welcome.
“It felt right to recreate that. The tours allow the public to access the house, it allows people to come in and be inspired. I end my tour by saying, “if one of you rescues a house, my job is done.”
“I had a tour the other day with a Sri Lankan family, and after the tour, the six-year-old kid, in the gift shop, told his parents, “Let’s do this back home”.”
Her advice to anyone wanting to restore buildings? “Approach conservation with humility. It is somebody else’s genius, not your design, so you have to slowly, gently let that building reveal its secrets to you.”
She adds, “It helps to bring in a younger voice – the next generation. My son, Shen, has brought a new flavour to it, used technology to build up the business and broaden the audience.”
Asked to name a heritage accommodation that impressed her recently, she cited an Airbnb which is a restored madrasah in Khiva, Uzbekistan. “Madrasahs have central courtyards and this one we stayed in has made full use of the central courtyard and you can really enjoy having tea in the open space.”
A madrasah converted into an Airbnb in Khiva, Uzbekistan. Photo: Loh-Lim Lin Lee
Lin Lee has her own independent criteria for picking heritage buildings that can be turned into gems – “a significant event took place, a significant person lived there, it’s aesthetically beautiful and has a rarity factor”.
“And you have to let the stories reveal themselves to you. Our tours got more interesting over time, as we learnt more and more about this amazing visionary who lived here. Cheong Fatt Tze was more than a merchant, he was someone who saw possibilities. A wine lover, he invested in the Chang Yu winery in 1892. Today, that company supplies up to 25% of all Western wines in China, making it the country’s most successful Western wine producer.”
Asked if she’d ever recreate Cheong Fatt Tze using AI to have him be the tour guide, she laughs, “No, no, it won’t sell. People are already afraid of ghosts.”