Fort Alice Conservation 05

Exhibition Design for the new Sri Aman Regional Museum at the restored Fort Alice.

 Kenny the Main Contractor and his boys are busy dismantling and recording everything, and we expect more images of that process soon. In the meantime, I thought I would share some of our design ideas for the museum exhibition design.

We are the exhibition designers for the museum that will occupy the conserved fort building. Our design will minimise the use of mechanical and electrical systems, and we are going to have it as a naturally ventilated building, just as it was until the 1950s or so. This means that the exhibitions will have to be carefully considered so that they don't need climate control - certainly no nineteenth century texts or photographs here! However, we are aiming to get copyright to use large prints of a range of period materials currently kept in collections not held by the Sarawak Museum.

The first floor of the fort will be protected by mosquito netting throughout, so prohibit the ingress of insects, and some parts will also have calico curtains, as the fort had in the 1870s - the curtains can be seen in Alexander Hill Grey's 1875 photographs of the fort, which we don't have copyright to publish on this blog. 

The exhibitions will be divided into two sections - first, reconstructions of the courtroom, court offices, Resident's lounge and Resident's bedroom. This will be done with a combination of objects and furniture from the Sarawak Museum's collection, as well as new reproduction furniture to give the viewer a good idea as to how the building was used in the nineteenth century. The second section consists of displays which outline the history of Fort Alice and forts in Sarawak, the history and development of Sri Aman, the history and culture of the Lower Lupar River's inhabitants, including Ibans, Malays and Chinese, and finally a 'conservation corner' which will outline the restoration process and display some of the elements of the building that could not be re-used.

Views of the preliminary design for the Room Reconstructions
A note on the images: I prefer line drawings over renderings, and in the design stage it is a better tool. Renderings hide too much detail for me.

A view above of the reconstructed courtroom. The elevated court dias is at the eastern end of the courtroom, with a timber partition separating it from other rooms at the eastern end. We've chosen a setup from the 1930s, which shows the courtroom with defendant's and witness's boxes, and a timber balustrade dividing the judges' and lawyers' table. examples of this setup can also be seen in photographs of the Kapit fort around that time.  An earlier version of the court setup can be seen in the recreation of from a photograph at the Marudi Museum, in Fort Hose.

This is a view from the central entry tower, facing the river. This is a view of the western end of the courtroom, showing the fort's reconstructed offices behind a timber balustrade. The benches are for the court audience, which face to the left of the image, where the judges sat. Valuable objects confiscated from inhabitants of the river, like old jars, gongs and heads were kept behind this balustrade. These were usually confiscated as punishment for legal or political transgressions.

Another view of the main courtroom, from the other side of the office, behind the balustrade. This was a more private side of the building, not accessible to the public.

A view from the southwest corner of the main block of the fort - you can see the judges' chairs at the far right, with the gun rack behind that. The walled up room in the middle is where we believe the Resident's bedroom was. It has no windows to the outside as we think that, as a fort, access to the defensive lattice around the building was required at all times. On the left is the recreation of the Resident's lounge, in the northwestern corner of the main block.

A view of the reconstructed Resident's bedroom, viewed through a new opening in the new timber wall. The fittings reflect a time when European men had help to get dressed.

Views of the preliminary designs for the Exhibition Spaces

A view of the exhibition area in the rear block or wing of the building. The view is taken from the southwest corner of the rear block, and you can see down its length to the right. On the left is the Resident's lounge and bedroom. The panels will have large images (or collages of images) mounted on them, and we are researching the best way to do this, so that they are easily cleanable, resistant to light and the weather. We are also working out a system whereby the image panels can be replaced when they eventually fade. Unfortunately, all printed images will fade over a number of years if not protected from natural light, but these will be digital images that will be easily reproduced by the Museum when the time comes, as part of regular maintenance.

 

A more detailed view of the display panels - their size is subject to change, as we are still designing it. Other objects may be placed on plinths under the timber latices, but they need to be able to be left in the naturally ventilated rooms.