views from above and below: the petronas twin towers and/in ...

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 20(1), 1999, 1-23 Copyright 1999 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, and Blackwell Publishers Ltd

INTRODUCTION

In 1996, the Petronas Twin Towers was “toppedout” becoming, for a time, the tallest buildingin the world. The building consists of twoidentical towers 452m in height and joined by askybridge at the 41st and 42nd stories (Figure 1).Named after the state oil company whose newheadquarters occupy one half of the building,the Petronas Towers forms part of a largerdevelopment project – the so-called KualaLumpur City Centre (KLCC) – which, at itsunveiling in 1992, was described as being“among the largest real estate developmentsin the world” (Mahathir, 1992:np). In additionto the Petronas Towers, phase 1 of KLCCincluded a Concert Hall for the newly-createdMalaysian Philharmonic Orchestra; a luxuryhotel, the Mandarin Oriental; two further office

VIEWS FROM ABOVE AND BELOW: THE PETRONASTWIN TOWERS AND/IN CONTESTING VISIONS OFDEVELOPMENT IN CONTEMPORARY MALAYSIA

Tim BunnellDepartment of Geography, National University of Singapore,

Singapore

ABSTRACT

Large-scale urban transformation in Malaysia is the most visible sign of the rapid developmentwhich has accompanied the premiership of the current Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. Thenational capital, Kuala Lumpur, has seen the development of a new city centre (Kuala Lumpur CityCentre, KLCC) which includes the world’s tallest building, the Petronas Twin Towers. Usingtechniques from cultural geography, this paper provides a “reading” of the building. The paperfirst considers the symbolic role of the Petronas Towers in realising a state vision of nationaldevelopment, the so-called Vision 2020. The building is seen to both image Malaysia as a “worldclass” national player (and Kuala Lumpur as a “world city”) as well as to promote new “ways ofseeing” among national citizens. However, the paper also considers ways in which intendedsymbolic meanings are contested and the would-be hegemonic state vision reworked “from below”through everyday experiences of life in the city and the nation.

blocks, Ampang Tower and Esso Tower; and a50-acre “public park”. KLCC is being built onthe site of the former colonial racecourse offJalan Ampang and marks a north-eastwardexpansion of Kuala Lumpur’s main commercialdistrict, the so-called Golden Triangle Area(GTA) from Jalan Raja Chulan and Jalan SultanIsmail (Figure 2).

At one level, this new “city within a city”(KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd., circa. 1996a:7), andthe Petronas Towers in particular, may beunderstood in terms of regional economicchange. In the mid-1990s, KLCC was oneamong myriad “Urban Megaprojects” (Olds,1995) in what was commonly considered to bean economically “miraculous” Asia Pacific (see,

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Source: KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd. (circa. 1996b) Kuala Lumpur City Centre. Marketing, brochure, np.

Figure 1. The Petronas Twin Towers.

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for example, World Bank, 1993). Malaysia wascartographically, discursively and economicallyvery much part of this “new Asia” (Noordin,1996). Economic recession in the mid-1980s inMalaysia had been followed by a period ofunprecedented growth. The Sixth MalaysiaPlan period (1991-95) was described as “amomentus period of rapid progress” with anaverage increase of 8.7 per cent (Malaysia,1996:3-5). It was, of course, no coincidencethat this period also bore witness to a dramatic

transformation of urban fabric in the nationalcapital, Kuala Lumpur, and around the GTA inparticular. The tall building remains the mostprofitable use of valuable city centre land.

The aim of this paper, however, is not toexplain the general phenomenon of urbantransformation or the rise of “spectacularspace” (King, 1996:97) in Asia-Pacific cities.The paper focuses, rather, on a specificmegaproject site, KLCC, and a particular

Source: KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd. (circa. 1996b) Kuala Lumpur City Centre. Marketing brochure, np.

Figure 2. KLCC and the Golden Triangle Area (GTA).

The Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia 3

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building within this, the Petronas Towers.While a capitalist reordering of space andsociety in Asian cities is undoubtedly animportant explanatory context for urban(re)development, the Petronas Towers cannotbe understood merely as a function of landvalues. For one, given the extra costs anddiminishing returns from building very tall, itmight be suggested that the construction ofskyscrapers in general is actually“uneconomic” (cf. Huxtable, 1984). The 88-storey Petronas Towers has no lettable spaceabove the 84th floor and is topped byfunctionless spires which enabled the buildingto eclipse the previous “world’s tallest” recordheld by Chicago’s Sears Tower. Like many otherskyscrapers, the Petronas Towers was built forsymbolic as well as functional reasons. In orderto interrogate this symbolism and to answerthe question of “why the Petronas Towers?”,it is necessary to consider the ideas andintentions of the proponents of the buildingas much as any macro-level economic forces.

One of the key proponents of the PetronasTwin Towers is the Malaysian Prime Minister,Mahathir Mohamad (Milne & Mauzy, 1999).Mahathir had acquired a reputation forambitious, “highly visible” nationalindustrialisation projects long before theunveiling of KLCC (Bowie, 1991:131). In 1988,for example, work began on the 869 km North-South Highway which now spans the entirewest coast of Peninsula Malaysia from the Thaiborder in the north to Johor Baru in the south(Naidu, 1995). However, there were morehistorically specific political and economicfoundations for KLCC. Economic recoveryfrom 1988 appeared to vindicate Mahathir’sprivatising policy prescriptions. He, like thecountry as a whole, appeared finally to haveemerged from a period of political insecurityand uncertainty. A series of “monumental”public works were founded on this new stablepersonal and national ground (Harper, 1996).Unveiled by Mahathir himself in September1992, the KLCC set a trend for high-profileinfrastructure projects with “megacharacteristics” (Cartier, 1998:157). Such was

the scale and importance of real estate andconstruction that Malaysia came to bedescribed as an “infrastructure-driveneconomy” (Lopez, 1998).

Large-scale infrastructure projects weregeared towards and symbolic of a new nationaldevelopment strategy associated with thePrime Minister. Wawasan 2020 (Vision 2020),promoted and popularised following a speechby Mahathir in 1991, has the purported aim ofturning Malaysia into a “fully developedcountry” by that year (Mahathir, 1993:403).The Prime Minister has since been describedas the “architect of developed Malaysia”(Asian Editor, 1997:29), the “master planner”who is “rebuilding Malaysia his own way”(Time, 1996:front cover). Such descriptions maybe said to be both symptomatic of andcontributing towards popular understandingsof contemporary development in terms of anomnipotent leader transcending history,geography and politics, unrestrained in hisattempts to fashion Malaysia in his own image.Yet, as Khoo Boo Tiek in his “intellectualbiography” of the Malaysian Prime Ministerreminds us, Mahathir remains influenced by,as well as an influence upon, events; like anyother leader, he is both “representative” and“peremptory” (Khoo, 1995:xxi). Vision 2020demands contextualisation in historical debateson post-colonial Malaysian development andnational identity.

While recent work has problematised theterm “post-colonial” for its assumption that “acertain weight and significance be attached tocolonialism” (Watson, 1996:302), the “colonialperiod” is a useful starting point forcontemporary debates on multiculturalism,development and national identity in Malaysia.Apart from the long-established role of thecolonial economy in the construction of pluralsocieties in Southeast Asia (Furnivall, 1939),the three generalised communities of post-colonial Malaysia – Malays, Chinese andIndians – were consolidated through colonialbureaucratic practices such as census-taking(Milner, 1994). More significantly, perhaps, the

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British administration considered the Malaysas the rightful inhabitants of Malaya and “the‘special position’ of the Malay rulers and theirMalay subjects was adverted to time and again”(Comber, 1983:11). By the time of independencein 1957, therefore, the “special position” of theMalays under the leadership of the UnitedMalays National Organisation (UMNO) wasestablished as the “ground rule” of the nationalpolitical system (Ong, 1990).

Failure to translate the privileging of Malayidentity into an improvement of the economiclot of Malays, however, led to a resurgence ofMalay nationalism and contributed to ethnicriots in May 1969 (Said, 1996). The followingyear, the so-called New Economic Policy (NEP)introduced state interventionist positivediscrimination (or “affirmative action”) onbehalf of bumiputera, the constitutional termgiven to Malays and other “indigenous”groups, particularly in East Malaysia. ANational Cultural Policy extended“bumiputeraism” (Brown, 1994) to the culturalrealm by promoting indigenous, and especiallyMuslim Malay culture, as the “core” of nationalidentity (Kahn & Loh, 1992). It is in thishistorical context that Vision 2020, with itsprimary aim of “establishing a united Malaysiannation with a sense of common and shareddestiny… a nation at peace with itself,territorially and ethnically integrated, living inharmony and full and fair partnership”(Mahathir, 1993:404) would appear to suggesta departure from preceding nationaldevelopment priorities. The notion of a BangsaMalaysia (“Malaysian race”) (Mahathir,1993:404) is arguably the first time a Malayleader has mooted the possibility of a “levelplaying field” and functions as a sign of aMalaysia beyond constructive protection(Hiebert et al., 1996:19). While the NationalDevelopment Policy (NDP), announced laterin 1991, is the official successor to the NEP, itis Vision 2020 which has come to define post-NEP national development (Khoo, 1995).

After considering theoretical andmethodological approaches developed in

cultural geography which are appropriate forthe “reading” of a landscape artifact, this paperexamines, first, how the Petronas Towersarticulates state versions of modern Malaysiafor consumption by the “world” and by nationalcitizens in particular. The former refers to therole of the towers in imaging modern Malaysiainternationally; the latter to a sense of the KLCCas a site inscribed with “would-be hegemonic”meanings (cf. Pred, 1995:17) about the nationand development. Second, the paper considershow intended meanings have been, andcontinue to be, negotiated and reworked “frombelow”. The focus is not specific urban socialmovements nor the actions of a particular groupor class (such as the “new” middle classes; cf.Kahn, 1996), but rather the KLCC project site.KLCC and the Petronas Towers are thus shownto be central to diverse individual and collectiveproblematisations of development in thenational capital and in Malaysia more broadly.The paper considers, in turn, contest over thesite of the former Jalan Ampang racecoursewhich preceded the KLCC project and symbolicdiscontent to authoritative, “top-down”meanings of the Petronas Towers througheveryday social experience.

THE WORK OF LANDSCAPE

Analysis of the Petronas Towers in this wayinvolves engagement with issues of landscapeand national identity. There is a wellestablished interest in cultural geography inhow landscapes in various media articulatenational identity (Daniels, 1993; Matless, 1998).However, this paper considers, in particular,how conceptions of “Malaysianness” (what itmeans to be Malaysian) and “progress” (anappropriate national form of cultural and socio-economic development) are manifested in asingle landscape artifact (for work which usesa similar approach see Domosh, 1989). Thebuilding is at once a representation ofindividual taste and the idiosyncracies of itsproponents as well as of broader social andcultural processes, prevailing practices anddominant ideas. It is also represented –discursively, pictorally, electronically – as a


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meaningful national site and series of signs.Official representations of the building, politicaland commercial, do powerful work in definingan appropriate version of the nation and anaspirational vision of national development.

This evokes questions of not only whatlandscape or a landscape artifact “is”, butrather how these may be said to “work” (cf.Mitchell, 1994). Cultural and politicalgeographers have considered the politicallymotivated construction and reconstruction ofnational space in this way. Daniels (1988:43),for example, analysed woodland imagery inGeorgian England showing how it not onlysymbolized but also “naturalised” ideas ofsocial order. Macdonald (1995) has suggestedthat the symbolic landscape of Medan Merdekain Jakarta supported and legitimised a particularversion of independent Indonesia. Analysisof a landscape artifact, therefore, is anideological as much as an ontological issue(Daniels, 1989). The Petronas Tower’s role innational development is not merely aesthetic,envisioning a state conception of Malaysianurbanity; the building also promotes new“ways of seeing” among citizens.

Geographers have incorporated ideas andmethodologies from literary studies in order tounderstand the ways in which individualsascribe meanings and act in relation to the builtenvironment, often likening it to a text (Duncan,1990; Donald, 1992). This work emphasisesthat “decoding” of intended meanings is aprocess of “translation” which inevitablyinvolves slippage; meanings are neither stablenor interpreted in the same way by all (Duncanand Duncan, 1988; Duncan & Ley, 1993). Thispoints, first, to a sense that official or intendedmeanings are not simply imposed and/orpassively accepted through the symbolism ofurban form; and, second, to the contingencyof all “interpretations”. This paper considersthe iconography of the Petronas Towers up tomid-1997. In the context of the subsequenteconomic crisis which continues to affectMalaysia and many neighbouring countries,new layers and levels of meaning have no doubt

been added. These are beyond the temporalscope of this research. The paper may thus beconsidered as an historical geographicalreading of a contemporary landscape feature.

The limits of metaphors of reading tounderstandings of subjective urban experienceand conduct more generally have beenidentified by Henri Lefebvre: “When codesworked up from literary texts are applied tospaces – to urban spaces, say – we remain, asmay easily be shown, on the purely descriptivelevel. Any attempt to use such codes as ameans of deciphering social space must surelyreduce that space itself to the status of amessage, and the inhabiting of it to the statusof a reading” (Lefebvre, 1991:7). Urban space,in other words, is not only “read” but alsoshaped and defined though individual andcollective social practice at the street level(Yeoh, 1996). As such, this paper considershow the Petronas Towers is “produced” as wellas “lived” (cf. Jacobs, 1994). The urbanlandscape is therefore understood not only asa setting in which intended meanings may becontested and (mis)read (Cresswell, 1998), butalso an active medium in and through whichever new meanings and social identities arecreated (cf. Ruddick, 1996).

While discussion in this section hasfocused on the socio-cultural and politicalaspects of national development, this is not tosuggest that issues of economy are somehowirrelevant. The significance of land values andmoney markets has been alluded to already.However, the aim here is not so much one ofseeking to address the residue of meaningsleft over from economic “explanations”, butrather of adopting an approach whichconsiders how the economic is intertwined withother domains. Landscape is again an appositeconcept for this endeavour since, Matless(1998:12) has put it, “the power of landscaperesides in it being simultaneously a site ofeconomic, social, political and aesthetic value,with each aspect being of equal importance”.The “symbolic capital” of a single urbanlandscape phenomenon, the skyscraper,

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combines discourses of economics andaesthetics (Black, 1996).

NATIONAL TRANSFORMA-TION, WORLD COMPETITION

A phrase used three times in the short speechmade by Prime Minister Mahathir at theunveiling of the first phase of KLCC wasperingkat antarabangsa, “world class”(Mahathir, 1992). The suggestion, of course,was that KLCC would be a world-classinfrastructural development. Like other urbanmegaprojects, KLCC constitutes “both a realand a symbolic node, a state of the art commandand control centre to “hook up” to the globaleconomy” (Olds, 1995:1719). Mahathir himselfconsidered that the project “will definitely putKuala Lumpur on the world map” (KLCCHoldings Bhd., circa. 1995:1) – what might beunderstood as part of a broader attempt to makethe national capital into a “world city”(Friedmann, 1986; Douglass, 1998).

While competition for mobile capitalundoubtedly takes place at a city or “nodal”level (Sassen, 1991), I contend that the “world”here is understood primarily as a world ofcompeting nations. A brochure on businessand investment opportunities at KLCC, forexample, describes it as “a project of nationalsignificance and a symbol of Malaysia’sinternational status” (KLCC Holdings Sdn.Bhd., circa. 1996a:23). Yet the division betweenwinners and losers in this competition is suchthat each is commonly understood asconstituting separate “worlds”. In takingMalaysia “closer to its goal of becoming a fullydeveloped nation by the year 2020” (NewStraits Times, 16 September 1992:16), KLCCspeeds the journey out of the developingworld. Petronas Towers’ skybridge (Figure 3)defines a symbolic “gateway”, not only intothe KLCC project, but also, perhaps, into the“new opportunities” of the developed world(KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd., circa. 1996a:np).Mahathir (1992:np) took the opportunity at theKLCC launch to describe Malaysia’sdevelopment as a “role model” for other

developing nations which presumably alsowish to bridge the gap between the First andThird Worlds.

Architecture and urban design are thusdeployed as a symbol of nationaltransformation. The use of high-risearchitecture, in particular, is a well-troddensymbolic path to the modern world (Domosh,1988). The skyscraper is a celebration ofmodern building technology, “a marker ofmodernity worldwide” (King, 1996:105). Asupposedly positive public response to theKLCC project, therefore, is interpreted as a signof national willingness to change, to acceptthe new, to embrace, perhaps, modernity itself.The Petronas Towers’ architect, Cesar Pelli,who also designed Canary Wharf in London,compares apparent receptiveness in KualaLumpur with negative reactions to “the firsttrue skyscraper in England”: Canary Wharf sitsuneasily at the edge of a city which is veryambivalent about skyscrapers, whereas “thePetronas Towers are for a city that is embracingthem wholeheartedly” (cited in The DailyTelegraph, 6 May 1994:21). Malaysia, he adds,“sees itself as moving forward to the futurewhereas some think that Britain had its bestdays in the nineteenth century” (The DailyTelegraph, 6 May 1994:21).

Yet Kuala Lumpur has featured high-risebuildings at least since the 1970s (Yeang, 1992).Two characteristics may be said to distinguishthe Petronas Towers from much of the previoushigh-rise architecture in Malaysia. The firstconcerns a purported attempt to create arecognisably Malaysian skyscraper byincorporating “local” design features. Inaddition to Canary Wharf, Pelli had previouslydesigned towers in New York, Tokyo, MexicoCity and Buenos Aires, and so hadconsiderable experience of tailoring designs tosuit cities and countries with wildly differingcharacteristics (The Daily Telegraph, 6 May1994). The floor plan of the Petronas Towers issaid to be “based on Islamic geometrictraditions” and the building’s design featuresare intended to “convey a specific sense of


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their tropical locale” (Cesar Pelli andAssociates, 1997:29). According to the projectbrief, the multiple facets created by the form ofthe towers “reflect the sunlight forming thecombination of deep shadow and dazzlingbrightness that might be found in a tropicalforest” (Cesar Pelli and Associates, 1994:np).One commentator’s suggestion that thissymbolism has “all the profundity and insightof an in-flight magazine” (The Daily Telegraph,20 May 1995:A5) is perhaps instructive. Anarticle in Malaysian Airlines’ Wings of Goldnoted how “Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids,

even the Little Mermaid conjure immediateimages of a particular city” (Chee, 1993:54).Figure 4 picks out the Petronas Towers in theworld of monuments traversed by Malaysia’snational airline.

The issue of profundity, therefore, isperhaps missing the point. What Mahathirconsidered was being constructed was a“cultural landmark” (Mahathir, 1992:np). Theimage of the Petronas Towers is used in“advertising the country’s arrival as a modernindustrial nation” (Progressive Architecture,

Source: KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd. (circa. 1996a) Kuala Lumpur City Centre: Business and Investment Opportunies. Marketing brochure, np.

Figure 3. The skybridge defining “Your gateway to new opportunities”.

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1995:86). As King (1996:101-102) points out,“in what is now a totally institutionalizedmimetic televisual convention, it is the WhiteHouse, the Houses of Parliament, the Duma orEiffel Tower which – subliminally elided intothe capital city – is used to mediate the meaningof the Nation to the gazes of the World”. If it isnot the individual building which fixes the gazeon the rectangular screen, it is a wider view ofthe city skyline. In Figure 4, the PetronasTowers flag Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia in whatmay be understood as the “global skyline”(King, 1996:101-102): “this unique pair with thedistinctive outlines, is a national landmark in aglobal setting” (KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd.,circa. 1996a:7). There is, of course, somethingof a paradox in a situation in which the work ofconstructing the supposed “uniqueness” ofplace is not only expressed in a universallyunderstood language of postmodernarchitecture, but is also carried out by a globalnetwork of property development “experts”(Olds, 1995).

There have been a number of earlier attemptsto create supposedly recognisably Malaysianskyscrapers. These include Menara Maybank,the sloping roof of which is supposedlyshaped like a Malay keris, or “dagger”, andthe “LUTH” Tower, the Muslim pilgrimage fundbuilding in which five columns are said torepresent the five pillars of Islam (Tan, 1996).What distinguishes the Petronas Towers from

these other “Malaysian” high-rises is simplyhow high. While only claiming the world recordfrom Chicago’s Sears Tower by means ofcontentious functionless spires (BusinessTimes, 18 April 1996: 20), the Petronas Towersis “head and shoulders” taller than the mostly“placeless” high-rise buildings of KualaLumpur’s GTA (cf. Yeang, 1989). Simply beingthe tallest, however, does not ensureinternational recognition. The “fact” has to bedisseminated across the world. I, for one, grewup believing that the Empire State Building wasthe world’s tallest while it would seem that thiswas “in fact” eclipsed as early as 1972(Guardian, 1 March 1996).

That a New York Times article on the battlefor the tallest building is reported to have begunwith, “Well, KL has won” (New Sunday Times,2 February 1997:10) suggests that the size ofthe Petronas Towers has gained “world”recognition. This is undoubtedly in partbecause, unlike the Empire State Building’sother successors, the Petronas Towers hasmeant that the tallest building record has leftthe “Western world” for the first time since forat least a century (Progressive Architecture,1996). It is perhaps somewhat surprising,therefore, that Mahathir actually plays downthe record-breaking height of the PetronasTowers. I suggest two possible explanations:first, a perception that “the public display ofsheer size serves less to demonstrate its

Source: Malaysian Airlines advertisement, 1997.

Figure 4. The world of Malaysian Airlines.


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superiority than to confirm the consciousnessof its inferiority” (King, 1996:104); and, second,an awareness of plans in other cities, especiallyin Asia, to build even higher (Business Week, 4April 1994). The ephemerality of “symboliccapital” applies as much to the “global skyline”as to that of any individual city (cf. Dovey,1992). There is nothing especially thrillingabout being the fourth, third or even thesecond tallest building in any world.

Most reports on the Petronas Towers in thewestern media discuss the building in terms ofother past and projected record-breakingattempts. There is, no doubt, good journalisticreasoning behind this – putting the building“into context”, historically and/or spatially. Yetit is perhaps significant that thiscontextualisation is frequently concerned lesswith city- or national-level transformation andcompetition than with the emergence of anAsian region. Writing about the boom in high-rise architecture in Asia in the mid-1990s, onecommentator made the point that “the world’stallest towers are planned for cities few in theWest could place, let alone pronounce”(Guardian, 1 March, 1996:2). To this may beadded, “spell”: another article located theworld’s tallest structure in “Kuala Lumpa” (TheIndependent, 10 September 1996:5). This maylead one to question the extent to which thePetronas Towers is serving to put KualaLumpur or Malaysia on world maps. Neo-orientalist reporting in the west subsumesKuala Lumpur, Malaysia (and otherunspellable, unpronounceable places ofuncertain location below the regional level)within a rising east. And this is an east whose“defeat” of America at its own architecturalgame is read as a sign of a broader “threat” tothe western world.

The new region, however, suggestsopportunity as well as threat. The KLCC projectwas said to be a “visible and viable commercialenclave for a great city in the fastest-growingregion in the world” (KLCC Holdings Sdn.Bhd., circa. 1995:4); it is “the business locationin South-east Asia” (KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd.,

circa. 1995:1). Advertising thus draws uponand contributes to the discursive constructionof a dynamic economic region. It also imaginesthe project’s – and, by extension, the city andthe nation’s – symbolic centrality within thatregion. The notion of a gateway (Figure 3),then, is understood not in terms of a regionalborder or boundary, but rather as an invitationto its centre – a project and a nation“strategically located in the heart of South-eastAsia” (KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd., circa.1995:6). In his work on Malaysian foreignpolicy, David Camroux has pointed to aconceptual link between discourses of Asia(nregionalism) and the construction of a pan-ethnic Malaysian national identity. A multi-ethnic body such as ASEAN, for example,“symbolises for the Malaysian leadership amodel to tacitly proffer to Malaysian societyas a whole” (Camroux, 1994:19). External anddomestic imperatives are thus seen to beintertwined. However, it is specifically to theinternal or domestic iconography of thePetronas Towers which I turn in the nextsection.

NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR NEWMALAYS(IANS)

Reports on the construction of the PetronasTowers within Malaysia make much of a “raceto the top” between Japanese- and SouthKorean-led consortia undertaking theconstruction of towers 1 and 2 respectively(New Straits Times, 28 April 1997:8). Suchrepresentations articulate a sense of thescientific and technical self-sufficiency of a new“Asian” region, while also imaginingspecifically national-level competition as thedynamic for the region as a whole. Assuggested above, national and regional levelimaginings are thus, somewhat paradoxically,mutually supporting. At the same time, theIslamic symbolism of the building may be saidto indicate the role that followers of this religionhave to play in an Asian or non-westernmodernity. While one western architecturecritic suggests that Islamic symbolism “will

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mean little to the large number of non-IslamicChinese” (Rowan Moore cited in Independenton Sunday, 23 February 1997:36), Islam is inpart reconciled with multicultural nationalidentity through being understood as an Asianor eastern value system. Islam is associatedwith regional or pan-national identity, not anational one. This section is concerned withthe way in which the Petronas Towers, as asymbolic landscape artifact, promotes idealsabout the nation and the world for consumptionby Malays(ians).

The Petronas Towers does powerfulrepresentational work in the production ofdefinitions of Islam and Malayness which areappropriate for a modern multicultural nation.One commentator suggests that the PetronasTowers’ Islamic motifs are intended as anarchitectural sign of the Melayu Baru (“newMalay”), the modern Muslim, who has enteredthe world of commerce (Abidin Kusno cited inKing, 1996:113). The building thus offers anew international vantage point for a modernpan-national Islam which is to be practisednationally by Melayu Baru. In so doing,Malays will ultimately no longer requireaffirmative action which is perceived asethnically divisive, an impediment tomulticultural national unity. It was, in part, theextraction of newly-discovered petroleumreserves and rising oil prices from 1973 whichhad financed public sector growth for NEPaffirmative action on behalf of the Malaycommunity (Jomo, 1995). Now, the national oilcompany, Petronas, is concerned less withfinancing aggregate ethnic gains than withprivate sector profit and a viable Malaybusiness class. The Petronas Towers may thusbe read as representative of twin strands ofVision 2020 nationalism: Malays taking theirrightful place in the national economy withoutthreatening to displace national “others”; anda united Malaysia “standing tall” in the worldof nations (Khoo, 1995).

KLCC is also a site at which more Malayscan become new Malays. During construction,

the project featured a “technology-transferscheme” in which every expatriate “expert” hada Malaysian (and preferably Malay)understudy.1 The Minister of Educationpublicly reminded KLCC of its “socialresponsibility” to transfer skills andtechnology to bumiputera, (Najib cited in NewStraits Times, 5 May 1995:2) and expatriatesspeak of a pressure to demonstrate “localparticipation”.2 The expansion of Malaycapabilities and experience which, since NEP,has formed a prominent part of nation buildingis thus facilitated by participation in thephysical task of (re)building the nation.Having equipped themselves with knowledgeand experience from international “experts”,Malays will be able to bring about future “worldclass” national development of their own.

The Petronas Towers is used to advertise arange of world class commercial and industrialproducts in Malaysia, from trucks andtelephones to refrigerators. One advertisementshows Malaysia Electric Corporation (MEC)Bhd.’s “3-door frost-free refrigerator” in animagined skyline comprising Malaysia’s other“greatest achievements”. In addition to thePetronas Towers, these include the tallestflagpole in the world, which is in MerdekaSquare, and Menara Kuala Lumpur, the world’sfourth tallest telecommunications tower. Theadvertisement also includes a semi-diagrammatic representation of MEC’srefrigerator range which increases in height (andvolume) from left to right, thus evoking chartsof building height records and of evolutionmore broadly. Unlike the Petronas Towers, thethree-storey 500 litre model may not be thelargest in the world, but it is “the largest everto be made in Malaysia” (New Sunday Times,21 March 1997). What is more, designed to“international quality”, MEC’s fridges – likeMelayu Baru – are equipped to “stand up” to

1Interview with Project Manager, Zublin J.V., KLCCcar and truck rental, 16 April 1997.

2Interview with General Manager, Real EstateManagement Division, KLCC Holdings Bhd., 7 April1997.


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the competition of the “world market” (NewSunday Times, 21 March 1997).

Notions of corporate and industrialcompetitiveness form part of a broader sensethat Malaysia Boleh (literally meaning“Malaysia can”). One newspaper articlesuggests that “the Towers reflect the currentmood of expansion where high rise seems toequate with high ambition. They tune in tothe spirit of the age” (New Straits Times, 28April 1997:8). But perhaps the point is thatthey do not simply “reflect” a mood ofoptimism; rather, the Petronas Towers areintended as Malaysians’ “towers of strength”(New Straits Times, 28 April 1997:8), provingto the population that the sky is the limit forwhat they “can do”. The multiculturalMalaysian Everest Team’s high-profileconquest of the world’s highest peak in May1997 was described as “an achievement thatshows the world Malaysia Boleh!” (NewStraits Times, 27 May 1997:7). The PetronasTowers contributes to this fostering of a senseof “world” recognition of nationalachievement. Indeed it is perhaps more likelyto attract the gaze of the world since, unlikethe Everest ascent, the Petronas Towersrepresents a peak that no other nation has yetbefore reached. The way others see – or aresaid to see – Malaysia is thought to be boundup with new ways in which Malaysians cometo see themselves. The Petronas Towers andthe summit of Mount Everest are vantagepoints of Malaysians’ “world class” status.

Envisioning Malaysian modernity,therefore, is to be understood as part of a stateimperative of transforming the imagination ofcitizens to inspire national modernisation (orat least to gain their acquiescence in thecontext of dislocation and transformation).However, the process is considered reciprocalsince the attitudes and conduct of citizens, inturn, contribute to the imaging of KualaLumpur and the nation. While the PetronasTowers may be said to promote optimism aboutwhat Malaysia(ns) “can do”, there is sporadicofficial lamentation that certain traits ofMalaysian social life – what Malaysians

actually do – adversely affect the nation’sinternational image. Problematic conduct suchas littering and vandalism is said to affect adisproportionately large number of(presumably “old”) Malays who, despite thevisionary developmental efforts of the state,are unable or unwilling to see beyond thekampung (village) (for example, Malay Mail,31 May 1997). The visibility of the PetronasTowers (internationally and in the city) aloneis not enough to ensure that Malaysia is seento be modern. Malay(sian) conduct isproblematised in relation to idealised nationalrepresentations of Malaysian urbanity andcivility for global consumption. “Kampung-style” behaviour is bad, in part, because it isbad for business (cf. Morris, 1993).

Malaysia Boleh, however, is to beunderstood not only as part of purported stateattempts to liberate Malays from thedebilitating kampung (Mahathir, 1970) but alsoin terms of a mental decolonisation of a nationthought to be afflicted by a complex ofsubservience and inferiority vis-à-vis the westand other parts of the “developed world”(Khoo, 1995). Mahathir noted the importanceof “creating a psychologically liberated, secureand developed Malaysian society with faithand confidence in itself, justifiably proud ofwhat it is, of what it has accomplished” to theattainment of Vision 2020 (Mahathir, 1993:404);and, from the outset, KLCC was understoodas a “visionary development that will takeMalaysia closer to its goal of becoming a fullydeveloped nation by the year 2020” (NewStraits Times, 16 September 1992:1). In thiscontext, it is perhaps surprising that little wasmade of the fact that post-colonial Malaysiawas undertaking one of the largest real estatedevelopment projects in the world on the siteof the former British colonial racecourse.

SPACE OF CONTEST

The fact that little official attention was givento the (post-)colonial connotations of theKLCC site was, no doubt, in part due to earlieropposition to the decision to allow the

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racecourse to be used for commercialdevelopment. Plans to relocate the JalanAmpang racecourse had, in fact, beenannounced as far back as August 1982, butthis was said to be in order to turn the site intoa “park for the public” (New Straits Times, 21August 1989:8). Following the imposition ofSection 8 of the Land Acquisition Act inOctober 1983, the Selangor Turf Club (STC)was given three years to find an alternativelocation before its 39 ha site was convertedinto the park. City Hall eventually issued aneviction notice in May 1988, but STC wasgranted another three years to develop a newrace track at Sungei Besi, Selangor. STC,meanwhile, proposed that it would cede its 27ha of leasehold land to the governmentwithout compensation in return for permissionto develop the remaining 12 ha (which wasfreehold land) for commercial purposes (NewStraits Times, 21 August 1989:8). However,following an extraordinary general meeting on18 August 1989, STC announced the sale ofall 39 ha to Seri Kuda Sdn. Bhd. raising fearsthat rather than being “opened” to the public,the former colonial racecourse would bedeveloped into real estate as part of the GTA(Sunday Star, 20 August 1989) (Figure 2).

Seri Kuda’s application to rezone the sitewas publicly opposed by the EnvironmentalProtection Society of Malaysia (EPSM) andan architect, Ruslan Khalid, who wrote an openletter to the New Straits Times (NST)proposing a public donation fund, “so thatwe can create a park for the people from moneyraised by the people” (New Straits Times, 28August 1989:np). Some months later, an articlein the NST proposed a possible plan for a“people’s park” under the heading “this landis your land” (New Straits Times, 9 February1990:9). The accompanying text stresses thatit has only been because the club is“exclusive” that the people had failed torecognise its potential to become “an oasis inan asphalt desert” (ibid.). The idea of an oasissuggests not only shelter from the “maddingcrowd” (for which a “Dome of Serenity” isprovided), but also the “experience of nature”

in a Federal Territory described as “growinginto a concrete jungle” (New Straits Times, 9February 1990:9). In response to the alienating“harsh effects of towering concrete”, a windmillis said to symbolise “the harmony of life andthe generation of pollution-free energy” (NewStraits Times, 9 February 1990:9). A so-calledArtist’s Corner and Graffiti Wall are said toallow creative self-expression in contrast,perhaps, to a tendency for “top-down”learning and development. The following year,residents of Kuala Lumpur learned that “their”land would be developed as a RM 7 billioncity centre (New Straits Times, 12 July 1991).

The former racecourse, then, had been thesite of contest over definitions of appropriatepost-colonial urban development long beforework on KLCC even began. In part, resistanceto the “development” of the site relates tobroader critiques of global capitalism and, inparticular, the potentially deleteriousenvironmental and social effects of thedetermination of land use by market valuealone (Bird, 1993) and the privatisation ofurban space (Fyfe, 1998). Plans to developthe racecourse site signify the spatialreorganisation of the city, and the GTA inparticular, by market principles and the broaderprivatisation of urban space in Malaysia(Sobri, 1985). The issue of resistance also linksin with ideas on the cultural dimension ofcapitalism in general and urban developmentin particular (Jacobs, 1994; Zukin, 1995). Thus,while claiming to speak for “the public”, urbanconservationists’ views are legitimated bytheir professional status and cultural capital.Given the prominence of “heritage” in workon culture industries, it is perhaps significantthat Ruslan Khalid is a prominent member ofthe heritage group, Badan Warisan.Predominantly middle class and expatriateBadan’s cultural opposition to urbanredevelopment is artefactual rather thanpolitical.

Similarly, EPSM critique of urbandevelopment may, at one level, be understoodin terms of a broader middle class


Bunnell.p65 5/3/99, 4:13 PM15

environmentalism. However, any notion ofcosmopolitan middle classes simply mobilisinguniversal environmental discourses inopposition to global capital serves to deflectattention from both the way in whichenvironmental critique is deployed in theMalaysian context, and the complexity of theoperation of state capitalism. As the Presidentof EPSM pointed out, the decision to developthe KLCC has prompted critique of specificallyMalaysian developmental practices andattitudes. He gives examples of what he seesas a “lack of accountability”: not only over-riding the allocated land use for the racecoursein the Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan againstpublic wishes; but also the fact that no EIAwas carried out; and that the results of aDepartment of Environment traffic survey werenever made public.3 Malaysia Boleh, he says,is paradoxical given that the only Malaysianswho “can do” anything meaningful in thedevelopment process are those personallyclose to the Prime Minister.

Seventy per cent of Seri Kuda, whichpurchased the real estate “plot of gold” (Ho,1991:15), was owned by Pacific StatesInvestments Ltd., reportedly controlled by T.Ananda Krishnan or “AK”, who is a formerdirector of both Bank Negara and Petronas andsaid to be a long-time close friend of Mahathir(Gomez & Jomo, 1997). The KLCC project thusconfirmed a sense that all major decision-making in a hierarchical process emanated fromMahathir himself and that even private sectorsuccess was dependent on close relationshipswith the upper echelons of the ruling UnitedMalays National Organisation (UMNO) ofwhich Mahathir is also president. Criticism ofKLCC within UMNO was most likely becauseKrishnan is a Sri Lankan Tamil, not a Malay(Gomez & Jomo, 1997), but the involvement ofPetronas, in particular, also evoked earliersuggestions of high-level misuse of public

funds. In another “Mahathir project” in the1980s, the Dayabumi Complex, Petronas wasused to rescue the owners, the UrbanDevelopment Adminis-tration, by payingalmost twice the market value for the building(Bowie, 1991). Critique of the untransparent,possibly corrupt, decision to redesignate theracecourse, against the wishes of “the people”can be understood in terms of (while alsocontributing to) a national discourse of“accountability” (Harper, 1996).

SYMBOLIC DISCONTENT ANDCULTURAL REWORKING

If the “exclusive” space of the racecourse hadbeen largely unheeded by most residents ofKuala Lumpur, except on race days, no “KL-ite” glance could fail to encounter the PetronasTowers. As an almost omnipresent visual focusfor life in the city, the building has becomeimbued with meanings relating urbansubjectivities. And, as an equally ubiquitousnational monument, it has assumed a symboliccentrality in the developmental evaluations andaspirations of national citizens beyond thecapital city. It may be said that intendedmeanings of the Petronas Towers are subjectto “cultural reworking” through individual andcollective experiences, memories and histories(cf. Pred, 1995:20). Given the limited space forformal public participation in, and critique of,the development process in Malaysia, it ispossible that popular stories, gossip andrumour assume an even more significant rolein articulating “symbolic discontent” (cf. Pred,1995:20) than they would in politicalenvironments which accord greater space tocivil society. This raises the issue of how to“use” everyday knowledges which are not onlyfor the most part non-textualised, but are alsoobtained outside of formal interview situationsand which have all too often been dismissedas “unrepresentative” or “subjective”(Shamsul, 1996:479). In addition to interviewmaterial, much of what follows in this sectionhas been compiled from my research diary

3Interview with President, Environmental ProtectionSociety of Malaysia (EPSM), 22 May 1997.

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which during fieldwork became the containerfor all those conversations, observations andexperiences which did not fit into any othercategory of data collection.

A rumour which was circulating during myundergraduate fieldwork in 1994 was thatPetronas had been coerced into participationin KLCC. The oil company’s rescue of theDayabumi Complex mentioned above hadoccurred as recently as 1989 and yet thisbuilding was to be vacated so that Petronascould become the “anchor tenant” for the twintowers. It was initially calculated that Petronasand all of its subsidiaries, housed together inone building for the first time, would occupyone-and-a-half towers, or three-quarters of thetotal floor space.4 This was later seen to be anover-estimate, leaving the whole of Tower 2as lettable space. For all the undoubtedattractions of the building in terms of bothfacilities and prestige, popular belief had it thatfew companies were willing to “pay the price”for building so high. One leasing agentconceded that there had been a “slow uptake”for the half-million square feet of space.

One floor, at least, was presumed to havebeen secured, however. It was widelyrumoured in Kuala Lumpur that Mahathirhimself would occupy the top floor of one ofthe towers – if he was not already doing so.Perhaps that was why there was no lettablespace above the 84th floor? I could see nosign of the Prime Minister when I visited thetowers myself, but this, of course, did little todiminish a sense of Mahathir keeping his“authoritarian eye” on the city population.Even in the rare moments when the PetronasTowers disappears from view in the capital,there is a sense that the building – and, byextension, the state – can see you. Officialliterature on KLCC which describes its“intelligent buildings” (KLCC Holdings Sdn.

Bhd., circa. 1995:4) perhaps only serves toconfirm suspicions of surveillance. Greateruncertainty lay in the issue of “which tower”?

This dilemma was, in turn, resolved byanother popular rumour circulating during mydoctoral fieldwork in 1997. It could only beJapanese tower 1, since South Korean-builttower 2 was said to be “leaning”. The rumourhas numerous possible connotations. First,that the South Korean contractors were simplynot “up to the job”. Although the choice ofAsian companies may be said to reflect a senseof regional technological and technicalcapability, there is a concomitant sense of aninternal (i.e. national) hierarchy which placesSouth Korea on a level below Japan. It mayonly have been a “matter of degrees” but thedistinction was reaffirmed nonetheless.Despite their apparently inferior workmanship,the South Koreans still “lost the race”, thoughthis, of course, could be because the Japanesewent “straight” to the top. This connects witha second connotation, of KLCC having been“crooked” from its inception with the (at best)“secretive” involvement of enigmatic “AK”(Malaysian Business, 1991:15). If not actuallycorrupt then, third, KLCC is at leastmisconceived. The race to the top wassymptomatic of a project which, like its mainproponent, was “in a hurry” (Khoo, 1995). ThePetronas Towers was a “rush job”, not onlyignoring the wishes of the public, butundertaken without the requisite geologicalresearch (Aliran Monthly, 1996). Indeed, forthose convinced of Mahathir ’s super-humanity, it was perhaps only the force of thePrime Minister’s personality – as opposed toany technical consideration – which waskeeping the building upright. Popular organiccomparisons of the building – to an upturnedjagung (“corn cob”), for example – may be saidto capture the sense of its emphemerality, itsperishability.

Others joked that all would not be lost if thePetronas Towers was to collapse. After all,

4Interview with leasing agent, Jones Lang Wootton,29 May 1997. The remainder of this paragraph isbased on information obtained from this interview.


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6Interview with Site Manager, Lehrher McGovernlogistics, 10 May 1997.

7Interview with President EPSM, 22 May 1997.

Malaysia would still be home to the longestbuilding in the world(!).5 The building was thusdiagnosed as symptomatic of a nationobsessed with superlatives: in addition to beingthe world’s tallest building, the PetronasTowers had the dubious distinction of havingnecessitated “the single biggest Concrete Pourfor a building foundation in the world to date”(Building Property Review, 1995:87); there wasalso the tallest flagpole in the world; and KualaLumpur Linear City (KLLC) which, stretching12 km along the Klang River, would be thelongest building in the world – far longer thana fallen Petronas Tower (or two) (Kuala LumpurLinear City Sdn. Bhd., 1997). Much of thispopular discursive contest was directed atMahathir personally. Explanatory critiqueranged from a perception of his monumentalego to suggestions of a diminutive manhood.Whichever, there was a sense that expensivepublic works should, by definition, work forresidents of the city and not merely serve tosatisfy “sky-pricking” (cf. Jencks, 1980:6)fantasies (Lim, 1997).

This connects with a broader popularperception of the supposedly erroneouspriorities of urban development in Malaysia.While KLCC may serve a symbolic function inadvertising Malaysia internationally andprovide “world-class” infrastructure topromote further economic expansion, in theconstruction stages at least, the project didlittle to ameliorate urban citizens’ everydaylives. On the contrary, in addition to reducingKuala Lumpur’s already sparse “green space”,KLCC only served to augment air pollutionand traffic congestion in the capital (NewStraits Times, 5 July 1996). It is no coincidencethat Jalan Ampang became the renowned

traffic-jam black spot in an already-congestedcity. While these problems may have beenconcerned with the construction phase, thesheer size of the project raised fears thatcompletion would only mean yet more carsand more traffic problems. Each tower willhouse up to 5,000 workers and KLCC hasunderground parking for 5,000 cars.6 As oneinformant pointed out, this is ironic given thatthe original justification for moving theracecourse was said to be the congestioncaused by race meets which occurred once aweek at most.7

The front cover of a book by Malaysia’scelebrated cartoonist, Lat, is bound up withsuch popular problematisations of thedevelopment of Kuala Lumpur (Figure 5). Anew arrival to the city sits in his Proton –Malaysia’s national car – at the end of anuncompleted road. Smoke billows from theon-going construction work (which is alsosuggested by the crane on the skyline)reducing the traffic below to a standstill.However, there is perhaps a sense here ofproblems relating not only to incompletion,but to the state vision of development moregenerally. The driver is faced with the choiceof turning around – leaving the “development”of the city behind – or else plunging over theedge. His map provides few clues as toalternative routes; the cartographer’s view isas out of touch with the street level(s) as arethe Petronas Towers and Menara KualaLumpur shown on the skyline. The MasterPlanner’s panoramic “totalisations” (cf. deCerteau, 1985:124) cannot discern the finedetail of everyday lives which consist of“getting lost” (the Proton driver) or else goingnowhere (the stationary traffic below).

The haze which afflicted Kuala Lumpur andmuch of the rest of Southeast Asia during 1997

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5This idea was based on a cartoon about theconstruction the Prangin Shopping Mall in Penangwhich was said to be undermining the foundations of‘Komtar’, the tallest building on the island. Thecartoon contrasted “now: Komtar - the tallest buildingin Penang” with “in future: Komtar - the longestbuilding in Penang (New Straits Times, 21 March1997:12).

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raised new possibilities for popularproblematisations of development centredupon the Petronas Towers. Fears for the healthof citizens in the smog which worsened fromAugust prompted the state MeteorologicalServices Department to publish dailyrecordings of an Air Pollution Index (API) indifferent parts of the country. However, theAPI was widely thought to be at bestinaccurate and, more likely, plainly falsified byuntrustworthy, image-conscious authorities(Pillai, 1997). It was the Petronas Towerswhich came to be seen (or not) as a huge“dipstick” for air pollution levels in the city(The Star, 28 July 1997). A contributor to anInternet forum described his friend’s “personalindex” as follows: “if the Petronas Twin Towerscan be seen in outline in a haze, it [the API] isover 200. If it cannot be seen it must be over

250. If the neighbouring buildings are alsoencased in smoke, more than 300”. More thanthis, he claimed that this method “is moreeffective than the figures the governmentgives out” (Pillai, 1997:np).

Severe air pollution, whether attributed toindustrialisation in Peninsula Malaysia itselfor else understood in terms of forest fires inKalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), fermentedcritical views of Malaysian development morebroadly. Forty-three Malaysian companieswere involved in the logging in Kalimantan,some of which were state-owned (Guardian,8 November 1997). This suggests a broadersense of an elite group of corporate stars andtheir political allies benefiting fromdevelopment, while much of the rest of thepopulation is left to suffer the consequences

Source: Lat (1996) Lat Gets Lost, Kuala Lumpur: Berita Publishing, front cover.

Figure 5. Lat Gets Lost.


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(Gomez & Jomo, 1997). The Petronas Towersmay allude architecturally to the Malaysiancontext and claim to represent the loftyambitions of all Malaysians, but from “below”it may also appear to be from “another world”.At one level, this is perhaps the intention. ThePetronas Towers’ steel cladding may belikened to the “strategic armouring” of LosAngeles which Davis (1992) describes,protecting worlds of commerce fromundesirable groups and individuals. TheMalaysian poet, Cecil Rajendra alludes tonotions of the militarisation of the city in his“War Zone”: “The world’s tallest buildings/look like giant shell casings/ embedded in theheart of our city”.8 In the battlefield ofrepresentation which is contemporary KualaLumpur, state-constructed urban space isreworked as a symbol of a repressive, self-interested political and economic elite throughthe discursive “weapons of the weak” (cf.Scott, 1985).

CONCLUSION

The final plan for KLCC included a 20 ha (50acre) park (KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd., circa.1996a&b). Designed by the “award-winning”Brazilian landscape artist, the (late) RobertoBurle Marx, the park, at one level, is understoodas contributing to KLCC’s international realestate appeal. Marketing literature envisagesthe park as “‘balm’ for the stresses of work”(KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd., circa. 1996a:9).However, there is also a sense of the park as aresponse to public opposition to commercialdevelopment of the racecourse site. AnandaKrishnan himself described it as “a gift to thepublic” (cited in Ho, 1991:15). Officialmarketing literature may be said to appropriatemuch of the vocabulary of previous contest:KLCC park will be a “green lung freelyaccessible to the public” and “a park for thepeople” (KLCC Holdings Sdn. Bhd., circa.

1996b:np). When rumours of redevelopmentfirst reached the press, the minister in chargeof the Federal Territory and its developmentreportedly warned, “city folk have been waitingfor this park since the idea was mooted in theearly 80s. I think any plan contrary to this willdisappoint the public” (Sulaiman Mohamed,cited in Sunday Star, 20 August 1989:6). Ifthe public was, as we have seen, subsequentlydisappointed, KLCC’s park for the peoplesignifies a regime which is “responsive” aswell as “repressive” (cf. Crouch, 1996).

However, I suggest that “response” here isto be understood as more than merelyplacatory or concessionary. Rather, it may besuggested that there is also a sense of popularproblematisation of existing developmenteffecting transformation of would-behegemonic developmental aims andobjectives. This is, perhaps, a rather differentconception of everyday resistance to the “footdragging” popularised by Scott (1985). Thelatter suggests to me merely the application offriction, resistance to a pre-existing force,rather than any positive intervention in oralteration to that force. A notion of would-behegemonic and everyday counter-visionsexisting in a kind of creative tension, on theother hand, allows for an expanded conceptionof the agency of those “below”. Everydaycontest contributes to an on-going reworkingof the would-be hegemonic vision in whatmight be understood as a circulatory process.

As has been shown, everyday contestextended beyond initial opposition to plans to“develop” this urban space. The KLCC sitemanifests emergent as well as residualmeanings; it connects the specific or local withregional, global and particularly national-scaleissues and concerns. The economic “crisis”which followed the fieldwork period on whichmuch of this paper is based – and whichbrought to an end almost a decade ofspectacular economic success in Malaysia –has added new layers of meaning aboutnational and regional development to the

8Thanks to Anwar Fazal for bringing this to myattention.

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symbolic site. The contribution that over-investment in real estate has played in theeconomic problems of the region has beenwidely analysed (for example, Henderson,1999). Mahathir’s megadevelopment is thusseen anew: not only as symbolic of flaweddevelopment strategies, but as itself a causalfactor in social and economic deterioration(Sardar, 1998). In this context, is it possiblethat the Petronas Towers is itself “re-visioned”as a specific moment in an obsolescent nationaldevelopmental past. Emergent ways of seeingthe building, including those “from below”,articulate rationalities of national developmentwhich are perhaps post-Mahathirist.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Much of this paper is based on chapter 4 ofmy doctoral thesis. Thanks to my supervisors,David Matless and Stephen Daniels forcomments on previous workings of thismaterial and to two referees for helpfulsuggestions for improvements to an earlierdraft of the paper. All the usual disclaimersapply. Permission to reproduce Figure 5 isgratefully acknowledged from BeritaPublishing Sdn. Bhd. I am also grateful to theDudley Stamp memorial fund for financialassistance towards fieldwork in Malaysia in1997.

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