Date: 24th August 2019, Saturday
Speaker: Mariana Isa and Maganjeet Kaur
Time: 9:00am – 12:30pm
Venue: Dewan President (2nd Floor), PAM Centre, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur
Synopsis
Which are Kuala Lumpur's oldest streets? Who made up the backbone of old Kuala Lumpur? How did the various communities develop? ‘Building Kuala Lumpur’ traces the history and urban growth of Kuala Lumpur through its streets and early communities based on data gathered relentlessly by Mariana Isa and Maganjeet Kaur of Heritage Output Lab over the past five years.
The talk aims to assist the audience understand the early morphology of Kuala Lumpur, its unique historic characteristics and the communities that came from afar with little in their pockets but who built Kuala Lumpur into what it is today. The content will be useful for heritage enthusiasts and for those who would like to get to know Kuala Lumpur better.
Speaker Biography
Mariana Isa & Maganjeet Kaur
Mariana Isa and Maganjeet Kaur first met as Museum Volunteers at the National Museum. Keen in the studies of heritage, history and culture of South East Asia, they decided to establish their own research studio, Heritage Output Lab in 2015, working on delivering research content in various forms to the masses, sometimes providing services to organisations and individuals requiring further background for print, audio and film projects. Kuala Lumpur Street Names (2015) and Towns of Malaya (2017 with Dr. Neil Khor) are two of their earliest publications. Familiar with Malaysia’s collections, archives and libraries, they dedicated a year researching and conceiving content for Kuala Lumpur’s Heritage Interpretive Panels, a project dubbed as KL Dulu, commissioned by Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur. After spending more than 5 years researching on places in Malaysia, they are now extending their interest to the early port settlements in South East Asia through their next book entitled Between the Bay of Bengal and the Java Sea (end of 2019).
Maganjeet Kaur has a Master’s degree in Information Technology from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). As an IT professional, she provided consulting services to multi-nationals both in Malaysia and abroad.
Mariana Isa is an architecture graduate, a museum volunteer, and the Assistant Honorary Secretary of ICOMOS Malaysia. She holds a bachelor degree in architecture from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and an Msc. in Conservation of Historic Buildings from University of Bath, United Kingdom.