Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia: The Eclectic Architecture of Sojourners and Settlers

Ronald Knapp and Chester Ong’s Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia looks at the architectural legacy of Chinese migrants across the region…..

The migration of the Chinese from southern China to Southeast Asia created one of the world s great cultural diasporas. Many of these migrants and their descendants became successful and built architecturally unique homes shophouses, bungalows, villas, and mansions combining Chinese, European, and local influences. The story of these hybrid architectural forms is the main focus of this book. While most of these houses are now disappearing, some fine examples remain scattered throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Over a period of several years Ronald G. Knapp and photographer A. Chester Ong travelled across the region in search of overseas Chinese heritage homes. Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia is the result of their researches. This book provides a fascinating portrayal of the historical circumstances of the Chinese in the region through essays, historic photographs, paintings, and line drawings. Nearly forty elegant residences dating from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century are presented and form the core of this book. Each residence is depicted in stunning color photographs along with background information about the families who built and lived in them. These accounts reveal the entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese as well as their social and economic circumstances. Images and drawings from China help clarify the cultural influences from that region, and in a few cases similar and even closely-related residences in China are also presented.