Architect Jimmy Lim Cheok Siang on career, heritage, and staying young at heart

BREAKING NEW GROUND

This philosophy served him well throughout his decades-long career. Regarded as one of the country’s foremost architects, Lim boasts a vast portfolio ranging from residential homes to hotels and resorts, office towers, medical and sporting facilities, as well as mosques and churches. Some of his notable projects include the TY Chiew House, which won the PAM House Award in 1984, and The Salinger House, which took home the Aga Khan Award for architectural excellence in 1998. He also designed prominent buildings such as Menara Prudential, St John’s Institution, Wisma Genting, Awana Genting, Awana Kijal, Awana Porto Malai in Langkawi, and Penang Turf and Golf Club. On top of that, Lim was the architect in charge of the Wisma Maran (formerly Citibank HQ at Medan Pasar), Motorola Semiconductor factory at Subang Sungai Way, Indonesian Embassy, and Dewan Sivik MBPJ.

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Born and raised in Penang, at 15 years of age, Lim furthered his studies in Sydney at De La Salle Oakhill College, at Castle Hill. In 1964, he began his architectural studies at the University of New South Wales followed by an architecture career in Sydney. After 13 years abroad, he was lured back with a job prospect to be part of an international team to design the new National University of Singapore campus in Kent Ridge, back in 1971, around the time when his daughter Wei-Ling was born. However, he turned it down as the offer didn’t sit well with him despite the perks it came with. Lim recounts the experience, “They said, ‘Because you have a Malaysian passport, we cannot offer you the expatriate contract.’ They told me that ‘my contract is one from across the Causeway.’ However, I already told them in my application that I want to be repatriated back to Australia as it is deemed to be my domicile. They should not have wasted my time. They said, ‘Come back, we can sort something out.’ I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ I wasn’t born yesterday, but no thanks! After 13 years’ survival in the Australian landscape, I’m a little bit wiser.”

Pretty soon, another opportunity came through, and he moved back to Kuala Lumpur in 1972. He got the firm to pay for his repatriation, the move, and freight costs, saying, “At least I learned something from the Singapore bad experience. From a disadvantage, I turned into an advantage.”

PRINCIPLES IN CONSERVATION

Living in the tropics and a proud custodian of our environment and culture, Lim advocates for tropical architecture that aligns with environmental conservation and sustainability. While his approach to conservation is “very much from a purist point of view,” he emphasises the importance of practicality alongside purism, stating that conservation should adapt to the “passage of time” concept. While true purism may mean not accepting modern amenities like electricity and running water, it is simply unrealistic. Instead, he suggests preserving historical elements while accepting adaptative necessities. For example, when restoring a collapsed wall that used bricks from the 17th or 19th century, it would be impossible to get those exact bricks to replace it. Therefore, he recommends using similar lookalike bricks from whatever available resources and incorporating them together. “So, the celebration of these differences reflects the ‘passage of time,’” says Lim, who was the former president of Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) and is one of the founding members of Badan Warisan, an NGO that raises awareness of heritage issues, initiated in 1984.

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He is also firm in his belief that over time, everyone has earned the right to their place of belonging, based on their years of residence. This principle applies to the environment as well, where he states that “existing elements like trees and rocks have more rights of existence than anything else you want to put on there.” In the past 45 years of practising sustainable architecture, he has prioritised keeping these elements intact, along with using zero energy and maximising renewable resources like sunlight and wind. A prime example of this is The Salinger House, a three-storey timber structure raised on stilts to reduce its impact on the land and allow for adequate ventilation to keep the building cool. The house was entirely built by hand, using timber that is highly resistant to water and termites. When the house was nominated anonymously for the award in 1998, the Aga Khan jury found that “the house demonstrates that high technology and energy-depleting services can be renounced if sufficient craft and creativity are deployed.”

INVISIBLE INTELLECTUAL CEILING

When asked which of his works he’s most proud of, Lim says he doesn’t play favourites with his projects; each one serves as a stepping stone to greater achievements because “I believe that life is all about breaching your ‘invisible intellectual ceiling.’” Lim created the concept, elaborating it as outdoing your best. “You see, once you’ve attained a certain level of education or attainment, you tend to plateau horizontally. At that point where you think you’ve achieved enough, you start to think, ‘Do I want to attain more or go on a plateau and slide down into mediocrity?’

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“So what I do is that when this starts happening, (picturing a graph) I move my X and Y axis up to the highest point to become my zero-zero. From there you strike up again so you have a certain other level to achieve. This way, you’re always going up as you’re doing something challenging. This is how I gauge my work—a lot of my projects, which are landmark projects, got to set the standard by breaking the invisible intellectual ceiling.”

JACK OF ALL TRADES

Lim’s out-of-the-box thinking and straightforward approach are what make him sought-after as an architect and a keynote speaker both locally and internationally. He was an adjunct professor at Curtin University and the University of Tasmania and has written for publications such as Berita Akitek. He continues to lecture extensively at Taylor’s and would like to take up learning the saxophone one of these days. His eyes twinkled when he regaled me about the time he took up ballet at the age of 40. “I love ballet because it had strict classical discipline, and design requires me to allow my mind and creativity the freedom to explore, to conceptualise and to resolve. Ballet challenges my freedom with classicism, the orderly rituals of ballet. I was offered jazz ballet but I rejected it. However, it was good exercise. To know that you can actually do it, that’s amazing.”

It goes without saying that enjoying life is one of his secrets to living well and will keep him robust in his eighties. He finds that still being inquisitive about things keeps his mind active. “However, most importantly, always remember to let go and move on in life. The fire in 040404 (April 4, 2004) taught me this,” says Lim.

When asked about the legacy he hopes to leave behind, he responds, “I think just for people to say that ‘he tried.’ Not everybody liked what I did, but I did it. And I enjoyed it. The fact that I can go to Sri Lanka last week and the next month to Karachi to deliver a keynote address and be well-received, and after that, give lectures to architectural students means I’m still marketable.”

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