Cities 27 (2010) 285–297

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Cities

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City profile

Putrajaya: Malaysia’s new federal administrative capital

Sarah Moser *

Center for Urban and Global Studies, Trinity College, 70 Vernon St., Hartford, CT 06106, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 30 August 2009Received in revised form 23 October 2009Accepted 1 November 2009Available online 27 November 2009

Keywords:PutrajayaMalaysiaSoutheast Asian cityIslamic urban designNew cityIntelligent cityGarden cityMaster planned city

0264-2751/$ - see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.cities.2009.11.002

* Tel.: +1 617 999 7051.E-mail addresses: sarah.moser@trincoll.edu, moser

1 Naypyidaw, the new capital of Myanmar (formerlyand ostentatious Southeast Asian city built in recent yearof Rangoon (now Yangon). Little, however, has been writshrouded in secrecy by the ruling military regime. It is hiMyanmar have visited Putrajaya as Myanmar participatwhich have been hosted by Malaysia. Future researcconnections to Putrajaya and other new cities in Asia an

In the early 1990s, the Malaysian government conceived of a new federal administrative capital builtfrom a tabula rasa on former oil palm and rubber plantations called Putrajaya. It was designed to bethe new home to all of Malaysia’s federal government ministries and national level civil servants, hostall diplomatic activities for the country, and function as a potent symbol of the nation’s ambitious mod-ernization agenda and of its new ‘progressive Muslim’ identity. As one of many new cities recently builtas seats of power in Southeast Asia and the ‘global south’, Putrajaya is emblematic of the trend of formercolonies to reject the colonial capital and to replace it with a city that symbolizes the state’s national ide-ology and aspirations. This article provides a brief overview of the history and development of Malaysianurbanism that set the stage for the creation of Putrajaya and critically examines its claims of being ‘green’.Particular attention is paid to how a national identity has been constructed through the design of the city.

� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction in Malaysian and Southeast Asian urbanism. The generous state

A master planned city built on a tabula rasa

The city of Putrajaya is one of a series of ambitious urban pro-jects in Malaysia that reflect the state’s commitment to craft a par-ticular national identity and to gain recognition on the world stage.As the new federal administrative capital of Malaysia, Putrajaya isthe new home to all federal-level government ministries, civil ser-vants and their families. About 100,000 of the expected 350,000residents are now living in Putrajaya and the city is slated for com-pletion in 2011. Reminiscent of the classic master planned cities ofChandigarh and Brasilia, Putrajaya is a valuable contemporaryexample of a master planned government showpiece and illus-trates the struggle of many former colonies to forge a distinct na-tional identity that both reflects the values and aspirations of thenew nation and distances itself from its colonial past.

Putrajaya’s size, scope, and speed of construction are ambitious.As the most ostentatious and expensive administrative capital inSoutheast Asia1, Putrajaya provides insights into current directions

ll rights reserved.

saurus@yahoo.comBurma), is another expensive

s to replace the colonial capitalten on it to date and the city is

ghly likely that state officials ines in ASEAN meetings, some ofh on Naypyidaw may reveald the Middle East.

financial backing for the city has ensured its completion and has se-cured Putrajaya a prominent place in the pantheon of grand masterplanned capitals. Malaysia’s oil-driven economy combined with theruling elite’s capacity to allocate unlimited amounts of public moneyto mega-projects that serve nation-building purposes make Putrajayaan important and fascinating city to examine.

Putrajaya is the latest in a tradition of postcolonial masterplanned cities built on a tabula rasa. Like other master planned cit-ies, the creators of Putrajaya subscribe to a utopian belief in thepossibility of the ideal city, that engineering a society’s – even a na-tion’s – success is possible through design (Scott, 1998; Vale, 2008[1992]). Beyond realizing such practical goals as relieving conges-tion or creating a healthy urban environment for residents, the pri-mary objectives in master planning capital cities is to construct,communicate, and normalize national identity to the citizenry.Not only are cities ‘the medium by which the powerful expresstheir influence’ (Kong, 2008, p. 26), capital cities in particular re-veal how the state imagines itself or how it aspires to be, as wellas how it wishes to be seen by others (Vale, 2008 [1992]).

Putrajaya was begun in 1995 as an urban showpiece for thecountry, intended to demonstrate both to Malaysians and theinternational community that Malaysia is a stable, prosperous, pro-gressive, and technologically sophisticated Muslim country, but atthe same time, showcase Malaysia’s rootedness in traditional cul-ture and religion. The city is part of a series of mega-projects initi-ated by former Prime Minister Mahathir that were intended topropel Malaysia onto the world stage and as a way to attractforeign investment (Olds, 1995; Morshidi and Pandian, 2007).

286 S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297

The name is a reference both to the first Malaysian Prime Minister,Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, and the Sanskrit-derived putra, mean-ing ‘son’ or ‘prince’ and jaya2, translated as ‘success’ or ‘victory’. Theunderlying goal in Putrajaya was to create a ‘model city’ that wouldset a new standard for Southeast Asian cities and would be looked toas a template for other cities to emulate (Putrajaya Holdings, Bridgesof Putrajaya, 2003, p. 9). While all of the federal ministries arelocated in Putrajaya, parliament is still located in Kuala Lumpur,which, for now, technically remains the capital city. However, Putra-jaya has become an important national symbol and the venue for na-tional events including the festivities surrounding IndependenceDay.

Relatively little has been published to date on the city of Putra-jaya itself. Scholarship on Putrajaya has generally been tied tobroader discussions on the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), ahigh-tech zone stretching between KL south to the new nationalairport, and the Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area, which includesPutrajaya, Cyberjaya (Putrajaya’s high-tech twin city), PetalingJaya, Shah Alam and Klang (Bunnell, 2002; Bunnell, Barter, andMorshidi, 2002; Indergaard, 2003; Bunnell, 2004; Ramasamy, Cha-krabarty, and Cheah, 2004; Bunnell and Coe, 2005; King, 2008; Gohand Liauw, 2009). There is, however, merit to a focused study onPutrajaya as the city has been a source of inspiration for other citiesin Malaysia, other states in Southeast Asia, and for countries as faraway as central Asia and Africa.

This paper provides a critical look at an important and symbolicnew Southeast Asian city and its attempt to forge a new nationalidentity through the design of a city. I begin by introducing Putra-jaya’s location and Malaysia’s unique demographics. I provide abrief overview of Malaysia’s diversity of urban influences and placePutrajaya in the context of Malaysia’s era of mega-projects. I thenexamine Putrajaya’s master plan and the turn in Malaysian statearchitecture towards a generic Middle Eastern imaginary. Finally,I highlight some of Putrajaya’s challenges and shortcomings re-lated to its claims of being a ‘green’ city, constraints of its masterplan, and critically evaluate Putrajaya’s aspiration to be a ‘model’city.

Urban history in peninsular Malaysia

Location and demographics

Putrajaya is located on peninsular Malaysia in the Klang Valley25 km south of Kuala Lumpur in the Multimedia Super Corridor(MSC), a 50 km long stretch between Kuala Lumpur and KLIA (Kua-la Lumpur International Airport) (Fig. 1). As Malaysia’s most popu-lous urban region, the MSC was conceptualized as a Malaysianversion of California’s Silicon Valley in a bid to nurture the coun-try’s budding knowledge economy and attract international high-tech industries. Although the MSC has not achieved the anticipatedlevel of success (Bunnell, 2004), the state’s intention was for it tobecome a sophisticated information network based on multimediatechnologies and serve as the digital backbone to support interac-tive government, community, commerce and society. Kuala Lum-pur and the MSC have been examined in a previous City Profile,‘Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area: a globalizing city-region’ (Bun-nell, Barter, and Morshidi, 2002), that focuses on the increasinglyglobal orientation of the city and its implications for the wider ur-ban region.

Located just a few degrees north of the equator, Malaysia is hotand humid all year. Rainfall averages 2–3 m (100–200 in.) per year

2 Jaya is a common part of place names in Indonesia and Malaysia: Nusajaya, IrianJaya, Petaling Jaya, Subung Jaya, Aceh Jaya, and Jayakarta, the pre-colonial name forJakarta.

and usually falls in heavy monsoons, depositing 10–30 cm withinjust a few hours. Putrajaya sits on hilly terrain that was once trop-ical jungle but was transformed in colonial times into a vast seriesof plantations growing cocoa, rubber and oil palm. To create thecity of Putrajaya, large tracts of agricultural land were bought upby the state, displacing around 2400 plantation workers (Bunnell,2002).

Malaysia’s population is over 27 million, 70% of whom are ur-ban and 15% of whom live in the Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area(Department of Statistics Malaysia website). Rates of urbanizationin Malaysia have dramatically increased since the end of the colo-nial era, from 26.5% in 1957 to 66.9% in 2005 (Thompson, 2007).Due in large part to colonial policies, Malaysia is an ethnicallyand religiously diverse country. Large numbers of migrants fromChina and to a lesser extent India and what is now Indonesia mi-grated to the Malay Peninsula in the 19th and early 20th centuriesseeking trade opportunities and to work as labourers on colonialplantations (Cho, 1990). These migration patterns are evident inMalaysia’s current demographics: Malays3 and other indigenouspeople constitute 61.4% of the population, people of Chinese descent23.7%, people of Indian descent 7.1% and others 7.8%. Muslims con-stitute 60.4% of the population, with the remaining 40% split be-tween Buddhists (19.2%), Christians (9.1%), Hindus (6.3%),Confucianists, Taoists, and followers of other traditional Chinese reli-gions (2.6%).

Malaysia’s diversity of urban influences

Malaysia has a long and rich urban history with many diverseinfluences. During the second half of the 20th century, Malaysiashifted from a largely rural to a largely urban population (Leete,1996). According to Southeast Asia historian Anthony Reid, thepercentage of city dwellers prior to the colonial era was extremelyhigh in the commercialized areas of the Straits of Melaka (Reid,1993). The cities were rarely walled, and even the walled cities ap-peared to be a different kind of city to visitors as they were partic-ularly green, sparsely settled, filled with fruit trees and builtentirely of wood. Ross King (2008) sees similarities betweendescriptions of past cities and contemporary Malay settlementsin their spaciousness, the lack of geometrical layouts and the prior-ity placed on the growing of fruit trees for each household. Whilethere were large settlements centered around trading ports inthe pre-colonial Malay Peninsula, these were made of wood andhave not survived except in travellers’ tales. Moreover, contempo-rary urban Malaysia did not evolve from indigenous settlementsbut from colonial administrative centers and the internationaltrade activities of the British colonial government and immigrants(Evers and Korff, 2000).

As the governing colonial power in what is now Malaysia, theBritish had a significant impact on Malaysian cities. The approachto planning introduced by the British in Malaysia was hierarchi-cally ordered and produced the administrative town. A distinctethnicized urbanization was developed according to British preju-dices that viewed the Chinese as thriving in urban settings and Ma-lays as an inherently rural people. These racial assumptionsresulted in the Malay Reservation Enactments in the 1930s, a seriesof policies that placed Malays on rural reservations and thus insti-tutionalized an urban/rural divide based on race, of which therepercussions are felt today.

As a primarily urban-based community and as the secondlargest ethnic group in the country, the Chinese–Malaysians havehad a significant impact on Malaysian urbanism. Broadly speaking,

3 This category includes those who had migrated from what is now Indonesia,including Javanese, Bugis, Batak and so on.

Fig. 1. Location of Putrajaya.

4 For discussion on new towns in Malaysia, see (Lee, 1980).5 Independence from the United Kingdom was gained to the Malay Peninsula in

1957, although the formal name remained Malaya. The name changed to Malaysiaafter Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined in 1963 to form a Federation.

S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297 287

Malaysian urbanism can be characterized by its unequal geograph-ical distribution of Malays and Chinese. Starting in colonial times,the Chinese produced a distinctive urban form that consisted ofdense areas of ‘shop houses’. The shop house, dating from colonialBritish times and found throughout Malaysia and Singapore, is anarchitectural form unique to Southeast Asia in which the groundfloor of a row house is used for commercial purposes with theupper few storeys for residential use. The upper storeys hang overthe sidewalk in front of the shops and are supported by columns,thus creating a covered sidewalk that protects pedestrians fromthe elements. The density and order of the Chinese urban areascontrast with the more dispersed, leafy Malay spaces. Until re-cently, Chinese have constituted a majority of the urban popula-tion in most cities in Malaysia. This has changed in recentdecades with the introduction of policies meant to encourage moreMalays to live in cities. This, however, has led not to blending butto the further creation of ethnic enclaves (Thompson, 2007).

The colonial British left a strong impact on urban Malaysia inthree key areas. First, the British created grand administrativebuildings for their colonial bureaucracy, many of which remainas prominent and visible parts of Malaysian cities. In the largeradministrative centers, the British introduced a neoclassical ‘Brit-ish Raj’ style, with elements of Victorian, neo-gothic, Moorishand Mogul (generally referred to then as the ‘Mahometan’ style)architecture and featuring fantastical domes, arches and arcades.The ‘Mahometan’ style was adopted ostensibly ‘to acknowledgethe Malay rulers in whose name the British would govern and tohonour their religion (though not their culture)’ (King, 2008, p.16). Many of the iconic British Raj buildings in Kuala Lumpur weredesigned by British architects who had previously worked in India.

Second, colonial British racial philosophy resulted in the geo-graphical division of races both on a city scale and a broader scale.On a city scale, there were racial enclaves that gave distinct form to

different neighbourhoods. For example, the distinctive form of theChinese shop house became a highly visible element in Malaysiancities. As mentioned, the British introduced policies that encour-aged Chinese people to live in cities and Malays to live in ruralareas and as a result, the proportion of Chinese residents in mostcities has historically been far higher than the national average.The migration of many rural Malays to urban areas in recent yearshas shifted demographics, for the first time making Malays thelargest group in most cities.

Third, British planners were hired to create new cities in the col-ony based on then-contemporary planning philosophies whichhave in turn influenced generations of Malaysian designers. Influ-enced by the then-current ideas of Ebenezer Howard and his ‘Gar-den City’ concept, the British believed that growth should becontrolled through the construction of new towns and green belts.The strategy of creating new towns was continued after Indepen-dence and has become standard practice in Malaysia, with Putra-jaya the latest in a long tradition of new towns.4

After Malaya gained Independence in 1957 and the subsequentformation of the Federation of Malaysia in 19635, KL went througha period of nationalization. Iconic monuments were added to colo-nial spaces and streets were renamed after prominent nationalistleaders (King, 2008). Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Malaysia’s firstPrime Minister, and the architects he employed eagerly followedinternational architectural movements and the architecture builtimmediately after Independence displays clear International Stylegeometries, decorative sub-shading and landscape settings in a‘tropical idiom’ (Lim and Tay, 2000). While the International Mod-

Fig. 2. Aerial image of Putrajaya in 2009, labeled with places mentioned in this article: (1) Putrajaya International Convention Center (2) Putrajaya Lake (3) Putrajaya’s mainaxis, the 4.2 km Putrajaya Boulevard (4) Putrajaya Sentral and ERL Station Putrajaya, the main transportation (5) Putra Mosque, the ‘Souq’, and the circular Putra Plaza (6) parkand Shangri-La Hotel.

288 S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297

ernist urban design and architecture during this period came to beconsidered by many as a western cultural import, it was free ofethnocentric references and nationalistic hyperbole, a contrast tothe neo-traditionalism that would follow in the subsequentadministration.6

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed was the leader who was themost active in engaging the design of the built environment in theservice of nation-building. Mahathir’s nationalist vision had a last-ing impact on the course of Malaysian urbanism and set the condi-tions that would lead to the creation of Putrajaya.

An era of mega-projects: designing a new capital

Mahathir attempted to dismantle the legacy of his predecessorin a variety of ways that extended to projects in the urban environ-ment. National projects built under the rule of the Tunku were‘demolished, left to deteriorate or . . . overshadowed by Mahathir-memorializing additions or replacements’, consistently on a mas-sive scale that came to be Mahathir’s signature (King 2008, p.

6 See Goh and Liauw (2009) for an excellent overview of how architectural shifts inpost-Independence Malaysia have reflected changing national priorities and under-standings of national identity.

124). The MSC was to de-emphasize Kuala Lumpur and spreadaround the development, ensuring growth in the Klang Valley.During his tenure as prime minister (1981–2003), Mahathir prior-itized what he called Wawasan 2020, or ‘Vision 2020’, a blueprintfor the country to become a ‘developed nation’ by the year 2020.Mahathir aggressively pursued an ambitious agenda to modernizeMalaysia, transform it into a ‘First World’ country, and propel it tothe international stage. He sought to skip ugly stages of develop-ment and leap-frog the country straight into a knowledge-basedeconomy.

As part of ‘Vision 2020’, Mahathir used the country’s large oilrevenues to fund the building of spectacular mega-projects in-tended to showcase Malaysia as a modern, efficient country thatwas committed to economic development. Among Mahathir’smega-projects are the Petronas Towers (also known as KLCC, orKuala Lumpur City Center) which, until recently, were the tallestbuildings in the world, the massive Kuala Lumpur InternationalAirport and the Multimedia Super Corridor, and the twin cities ofPutrajaya and Cyberjaya located within the MSC. The projects aremanifestations of Mahathir’s ambition to transform Malaysia intoan international player.

With increasing traffic problems and crowding in Kuala Lum-pur, the idea for a new administrative capital was conceived of dec-ades ago as a way to relieve congestion. Kuala Lumpur was felt to

Fig. 3. Looking north from the Putrajaya International Conference Center at the far south of the 4.2 km ceremonial axis. Photo: Author, August 2008.

7 See Ross King, 2008, p. 148 for an overview of the five conceptual proposalssubmitted for Putrajaya.

S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297 289

be old and cramped, plagued with transportation and infrastruc-ture problems, and burdened by its colonial past. As is the rationalein many former colonial cities, the construction of a new capitalwas seen to be the solution to these problems, a move that woulddistance Malaysia from its colonial past while emphasizing its newidentity as a sovereign nation. High-profile international architectshave been frequently selected to design highly visible national pro-jects such as capital cities (e.g. Swiss architect Le Corbusier forChandigarh) and for several Malaysian mega-projects (Argentin-ean–US architect Cesar Pelli for the Petronas Towers, Japanesearchitect Kisho Kurokawa for Kuala Lumpur International Airport).However, for Putrajaya, the Malaysian state wished to demonstratethe nation’s high level of expertise by using only local engineers,architects, and artisans.

Several locations were suggested before Mahathir settled on atract of plantation land conveniently located between Kuala Lum-pur and the site for the new international airport and within theMSC. While Kuala Lumpur was to remain the financial and com-mercial center, Putrajaya was to become the government centerand symbolic focus for the country and the two were connectedwith a light rapid transit line. Putrajaya was intended as an inde-pendent city employing federal government employees and thosein service industry positions to serve them (cooks, transportationworkers, cleaners, gardeners, technicians, etc.).

As the most potent and expensive symbol of Mahathir’s pet pro-jects, Putrajaya is inseparable from the former Prime Minister. Thisleaves Putrajaya simultaneously vulnerable to possible neglect byfuture leaders who oppose Mahathir and his mega-projects andas a model for future Malaysian cities. Abdullah Bedawi, Mahathir’s

successor, has slowed spending in Putrajaya’s construction whiledirecting funds to his own pet project, a grandiose new capitalfor Johor state, ostensibly designed to both compete with and over-shadow Mahathir’s legacy.

The master plan

In 1993 the federal government under Mahathir invited sixMalaysian consulting firms to create conceptual proposals forPutrajaya. Five schemes were presented7 and Mahathir acceptedthe entry of BEP Akitek in 1994. All teams were then instructed toform a consortium to develop the winning team’s design. The headarchitect began with an axis as ‘capital cities have axes’ (interviewcited in King, 2008, p. 150) and then decided the plan needed to‘get organic’ to relieve the formality of the axis. Putrajaya’s masterplan has the geometric formality of many planned capitals andmakes liberal use of formal axes and radial roads that recall the gran-deur and ostentation of other planned cities such as Paris, New Delhiand Washington, DC. However, its layout is also influenced by topog-raphy; in contrast to main roads, secondary streets follow the con-tours of the land, reminiscent of the Beaux Arts design forCanberra (King, 2007). The strongest elements of Putrajaya’s masterplan are the artificial lake and the main axis that leads from thePutrajaya International Convention Center to the Prime Minister’sOffice along which most government buildings are located (Fig. 2and 3). The main axis, Putrajaya Boulevard, is 4.2 km long and serves

290 S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297

as Putrajaya’s main ceremonial route where national parades andcelebrations have been held in recent years, replacing Kuala Lumpuras the primary venue for national day events.

The master plan divides the city into two main areas, the coreand the periphery. The core is intended as the administrative andsymbolic center for the city and for the country and is meant toshowcase Putrajaya’s identity through grand civic buildings. Thecore also contains hotels, shopping centers, commercial offices,exhibition and convention centers, private colleges, a private med-ical center, and various tourism facilities.

The periphery is designed to hold fourteen residential neigh-bourhoods with 67,000 units of housing. Within each neighbour-hood, there is a variety of housing for a range of incomes,including detached homes, row houses, shophouses, and high-riseapartments. There are numerous commercial clusters in neigh-bourhoods throughout the city where residents can walk to buygroceries in a wet market, supermarket or corner shop and a mos-que. This form has been replicated in Putrajaya in many neighbour-hoods (see Fig. 5) and engages ideas developed in New Urbanism

Fig. 4. Putrajaya’s Precinct

(Katz, Scully, and Bressi, 1994) with regards to density, walkabilityand traditional scales of living. Each neighbourhood is visually dis-tinct, thus helping residents to cultivate a sense of identity andattachment to their neighbourhood.

Reminiscent of the organization of Chandigarh into sectors,Putrajaya is similarly divided into 20 precincts, each with distinctfunctions such as entertainment, commerce, government, housing,as well as one precinct specifically for foreign diplomats (seeFig. 4). Unlike Chandigarh’s system of identical ‘sectors’, Putrajaya’sprecincts have been made visually distinct from one anotherthrough clustering buildings made from the same materials. Fur-thermore, while planners of Canberra, New Delhi and Chandigarhat least initially ‘assumed class segregation and reinforced it bythe provision of a hierarchy of residential patterns descendingfrom the privileged position of the capitol’ (Vale, 2008, p. 137),planners of Putrajaya, like Brasília, have created neighbourhoodsthat include a variety of incomes and a range of housing types.

Of Putrajaya’s 4931 hectares, one third is designated as ‘greenareas’, which include parks, gardens, Putrajaya Lake and the

s and Putrajaya Lake.

Fig. 5. Designers of Putrajaya created distinct neighbourhoods through various types of housing with different designs anchored by neighbourhood amenities such as shops,wet market, or shopping plaza. Photos: Author, August 2008.

Fig. 6. A variety of ‘green’ space has been created in Putrajaya that has recreational and or ecological functions. Photos: Author, August 2008.

S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297 291

adjacent wetlands. Through flooding, a 650-hectare lake and197 hectares of wetlands in 23 parcels were created. The lakeserves both recreational and ecological functions, providing a bodyof water maintained at a level safe for skin contact (although notfor swimming) while helping to mitigate floods and treat runoffwith a wetland that forms a part of the lake (Putrajaya Wetlands,1999) (see Fig. 6).

Integrated public transportation is a key aspect of the masterplan with buses and a future monorail intended to alleviate someof the need for car travel. With extensive public transit built orplanned, and bicycle and walking trails, the design for Putrajayais meant to prevent the traffic problems and the resulting pollutionthat plague many cities in Malaysia and the region (see Table 1).

Turning to an imagined Middle East

An examination of KL’s architecture and urban fabric reveals arich variety of cultural influences including colonial British, Chi-nese, Malay, Indian and post-Independence national. Putrajaya,however, shows none of this diversity; rather, the design languagechosen for the city draws on the architectural traditions of animagined Middle East. Many of Putrajaya’s architectural focalpoints and key government structures are based on variouswell-known classics of Middle Eastern architecture from a varietyof origins including Iran, Iraq, Egypt, North India, Moorish Spain,central Asia, the Ottoman Empire, and so on. Styles reference arange of historical sources, yet very little has been adopted from

Table 1Putrajaya: vital statistics.

Official name Putrajaya, the Federal Administrative CenterLocation 25 km South of Kuala Lumpur, 20 km north of Kuala

Lumpur International Airport (KLIA)Population (current) Almost 100,000Population

(projected)330,000

Total size 4930 hectaresLand use (%) Government 5.3%

Commercial 2.9%Residential 25.8%Civic and cultural 0.2%Public facilities 10.1%Utility and infrastructure 18.2%Green areas 37.5%

DevelopmentComponents

Core area 1069.1 haGovernment precinct 236.2 haMixed developmentprecinct

55.2 ha

Civic and cultural precinct 35.3 haCommercial precinct 213.3 haSports and recreational 329.1 haWater bodies, wetlandsand lake

585.6 ha

Periphery area 2925.3 haPutrajaya Boulevard 100 m wide, 4.2 km long

Transportationsystems

Intracity – monorail, taxi busesIntercity – express rail link, north–south linkKL-Putrajaya-KLIA dedicated highwayKL-Seremban Highway

Implementation Statutory authority Perbadanan PutrajayaDeveloper Putrajaya Holdings Sdn

BhdProject manager Kuala Lumpur City

Center Bhd

*Adapted from Abidin, Azizan Zainul, ‘Putrajaya: Building for prosperity’ in Yeoh,Michael. (2002) 21st Century Malaysia: Challenges and Strategies in Attaining Vision2020. London: Asean Academic Press, p. 183.

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indigenous forms, despite the many rich design traditions, woodcarving and building methods from the region. Instead, it is fantas-tical domes and arches that dominate Putrajaya’s skyline and geo-metric Islamic landscape features that decorate the shoppingcenters, bridges, streets and parks (Fig. 7). Through its simulta-neously ‘fantasy Islamic’ and high-tech architecture, Putrajaya

Fig. 7. Islamic identity as national iden

announces the state’s ambitions to be known as a progressive Mus-lim country.

Masjid Putra, or the Putra Mosque, is a major focal point for thecity, and extends into the lake where there are clear sight linesfrom many angles around the city (Fig. 8). According to a book pub-lished by the developer, Putrajaya: the Developer’s Perspective1995–2002 (2003, p. 153), the design of the Putra Mosque was in-spired by three main sources: a mosque in Uzbekistan, the Per-sian–Islamic architecture of the Safavid Period and the minaret ofthe Sheikh Omar Mosque in Baghdad. In keeping with the MiddleEastern theme, there is an Arab-themed ‘Souq’ under the PutraMosque that is clearly intended to evoke the ‘exotic’ bazaars ofCairo and Damascus.

Such mixed stylistic borrowing can be seen in many of Putra-jaya’s bridges that straddle the lake. Putra Bridge, the ceremonialbridge along the main axis, is closely modeled after the 17th cen-tury Khaju Bridge in Isfahan, Iran, and is decorated with ‘Islamic’motifs, including floral designs, star motifs, screens, arches, andoctagonal towers covered with grille panels. While the Seri Per-dana Bridge is loosely Moorish (particularly in its iwans, or vaultednooks) and is decorated with tiles that evoke Central Asian domes.Similarly, the Seri Bakti Bridge has distinctive Islamic detailing andmihrab-shaped observation decks with dome-shaped roofs in thesame shade of green as the main dome of the Prime Minister’sOffice.

While there have been numerous attempts in Southeast Asia todevelop a modern urban form that draws on vernacular architec-tural and planning concepts (Tajuddin, 2005; Nas, 2007), it is sig-nificant that designers of Putrajaya have summarily rejected localforms. King (2008) argues that this turn to a Middle Eastern imag-inary was the influence of Prime Minister Mahathir, who closelyoversaw the development of Putrajaya’s design, has publicly ex-pressed anti-Western sentiment, and has been determined to finda modern national identity that is not Western. As King (2008, p.xxiv) argues, the underlying agenda of Putrajaya is ‘the advance-ment of Malaysia as a Malay-Muslim polity, a new kind of high-modernist Muslim nation, one pole in an emerging pan-Islamicworld and noble counter to more venal globalist ideals’. Similarly,Goh and Liauw (2009, p. 71) point to the ‘growing enmeshment ofMalaysian nationalism within global political Islam which has ledto the pre-eminence of Islamic over Malay identifications in Malay-sian nationalism’. Designers of Putrajaya have consciously drawn

tity? Photos: Author, August 2008.

Fig. 8. View of Putra Mosque across Putra Lake. Photos: Author, August 2008.

S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297 293

from the ‘great Islamic civilizations’ in a way that implicitly placesMalaysia in the progression of grand Islamic civilizations. Thechoice of design for Putrajaya also reflects the political agenda ofUMNO8, a key member of the ruling coalition, ‘to be Islamicallypurer than the strident, fundamentalist-leaning and ever-threaten-ing PAS9 opposition and thereby to represent a secular state that isstill authentically Islamic’ (King, 2008, p. 165).

Challenges and shortcomings

It is almost as if the founders of Brasília, rather than havingplanned a city, have actually planned to prevent a city. (SeeingLike a State, James Scott, 1998, p. 126.)

Putrajaya has already attracted many Malaysian critics whoseviews about the city are voiced primarily in the blogosphere. Blog-gers have referred to Putrajaya as a ‘wilderness’, a ‘white elephantproject’, and ‘forlornly desolate.’ One letter to the editor in an on-line newspaper compares Putrajaya to the city of Fatehpur Sikri,an opulent city built by Akbar to serve as the political capital ofthe Mogul Empire but was abandoned soon after completion(Malaysiakini, 8 June, 2007).

8 Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Bersatu, or the United Malays National Organisa-tion, is a founding member of Barisan Nasional, the ruling coalition that has ruledMalaysia since Independence. One of UMNO’s key platforms is that Malays as theindigenous peoples of Malaysia are entitled to special privileges that those of otherethnicities (Chinese, Indian) are not.

9 Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, or the Islamic Party of Malaysia, seeks to establish Islamiclaw. The main support base of PAS is in rural states of north eastern peninsularMalaysia.

While it is still early to fully assess Putrajaya’s strengths andshortcomings, a large enough portion of the city has been con-structed and is currently in use to offer a preliminary critique. Thissection examines several of the major challenges facing designersand how they have been handled with varying degrees of success.

‘Green’ city?

The climate is one of the primary challenges to urban designersand architects in Malaysia, where daytime temperatures hover inthe low 30s Celsius (86–90� F) throughout the year and humidityis high. One of Putrajaya’s main shortcomings is that the climaticresponse in planning, architecture and landscape architecture isminimal. With great design freedom, an expansive budget and anexplicit goal of creating a ‘garden city’, the designers for Putrajayahave missed an important opportunity to advance microclimaticdesign and to create a ‘green’ city cooled passively through designand planting rather than relying primarily upon air-conditioning.While Middle Eastern motifs and symbols have been employed lib-erally throughout the city, designers of Putrajaya have failed toreproduce the innovative and resourceful microclimatic featureshistorically developed in the Middle East that provide respite fromthe intense heat (Hakim, 1986). For example, rather than narrowstreets that provide shade throughout the day, Putrajaya’s wide,formal avenues expose pedestrians, buildings and traffic to directsunlight. Furthermore, unlike the fine-grained urban fabric foundin ancient cities in the Middle East such as Tunis, Isfahan, Mar-rakesh, Jerusalem and others, Putrajaya’s master plan is spacious,comparatively low density and is peppered with grand, openplazas.

294 S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297

There is no evidence that designers have attempted to minimizePutrajaya’s ecological footprint through the use of local materials.In general, buildings have not been designed to use a minimumof power. Rather than using design as a cooling strategy, too manybuildings require massive amounts of air-conditioning for dra-matic glass atriums and other energy-inefficient features. In fact,many of the buildings in Putrajaya are made of steel and glass,allowing direct sunlight to enter (Fig. 9). Even the Putra Mosque,modeled after the naturally-cooled mosques of the Middle East,has such small windows that air-conditioning is a necessity (Tajud-din, 2005). This is compounded by the fact that, despite borrowing

Fig. 9. Many buildings prioritize a high-tech Islamic image over energy efficiency, allowPhotos: Author, August 2008.

Fig. 10. There is a lack of planting that provides adequate shade on route

from New Urbanism’s emphasis on dense building and walkability,Putrajaya is still relatively low density and it is a long, hot walk toget anywhere. Bicycles are encouraged as recreation rather than asa mode of transportation as is made clear by the lack of contiguousbicycle trails on key routes through the city. As Ross King (2007)points out, the bicycle culture in Malaysia has long been lost andthere is no evidence to date of any state efforts to encourage civilservants to bicycle to work.

While there has been an attempt to manage and treat runoffwater through the constructed wetland system and the parks pro-vide wildlife habitat and diversity, Putrajaya cannot be included

ing direct sunlight to enter the building thus relying heavily upon air-conditioning.

s intended for pedestrians and cyclists. Photos: Author, August 2008.

S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297 295

among the leading innovators in the push to create ‘green’ cities.Other new cities such as Dongtan (China), Masdar (Abu Dhabi),New Songdo (South Korea), Tangshen (China), and King AbdullahEconomic City (Saudi Arabia) are experimenting with more radicalapproaches to being ‘green’, including bolder commitments torenewable energy and attempts to produce the city’s own energy,mandating the use of green roofs, attempts to create a zero-carbon,zero-waste, car-free city, and the adoption of experimental greenalgae composters, microturbines, and other leading-edge technolo-gies. Furthermore, Malaysia’s half-hearted commitment to being‘green’ may well be limited to Putrajaya as the country is increas-ingly hosting Formula One and other major motorsport events andhas a growing number of indoor skiing venues and other energy-intensive recreational facilities.

The many parks and gardens threaded through the city makegreen space truly accessible to residents of Putrajaya. However, be-yond the large parks surrounding the lake, little attempt has beenmade to make the urban environment ‘green’ in a way that wouldreduce mid-day temperatures. As mentioned, most of the urbanplanting is decorative with the majority consisting of decorativeshrubs, trimmed hedges and flower beds rather than far-spreadingshade trees, which, if planted at strategic locations, would have re-duced the need for air-conditioning (Fig. 10). Most of the sidewalksthroughout the city have no vegetative cover at all and when thereis a planting scheme, the trees or shrubs selected will not provideshade even when mature. The lack of shade also discourages‘green’ forms of transportation such as walking and cycling as itis only bearable to move around the city in an air conditionedcar. The planting is a far cry from that found in the nearby city–state of Singapore, where 1.3 million trees have been planted sincethe Singaporean state launched its ‘Garden City’ program in the1960s (Chua, 1991; Yuen, 1996). The feeling of lushness in Singa-pore, even on the busiest thoroughfares, derives from the tall shadetrees planted along each road often in a double allée, climbingplants covering many infrastructural surfaces, planters designedinto road infrastructure, and the creation of planting opportunitieswherever possible. As can be seen from Figs. 7–10, there is a feelingof starkness in Putrajaya that is more reminiscent of a Middle East-ern city that the architecture seeks to emulate than a ‘garden city’.

Constraints of a master plan

Master planned cities inevitably raise questions of vibrancy andaesthetics. Master planning an entire city with just one developerrather than encouraging a more piece-meal and slow growth struc-tured around urban design guidelines can make a city appearhomogenous, over-designed and lacking in the spontaneity thatmakes great cities stimulating. Master planned housing develop-ments, particularly clusters of massive apartment complexes, oftenlack a ‘sense of place’ (Jacobs, 1961; Jackson, 1995) and tend tolook monotonous, with little room for residents to individualizetheir homes (Teo and Huang, 1996). While planners of Putrajayahave made an effort to create neighbourhoods in Putrajaya thathave a distinct identity, the housing currently feels somewhatmonotonous.

A more troubling aspect of Putrajaya’s design is its emphasis onMuslim identity to the exclusion of non-Muslims. There are nospaces in Putrajaya’s master plan allocated for the practice of anyother faiths; no Chinese temples, Indian temples, or churches havebeen built. Planners are currently discussing the possible creationof distinct neighbourhoods for various cultural groups, namely aChinatown and a Little India.10 This unfortunately recalls policiesof spatial segregation based on racial identities found throughout

10 Based on a discussion with a planner at Putrajaya Holdings in August, 2008.

colonial Asia and Africa, not exactly a model of sensitive and sociallyinclusive urban planning to which Putrajaya, as a cultural symbol,ought to aspire (Ross and Telkamp, 1985). This lack of diversity inPutrajaya is further problematized by being ‘locked’ into a masterplan, which does not provide a great deal of flexibility for changingneeds and demographic change. For example, if the Hindu or Chinesepopulation of Putrajaya were to grow, there is no place in the masterplan for adding facilities for particular communities. Not only isMalaysia’s cultural diversity not evident in the design of Putrajaya,there is not a trace of Malaysia’s own indigenous architecture tradi-tions – even the vernacular Muslim traditions – in Putrajaya. More-over, some critics feel that the Middle Eastern-derived ‘Islamic’idiom employed does not accurately convey the essence of Islam.As Tajuddin, Putrajaya’s most vocal critic in Malaysian academiapoints out, ‘Islamic cultural heritage is not exemplified by big domes,arches and expensive ornaments but [is] rooted in the idea of humil-ity’ (Tajuddin, 2005, p. 19). Tajuddin also argues that Putrajaya’sarchitecture is culturally inappropriate and is designed more fortourists than the faithful and for a kingdom rather than a democracy(Malaysiakini, September 15, 2008).

A model city?

Putrajaya will become a vital development catalyst due to therole it will assume as a model city – as the nerve center of thenation and an ideal place to live, work, conduct businessand engage in sports and recreational activities. (i-putra, Putra-jaya Community Portal: http://www.i-putra.com.my/about_putrajaya.cfm).

Putrajaya’s aspiration to be a ‘model city’ carries the implicationthat it is possible for other cities in Malaysia and the region toemulate Putrajaya. While government material touts Putrajaya asa ‘model’ city, it is perhaps more accurately described as a ‘show-piece’ or ‘ideal’ city as it was built with massive government fund-ing on a tabula rasa that poses no challenges with regards tohistorical preservation or aging infrastructure. While there maybe some lessons to be learned from Putrajaya’s prioritization ofpublic transportation (at least on paper) and the easy access togenerous urban recreational space, the option to build new citieswith limitless budgets as an antidote to urban problems is neitherviable in most places nor is it a sustainable approach. Furthermore,building new cities on greenfield land (undeveloped or agriculturalland) rather than investing in the improvement of existing citiesand the re-use of brownfields (abandoned or underused industrialsites) is not ultimately the most sustainable and ‘green’ approach.Generally speaking, more environmental benefit can be drawnfrom retro-fitting and improving existing infrastructure ratherthan creating new cities.

While Putrajaya has been criticized in academia and in thepress, it is widely viewed as a success story by government officialsin the Muslim world, a model for balancing religious identity withmodernity and high-tech ambitions. Putrajaya is an important newsymbol for Malaysia in the region and aspects of it are being imi-tated closely in several cities in Malaysia. In fact, many little Putra-jayas are currently springing up around the country as regionalstate-level officials look to Putrajaya as the new standard for Ma-lay(sian) urbanism (Tajuddin, 2005). Many aspects of Putrajayaare replicated in Nusajaya, a new city currently being constructedby Abdullah Bedawi, Mahathir’s successor. Designed as the newcapital of Johor province and as a catalyst for high-tech industriesand global elite, Nusajaya is intended to compete with Putrajayaand the MSC. Nusajaya is clearly influenced by Putrajaya’s grandi-ose Islamic/Malay imaginings. Several new Indonesian cities thatserve as seats of political power have also been modeled, to varying

296 S. Moser / Cities 27 (2010) 285–297

degrees, after Putrajaya. After the devastating tsunami of Decem-ber 26, 2004 that destroyed much of Banda Aceh, the capital ofAceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, the Malaysian gov-ernment offered their planning expertise complete with the assis-tance of Putrajaya’s developer, in the city’s reconstruction (Nahand Bunnell, 2005). Officials and designers of Dompak, the newcapital city of Indonesia’s recently-formed Riau Islands Province,clearly looked to Putrajaya as a source of inspiration. Governmentofficials working on the development of Dompak visited Putrajayamultiple times over the past few years and claim Dompak will be‘more beautiful and more grand than Putrajaya’ (interview withgovernment officials in Tanjung Pinang, June 2008).

Putrajaya’s impact is also being felt throughout much of theMuslim world in such regions as Africa and Central Asia, where itis seen as a model progressive ‘Islamic’ city that is grounded in reli-gious values that are expressed in a recognizably Islamic idiom. Inrecent years, officials, planners, architects and students from Africaand Central Asia have travelled to Putrajaya to view the city firsthand. Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, the Multimedia Super Corridor andMahathir’s Vision 2020 have also served as inspiration for a similarhigh-tech development in the South Indian city of Hyderabad aspart of India’s own Vision 2020. Like Putrajaya, the developmentsin and around Hyderabad are intended to act as a catalyst for aknowledge economy through designing a ‘high tech’ urban envi-ronment with global connectivity complete with a new high-techtwin city being built next to Hyderabad, called Cyberabad. Regard-less of whether Malaysia’s high-tech agenda successfully fulfills itspromise or not, Putrajaya has become a template for many leadersin the developing world who hope to leap-frog from manufacturinginto a new information age and a model of a city that has struck abalance between progressive ideas, tradition and religious values.

Future developments

It is unclear at this stage whether Putrajaya will continue ex-actly as planned until completion or whether it will adapt and re-spond to criticism. Despite Malaysia’s, and particularly nearbyKuala Lumpur’s, diverse population, planners of Putrajaya haveconstructed a national identity that prioritizes Malaysia’s connec-tion to Islam over its religiously and culturally diverse population.While it is possible that planners of Putrajaya will change course tocreate a more inclusive city and to reflect Malaysia’s post-Mahathirnational visions, drastic change seems unlikely.

As Putrajaya is completed and fills up in the years to come, itwill be interesting to see whether the city follows in the footstepsof other master planned cities such as Brasilia and Chandigarh andwill in time be ‘completed’ with informal housing and squatterareas (Holston, 1989) or whether it could ultimately end up likeghost town, half empty (Columbijn, 2005). Since Malaysia doesnot have the massive population pressures found in both Indiaand Brazil, it may be able to successfully house its more modestpopulation, particularly since growth in Putrajaya, Cyberjaya andthe MSC in general has been much slower than anticipated. Thisis partly due to the general global slowdown of the high-techindustry and partly because of the Asian economic crisis of the late1990s. Furthermore, while the construction workers in Brasiliasimply stayed in the city after its completion immediately render-ing the master plan obsolete (Holston, 1989), the constructionworkers in Putrajaya consist largely of foreign nationals who aremore easily managed and who do not have the right to remain inthe country indefinitely.

Putrajaya is a fascinating example of current Malaysian urbandesign that draws on various contemporary urban design philoso-phies, particularly in attempts to make it environmentally sustain-able and ‘intelligent’. Like Chandigarh and Brasilia, Putrajaya is an

ambitious and grandiose vision intended as the embodiment of anew political entity intent on constructing a new identity thatbreaks with the past. Also like Chandigarh and Brasilia, Putrajayacould not be integrated philosophically or physically into existingurban forms but required a tabula rasa in order to carry out thegrand vision. However, unlike these famous planned cities, theplanners of Putrajaya have learned lessons from the failures ofmodernism and have designed the city with greater sensitivity tothe daily life of its residents. Putrajaya also indicates a trend inMalaysian urban design and architecture to borrow from general-ized traditional Middle Eastern motifs, rather than drawing ontheir own vernacular design traditions.

More research will be required in the future to determine howsuccessful Putrajaya is both as a city and as a device for promotingand instilling a sense of national identity. However, Putrajaya re-veals a new direction for Southeast Asian urbanism and is a keymanifestation of contemporary Malaysian cultural and racial poli-tics. As such, Putrajaya’s design effectively reveals tensions be-tween national identity, ethnic identity and religion in Malaysia.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the support of a postdoctoral fellowship at theAga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology. I would also like to thank the editor andtwo anonymous reviewers for their comments.

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