Moving Rennie London Bridge to Lake Havasu Arizona

August 26, 2007 · Filed Under Architecture Matters · 3 Comments
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moving malay house traditional heritage

Found this interesting image at Tessellar, in just so happen that during my tutorial class we had a talk on Moving Heritage.

“The 56 year old farmer said several village elders got about 150 villagers to help with the ‘big move”. Besides helping to carry the house half a kilometer to the new site, the villagers also took part in a “gotong-royong” (communal working together) to clear the land at the new location. It took an hour to move the house.” – Source: New Straits Times 15th August,2007; photo by Rahmat Othman

Usually the moving of buildings from one place to another has always been a strategy to save it from demolition, sometimes it could be for different purpose, for example to be closer to your relatives. My tutorial class was not about the reason why people move their house, but a talk on the notion of place when it comes to moving a heritage building. Is moving a heritage building a bad thing and does the shift of context effect its cultural significant? The bottom line is, how important is a place?

Context plays a significant part when it comes to a heritage building, without the connection, it losses its heritage presence and becomes just a beautiful building without meanings, on the other hand, the context always change from time to time as a city or the surrounding grows, the character of a site changes gradually, does it still make any sense justifying a heritage according to a site?

We have to remember that a shift in location could possibly means a change in the orientation of the house according to the sun angle, which defeats the purpose of moving the house in the first place.

During the presentation, my lecturer briefly mention that London Bridge was sold to the American entrepreneur Robert McCulloch for US$2,460,000. The bridge was disassembled and reconstructed at Lake Havasu City, Arizona. The reconstruction of Rennie’s London Bridge complete with mock-Tudor shopping mall has become Arizona’s second-biggest tourist attraction, after the Grand Canyon.

London Bridge Lake Havasu Arizona Rennie Grand Canyon

Now that we know the British government sold Rennie’s London Bridge to an american businessman, does it still holds the same heritage value? The original context is gone and so does the meaning, it used to be a functional structure whereas today it is better known as a tourist structure.

Another example of a change in location is the Egyptian artifacts and obelisk, these artifacts has been moved to France and Britain, how does the overall context justify when it is being display in a glass box?