CONSERVATION

The history of the Sarawak Museum building started during James Brooke rule, even though the museum was only built during Charles Brooke rule. James Brooke had rented 40 acres of land to facilitate the activities of the Society for the Propagation of Gospel (SPG) in 1848. Between1854 to 1856, a well-known naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, collected fauna specimens for sale and studied natural history in the region, including Sarawak. Alfred Wallace was prominent biogeography who had made significant contributions by determining the lines separating between Indo-Malayan and Astro-Malayan regions in terms of distribution of animals.

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Sarawak Museum is located at Jalan Tun Abang Haji Openg, Kuching. It was only in 1891 that the museum was built on the land rented to SPG. Charles Brooke acquired 9 acres from SPG for the museum site in 1890 for that purpose. Additional buildings were built to complement the museum, including the Curator House, the Museum Office, and the Planthouse (Please refer to the timeline in Figure 1). The Curator Office was built a year later in 1892, while the Plant house was built in 1894.

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The project is to conserve heritage buildings, i.e. the Old Building, Plant House and part of Curator’s Office, renovation of existing buildings such as the Spirit House and existing toilets and construction of new utilities.