GASTRONOMIC PARLIAMENT
Overstuffed with delicious tapestries, jumbo-sized kitchens, deluxe-sized dining tables, oblique refectories and garnished with iridescent scales, Gastronomic Parliament is obesely exuberant.
Bridging disparate ethnic enclaves, this epicurean paradise re-appropriates latent barriers (Gombak and Klang River), exploiting their microclimatic conditions to create common grounds for interracial feasts. Neither food court nor hawker center, the scaly monstrosity is an agent of political subjugation disguised as a melting pot. A cooking experiment where simple ingredients: tables and chairs, are flavoured with Malaysian culinary typologies and blended with projecting minbars, debating parlours and parliamentary seatings. Legal recipes for mass congregation are consequently constructed using South-East Asian dining rituals. Just as mushrooming plates house pockets of displaced communities, fragmentation of the floor becomes a tool to increase intimacy, informality and conviviality, promoting ethnic confrontation and conflict whilst at the same time foster a sense of togetherness.
Unlike the sterilized supermarkets and privatized restaurants that are increasing prevalent in the metropolis, there is no back-of-house in paradise, transforming every act of assembly into a theatrical performance.
Gastronomic heaven might be dirty but the food is out of this world.
Where heated debates are served alongside endless banquets, adversarial feasting elevates ordinary acts of bargaining, cooking and dining into political statements; creating alternative recipes for public protest in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.
Disparate Ethnic Enclaves
Gombak and Klang River as a tool to divide and conquer during British colonial rule, subsequently functioning as latent barriers used by the ruling coalition to direct the spread of chaos and violence during protests (Bersih 3.0) and riots (May 13th Incident).
Scaly Monstrosity, TS Cookbook Excerpts
Part-fruit, part-dragon.
Solar chimneys and kitchen chimneys for a dramatic roof definition.
Jumbo-sized Kitchen, Social Group: Txoko
Deluxe-sized Dining Table, Antithesis: Fabrika Kukhnya, Case Study: Berliner Philharmonie
Oblique Refectory: Convivial Parliament, Ritual Study: Le Dinner En Blanc
Floor Plans: Ground Floor, 1st Floor, 2nd Floor
Delicious Tapestries, Social Group: Baba Nyonya
Section AA
Epicurean Enclaves
The rivers as a constant in a rapidly gentrified city. Displaced families of regional eateries and street vendors migrate towards it, establishing legal congregational spaces that slowly stitch the city fabric and strengthen ethnic relations.
