The Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Building in Ipoh

HSBC Building in Ipoh

As Ipoh was the town built on tin in its heyday, international banks scrambled to make its presence to reap the benefit of brisk tin business starting from late 19th century. One of the earliest banks that opened its branch in Ipoh was The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (now HSBC). Its first branch in Ipoh which was also the second branch in Malaya was opened in 1909 after opening its first branch in Penang in 1884.  The Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation was originally housed in a wooden building near The Ipoh Town Hall & Post Office Building when it first opened its branch.  It was then relocated to The Straits Trading Company's premises on Station Road (now Jalan Dato' Maharajalela) in June 1911. It started occupying this building of its own only in 1931 which became the prominent landmark and the tallest building in Ipoh at that time.

This very handsome building was completed in 1931 featuring Classic Renaissance style which would not look out of place in London, Manchester or Liverpool.  The architect of this building was Denis Santry of the Singapore-based Swan & McLaren. It was opened by the Sultan of Perak on 31 October 1931.  It is located at the corner of Jalan Sultan Yusuf and Jalan Tun Sambanthan. It is now one of the historic buildings from the early part of the 20th century that graces the city of Ipoh, and is today part of the Ipoh Heritage Trail.

Picture A

Picture B

 

The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Architecture edited by Chen Voon Fee dedicates one entry on this majestic building.  Let me quote as follows:

Harmonic proportions and elegant lines.

Renaissance architects discovered that the calculation of ratios for harmonic scales in music could also be applied to architecture. Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) used this discovery to combine various parts of a building into a proportionate and pleasing composition. Andrea Palladio's tripartite of a building also evolved from ideas of harmonic proportions based on musical theories.

Picture A: The Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Ipoh, Perak (Completed in 1931) shows the classical tripartite divisions of the base, piano nobile (main storey) and the attic floor. Each is given different treatment: the base is arcaded, the piano nobile is defined by a series of bays and the attic level is emphasized by the double band of cornices enclosing the row of panel windows. Seen as a block, it presents a harmonious whole. 

Picture B: In contrast to the rest of the building, the scooped out loggia and Giant Orders topped by a galleried cupola at the main entrance gives the building a rounded dimension.

NOTE:

Piano nobile, (Italian: “noble floor”), in architecture, main floor of a Renaissance building. In the typical palazzo, or palace, erected by an Italian prince of the Renaissance, the main reception rooms were in an upper story, usually the story immediately above the basement or ground floor. These rooms had higher ceilings than the rooms on the other floors of the palace and were more elegantly decorated. Often a grand exterior staircase or pair of staircases led from ground level up to the piano nobile. The term is also used in reference to the main floors of similarly constructed buildings of the English Palladian style of the 18th century and of those built in Great Britain and the United States during the Renaissance revival of the mid- and late 19th century.

In Classical architecture, a giant order, also known as colossal order, is an order whose columns or pilasters span two (or more) storeys. At the same time, smaller orders may feature in arcades or window and door framings within the storeys that are embraced by the giant order.

HSBC Building in Ipoh