KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — While bullock carts no longer rumble along the roads of Brickfields, a colourful mural on a school pays tribute to this mode of transportation in one of Kuala Lumpur’s pioneer settlements.
Global Shapers Kuala Lumpur (GSKL), a non-profit affiliated with the World Economic Forum, initiated a community art project recently dubbed “BetterStreets”, where the history of Brickfields, which used to be a brick-making hub, was stencilled and painted onto the walls of SMK La Salle in Brickfields.
“We want to preserve that part of history,” GSKL curator Shawn Keng told a press conference at SMK La Salle here today.
He said the art project was undertaken by SMK La Salle students, GSKL members and those from START society, an academy that serves underprivileged children, over three days last month.
Four walls of the secondary school that face a busy street feature murals of Brickfields’s modes of transportation over the decades as well as the historical hundred government quarters for civil servants, the origin of Brickfields as a brick-making centre, and the history of La Salle Brickfields as a mission school.
There is an array of colourful paintings of bullock carts, bicycles, motorbikes, buses, trains, lorries and cars in yellow, orange, red, blue, green and purple.
As bullock carts were popular in the 1950s, Brickfields used to be known as “kandang kerbau” (buffalo shed) because buffaloes were kept there at night.
“Bullock carts helped the community transport goods to and from the Klang River,” the wall reads.
Another wall tells the story of the origin of Brickfields; it was developed by the last Kapitan Cina Yap Kwan Seng in the late 19th century, who had established a kiln and supplied bricks for all the construction work going on in the fast-growing capital city.
“In 1881, a fire engulfed the city of Kuala Lumpur followed by a flood destroying most wooden structures. Since then, buildings are constructed with bricks. Hence Brickfields,” the wall reads.
The colourful wall features paintings of shrines, mosques, Chinese temples, and even coconut trees.
The third wall shows the hundred government quarters in Brickfields, which are to be demolished soon, that will turn a century old this year.
“The construction of the hundred predates the shift of Little India to this area. It is called the hundred quarters as it refers to the exact number of units,” the colourful wall reads.
The fourth wall features pictures of tables, chairs, books, globes, blackboards and stationery in an array of colours as a depiction of the La Salle school, which was established in 1953 by De La Salle Christian Brothers as a mission school.
“The school is devoted to its philosophy of ‘Teaching minds, touching hearts and reaching out to the last, lost, least and lonely’,” the wall reads.
