Woodcarving Motifs of Melaka Traditional House: Rumah Mohd Hassan Bin Ali

Abstract

Woodcarving is a traditional important art to the Malay vernacular architecture in Peninsular Malaysia. Malay traditional houses becomes a symbol of ancient craftsmanship skills. Nowadays, traditional Malay houses with historic woodcarving still exists in Melaka. The problem arises when the study of documentation of woodcarving motif at traditional Malay houses are not comprehensive especially in West Coast areas especially Malacca. Documentation about woodcarving motifs of Melaka traditional house needs to produced further and revealed as a heritage collection. The objective of this study is to identify the woodcarving motifs at Melaka traditional house and to categorise the woodcarving motifs at Melaka traditional house. This paper intends focus about woodcarving motif of Rumah Mohamad Hassan bin Ali known as Teratak Sireh Pinang and located at located at Kampung Pinang A, Melaka Tengah. This research uses qualitative method in order to understand and record the motifs.  Data collection of motifs will be depending at primary data of field studies through photographic records and visual sketches. This finding showing visual analysis of woodcarving motifs based on the types and categories of woodcarving. The result of this study showed different categories of woodcarving motifs can be found at this house such as flora, fauna, geometry, still life, cosmos, nature and combination of motifs. This research is beneficial in an effort to preserve the knowledge about the beauty of woodcarving motifs at Melaka’s traditional houses and it is recommended that further exploration should be carried out concerning about woodcarving motifs at other Malay traditional houses.