The roles of cultural spaces in Malaysia's historic towns: the Case of Kuala Dungun and Taiping

Abstract

Cultural space constitutes the physical, cultural and perceptual attributes of a place that creates social phenomenon and place meaning. Nevertheless, cultural spaces in Malaysia's historic town were facing alteration which resulted to place declining and placelessness. Thus, this paper discusses the roles of cultural spaces that characterised the historic town's identity of Kuala Dungun and Taiping. A case study method was conducted involving site observation and questionnaire survey to collect residents’ cultural experiences. Results indicated that cultural spaces generated from routine activity, sociocultural and economic vitality contributed to identity of the historic towns.