Penang's Street of Harmony

These 10 information wall plaques were originally devised by my good friend, Lim Siang Jin, and I in 2011. During that year, we had approached Think City and had obtained some funds to carry out a project along Pitt Street and Cannon Street. Together, they are, of course, widely known as the Street of Harmony because of the close proximity of so many houses of worship belonging to the four main communities along this stretch of road in Penang.

I spent the better part of one year visiting these institutions and talking to their representatives in order to learn more about their history. My essays were even scrutinised by the Penang Heritage Trust to ensure that my facts were correct. After Siang Jin and I revisited these places to take photographs, his graphics team designed 10 digital pamphlets and also the corresponding wall plaques. The project also included designing the direction signages to lead tourists to these 10 destinations.

Eventually, these digital pamphlets were handed to the George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI) for their distribution. What GTWHI did with them, I am uncertain but for a while, the pamphlets were available from the GTWHI website for download. As for the wall plaques and direction signages, we undertook to have them fixed onto the walls of these institutions or at strategic road junctions.

We had hoped that GTWHI would ask us to undertake a second series to cover more heritage sites in George Town but it was not forthcoming. Nobody else was commissioned to continue the project but I did learn that much later, similar wall plaques were made for some other locations in the city of which I am aware of only two: at the Tan Kongsi in Beach Street and the Fooi Chew Association in Prangin Lane. Unfortunately without us being consulted, some contained factual inaccuracies. I remember being approached by someone who asked whether Siang Jin and I had prepared one of the later plaques but I had to say no, we had nothing to do with them. We do take credit for the concept but definitely not the content of the later plaques.

This wasn't exactly an institution to begin with but the Logan Memorial is located outside the new Magistrates Courthouse at the northern end of Pitt Street.

Crossing over to the other side of Light Street, the first institution we covered was the High Court Building. It is to be noted that in the past, it was known as the Supreme Court Building.

The St George's Church was the second institution along the Street of Harmony. A direction signage can also be seen in this picture, which points to other nearby places of interest. 

This plaque had to be erected onto a pole because we couldn't find a suitable spot on the wall of the Kuan Im Temple to mount it.

The entrance of the Sri Mahamariamman Temple that is seen on the Street of Harmony is actually their back door. The front is on Queen Street and the front wall there is where the plaque was fixed.

Technically too, the Han Jiang Temple is not along the Street of Harmony as it is located on Chulia Street.  

Moving back to Pitt Street, the next institution we covered was the Kapitan Keling Mosque.

The Street of Harmony not only covers Pitt Street but also Cannon Street and here is to be found the Yap Temple at the corner with Armenian Street.

Moving along Cannon Street, the Khoo Kongsi can be accessed through a long corridor and it was here that we mounted their wall plaque.

And finally at the end of the Street of Harmony can be found the Acheen Street Malay Mosque.