For over a century, Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad anchored this city. It housed the Selangor State Secretariat when Kuala Lumpur was still taking shape as an administrative center. Later it became the Federal Court, where judges heard cases and delivered verdicts that shaped Malaysian law.
On the historic night of August 31, 1957, it witnessed the Union Jack being lowered and our flag hoisted up for the first time.
Then, for nearly two decades, it sat mostly empty. Admired by tourists from across the road, photographed constantly, but closed to the people whose city it belongs to.
This week it opened its doors to the public again after careful restoration under hashtag#WarisanKL. This is the second heritage building that has been given a new lease of life under this initiative led by Khazanah Nasional Berhad, after Seri Negara reopened in December.
This one is especially meaningful to me, as the Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad was a stately, sturdy backdrop to my formative years spent in this part of town, close to my alma mater St. John’s Institution.
It welcomes visitors now not as a museum behind a glass pane, but as a space to walk through, to experience its architecture, to understand how it shaped the life of this city. You can see the courtrooms where justice was delivered, the galleries that tell its story, the details of this majestic building that makes it so iconic.
If you’re in KL this weekend, go and visit. Walk through it, bring friends and family, and tell visitors about it. This is the point of restoring these buildings – so that they can be returned to the people to be experienced, to be proud of. We can revitalize our capital city’s identity through these heritage buildings, and not confine them only to history.
