The V.I. Tower:
Architectural Features
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The architectural firm of Swan & Maclaren, founded in 1892, designed many heritage buildings in Malaya and Singapore, including the Raffles Hotel and the Victoria Memorial Hall in Singapore, and Bok House in Kuala Lumpur.
One of their most famous buildings in Kuala Lumpur must surely be the
Victoria Institution, completed in 1929. For almost a century the iconic V.I. tower has
watched over the thousands of Victorians as they went about their activities. They
were probably unaware that their school tower was an architect's delight, a wondrous
Lim Take Bane, a noted local architect with a passionate interest in heritage buildings, describes the styling as quite elaborate as it has a square multistepped base. Swan & Maclaren, he said, used this device of four pinnacles to fill in the corners of the square top of the clock tower shaft when the square section has been shaped into an octagonal section with clock faces on four sides of the octogonal section which are surmounted with small pediments. The octagon is shrunk further at the top and surmounted by a dome with the pilasters becoming structural ribs meeting at the top to support the top pinnacle. Take Bane describes the style of architecture as a form of stripped classicism with baroque mannerisms. The pinnacle shape is, of course, derived from an Egyptian obelisk, so much loved by the Romans and other Europeans who adopted it into their classical language of architecture. Herewith a layman's explanation of those elements: + Cupola +
+ Pilaster + 
An architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and
to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of
a flat surface raised from the main wall surface, usually treated as though it were
a column.
+ Vent +
+ Cornice +
+ Pediment +
+ Keystone +
+ Pinnacle +
+ Gutta +
+ String +
+ Voussoir +
+ Rustication +
The V.I. Web PageLast updated: 4 Mar 2024.
Contributed by: Chung Chee Min |
collection of many neo-classical architectural elements from the Art Deco period.
A relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building.
Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns
a larger roof or dome.
Vents allow intentional passive flow of outdoor air into a building through
planned openings, relying entirely on passive physical phenomena, such as
wind pressure. 
Any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element -
for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a pedestal,
or along the top of a wall. 
Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape.
They are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice. 
The wedge-shaped stone at the apex of a masonry arch or typically round-shaped one
at the apex of a vault.
A vertical ornament of pyramidal or conical shape, crowning a buttress, spire, or
other architectural member.
A gutta (Latin pl. guttae) is a small water-repelling, cone-shaped projection
used near the top of the architrave of the Doric order in classical architecture.
A structural surface element made of reinforced concrete and comprising a three-part
inclining wall.
One of the wedge-shaped stones used in constructing an arch.
A type of decorative masonry achieved by cutting back the edges of stones to
a plane surface while leaving the central portion of the face either rough
or projecting markedly.