Conservation of a lighthouse and its future use towards visitor friendly historical building / Mohamad Sanusi Mustafa

For hundreds of years, lighthouse has been built as an aid of navigation. It has a unique strong physical character, built at specific and pre-determined locations, especially along coastal area. Its individual design marks a sense of place at where it stands. Yet it has some common character, shared among others all over the world. As these structures are situated at torturing coastal environment, through time it is exposed to decaying effect if preservation measures are not to be taken when needed to. This research tries to explore major restoration work done on lighthouses in Peninsular Malaysia as an attempt to preserve one of our national heritage. This involved major factors to considered and method of conservation being applied. At least one deactivated lighthouse in Malaysia has pun under major conservation which is the Old One Fathom Bank which is situated on the Selat Malaka waterway near Kelang, Selangor. Due to its special design and characteristic, lighthouses have received tremendous interest among the public to visit. Examples on foreign countries have shown how these structures are made open for public visit with visitor friendly approaches. Some extend the spaces within it facilities with gallery or museum and souvenir shops, staircase climbing up to the lantern room or viewing platform and so on. Some of deactivated lighthouse has been put under adaptive reuse such as restaurant, resort and even a lab! Nevertheless, in Peninsular Malaysia, restricted admission status has been put on these structures. To date, there is only one lighthouse that is open to public visit without prior arrangement, which is the Fort Cornwallis Lighthouse in Penang. This research also tries to find out interest level of public visit on available lighthouses in Peninsular Malaysia. An extension of study would be how these lighthouses could adapt visitor friendly approach once it is open for public visit and what factors to be given consideration. Research methodology would be mix mode, combination of qualitative and quantitative where data is analyzed and findings are derived before summed up to conclusion and recommendation. The result will be of reference to future maritime conservation work and other related project and field.