Istana Balai Besar, or the Palace with the Great Hall, is one of the oldest palaces in Malaysia. Located on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula in Kota Bharu, this palace was the residence of the local northern Malay Sultanate. Sultan Muhammad II (1839-1886) built Istana Balai Besar in the early 1840s when he decided to move to the province of Kelantan from the island of Saba, where the royal palace was threatened by natural erosion.

The palace complex set the prototype for subsequent palaces on the east coast, which consist of six areas: the porch (arijung), the audience hall (balai besar), the main house (rumah ibu), the middle house (rumah tengah), the kitchen area (rumah dapur) and the veranda (jemuran basah). At the Istana Balai Besar the private apartments are quite modest in relation to the audience hall designated as the sultan’s reception area.

However, these lesser pavilions are for the most part raised above the ground on piles, as was common regional practice, whereas the audience hall was uniquely built on the ground. The audience hall itself is spanned by a tripartite roof of various inclinations supported by columns. The central, highest roof is supported by a column five meters high. Though the multitiered roof resembles the Javanese style, the space traditionally left between the roofs for circulation and light in Java are not present at Istana Balai Besar. The roof is further distinguished by its polygonal roof extending forward from the hall over the porte-cochere porch. The corner junction of the roof ridges join in a feature locally referred to as pungung itik or duck’s tails. Covering the roof are flat, red tiles called “Patini tiles”, referencing their resemblance to the tiles produced in the southern Thai province… more

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Filed under: Kelantan on November 29th, 2007