Newly added National Textile Museum into my Museum list during Chinese New Year when I was doing the heritage walk with my sister and her family. The museum is housed in the heritage building designed by Arthur Benison Hubback in an Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture. Built in 1905, the building was headquarters for the FMSR - Federated Malay States Railways (now KTM) until 1917. After FMSR moved, the building subsequently occupied by various government departments and financial institutions -- Selangor Public Works department, Selangor Water Department, Central Bank Malaysia, Agricultural Bank of Malaysia, Malaysian Craft and High Court before it converted into National Textile Museum and opens for public on 9 January 2010. The building is officially designated as JKR Building 26 and it was gazetted as a historical building in 1983.
National textile museum has 4 galleries. Started with Pohon Budi Gallery which showcases the origins of textiles from the pre-historic times as well as its growth through trade. Follow by Pelangi Gallery which is my personal favourite~ exhibits some of the selected heritage collections such as the different types of batiks and their growth over the years, the collection of the Chinese community, and those of the Baba and Nyonya, which are rich with their use of silk and gold threads and beadings, as well as the profusely fine and varied motifs of ethnic Sarawakian and Sabahan textile collections. While Teluk Berantai Galery exhibits the richness, finesse and beauty of the Malay heritage collections. such as tekatan (gold embroidery).woven fabrics and limar. And lastly Ratna Sari Gallery exhibits jewelry items and personal adornments of the various ethnic groups in Malaysia made of gold, silver, copper, beads and plants, which are designed to be worn on the various parts of the body, from head to toe.
