Woodcarving Motifs at Melaka Traditional Houses: Kampung Morten

Woodcarving is an important component for the traditional Malay houses. Malay traditional houses becomes a symbol of ancient craftmanship skills which having beautiful architecture and richness of ornamentation. This paper intends to focus on detail about woodcarving motifs at Melaka traditional houses of Kampung Morten. The houses have been selecting are Rumah Villa Sentosa Ibrahim, Rumah Maniam Othman, Rumah Joret Ali and Rumah Hajah Kamarbee. In 1988, the Melaka state government has gazette Kampung Morten as a traditional Malay village of heritage significance and turned it into a tourist attraction. This research will be using qualitative method as a way to understand motif of woodcarving at Melaka traditional houses. Data collection of motifs will be depending at field studies at houses through photography and sketches on site. This research also will use theory Zakaria Ali to interpret and analyzing woodcarvings motifs. In design perspective, the findings would serve in understanding the visual attributes of woodcarving such as motifs and design forms. The paper would fill in the gap of new knowledge regarding the motif woodcarving at Melaka traditional houses. The documentation of knowledge about woodcarving motifs should be made and exposed to younger generations as well as a valuable collection of traditional Malay heritage.