Azure Andaman

iPhone Friday this week comes from the beautiful island of Langkawi in Malaysia and an image shot from the Westin Resort & Spa at the south side of the island overlooking the Andaman Sea. This 5 star resort has a beautiful setting with its own private beach, spa, swimming pools and a range of restaurants in a quiet location close to the main town of Kuah.

Penang Shutters

This is a lovely example of a renovated shophouse in Penang with beautiful wooden window shutters and ornate wall moldings to maintain the heritage style of the building. Again you can see the use of the traditional blue wall paint made from a natural dye from the indigo plant.

The Blue Mansion

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion is located at 14 Leith Street, 10200 George Town, Penang, Malaysia. The mansion's indigo-blue outer wall makes it a very distinct building in the area and is locally known as the Blue Mansion.

The Circa 1880s mansion built by the merchant Cheong Fatt Tze at the end of 19th century has 38 rooms, 5 granite-paved courtyards, 7 staircases & 220 vernacular timber louvre windows. The architecture of the mansion however originates from the Su Chow Dynasty Period in China. Other features of the house include Gothic louvered windows, Chinese cut and paste porcelain work, Stoke-on-Trent floor tiles made of encaustic clay in geometric pieces all shaped to fit to form a perfect square, Glasgow cast iron works by MacFarlane's & Co. and Art Nouveau48 stained glass windows. The mansion was originally built with careful attention to the principles of Feng Shui. For example, it faces the sea and has Penang Hill behind it, a strategic placement boasting an un-imped view and a promontory at the rear for protection; the domestic annex is built in front of it to prevent any road being built to create a T-Junction in front of it; it has water running through a meandering network of pipes that begin from the eaves of the roof, channeled through the upper ceiling, down the walls collecting in the central courtyard before being channeled away from the property via a similar network of pipes, in this case, underneath the entire flooring system and is built with a step in the middle to create a slope (to ride on the dragons back).

The distinctive blue colour of the mansion is the result of mixing lime with natural blue dye made from the Indigo plant. The blue was very popular in the Colonial period and the dye was imported from India to Penang by the British. The lime-wash was very effective in a tropical weather as it absorbed moisture and cooled the house whilst dispelling moisture without damage to the structural integrity of the walls. Though white was the most easily-available colour, the indigo-blue was chosen as the former is a colour synonymous with death for the Chinese.

The mansion was purchased from Cheong Fatt Tze's descendants in 1989 by a group of local Penang individuals in order to save the edifice from encroaching development and possible demolition. While it remains until now, a private-residence, the property operates as a 16 Room Bed & Breakfast-cum-museum as part of the adaptive-reuse of an ongoing restoration project.

The mansion has been featured in various films including the 1993 Oscar-winning French film "Indochine" starring Catherine Deneuve, 'The Red Kebaya', "Road to Dawn', '3rd Generation' and the critically acclaimed 'The Blue Mansion' in 2009 by Singapore Director Glen Goei of 'Forever Fever' fame. The mansion has also been featured in programs broadcast on various international tv channels (CNN, BCC, The History Channel, Discovery Travel & Living).

Blue Indigo Window

This blue coloured shuttered window was photographed in Lorong Stewart in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia. The back streets and lanes of Georgetown are great to wander through to view old historical and heritage houses. I particularly like windows and doors and this window was a great example of that run-down, dilapidated and decaying style that I like in these Asian buildings. You can make out a blue colour in the surrounding walls as well as on the window shutters and this was a very typical colour used in the colonial period. The distinctive blue colour is made by mixing lime with the natural blue dye made from the indigo plant and this dye was imported from India during those days.

Blue Stairway

The architecture of the older classic buildings in New York really impressed me and especially the way in which many of these buildings have been maintained and restored to their former glory. This building with strong blue coloured stonework, blue fire escape stairs and ornate arches made a very bold statement.

Blue Lobster Pots

Fishing around Scotland is still a major part of life and in many of the seaside villages and towns there is a harbour for all the fishing boats. These bright blue lobster pots were seen stacked on the harbour wall at Plockton.

Lobster traps are usually constructed of wire or rope and wood. An opening permits the lobster to enter a tunnel of netting. Pots are usually constructed in two parts, called the "chamber" or “kitchen”, where there is bait, and exits into the “parlour”, where it is trapped from escape. Lobster pots are usually dropped to the sea floor about a dozen at a time, and are marked by a buoy so they can be picked up later.

Boom!

This building in Spuistraat in central Amsterdam was painted a bright blue colour and had BOOM! painted across the top making it very distinctive. In this area of Amsterdam there were quite a number of these old buildings with brightly painted graffiti.

High & Dry

This is the small remote village of Toscaig in on the west coast of Scotland on the Applecross peninsula and this bright blue boat stood out having been left high and dry at low tide. This image was post processed in Nik Software's HDR EfexPro 2 and Silver Efex 2 applications.

Casa Batllo

This is the blue tiled stairwell in the famous Casa Batllo designed by Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, Spain. You will note that there is hardly a straight line in this building with windows, doors, railings all having curves. An earlier post on this blog entitled House of Bones describes this building in more detail.

How to Keep Your Jeans Blue

Ever wondered how to keep your jeans blue? This is the trick at the Dhobi Ghat in Mumbai India where a large wooden tub is used to soak the washed jeans in a solution of blue dye and water.

Private Dinner

This quaint restaurant in the Gion district of Kyoto next to the river offered a beautiful setting for dinner for these two ladies. The contrast of colours between the dark blue of the outside building walls and the warm yellow and orange interior lighting made for a good picture and captured a private quiet moment.

Blue Saree at the Red Fort

This was definitely was one of those Steve McCurry moments ..... lining up some shots inside the Red Fort in New Delhi, India when out of nowhere came this women in a blue saree breezing through the fort right in my path. No idea who she was and where she was going but the contrast of the saturated blue costume against the dark hues of the inside fort walls added a little more interest, scale and impact to this shot.