REXKL

The gray walls and mosaic steps remain from the large cinema: its main hall had one screen, a balcony, and seating for one thousand one hundred viewers. The concrete structure was built after a fire destroyed an earlier building on this site; nothing of it remains here. After the next fire, film screenings stopped, and the former hall briefly became a hostel for travelers and newcomers. The residents gradually divided the space with makeshift rooms and partitions, so that the stairs and entrances almost disappeared behind them.

Above the entrance, the sign reads “Rex-KL.” “Rex” is the name of the cinema that once stood here, while the final two letters stand for Kuala Lumpur. Now a bookstore, small restaurants, retail spaces, exhibitions, concerts, and digital performances sit side by side inside. This mix grew out of the way the owners tried to fill a vast vacant building with people again while also paying for its upkeep.

The first Rex Cinema opened here on July twenty-eighth, nineteen forty-seven. In the mid-seventies, a fire destroyed the auditorium. Golden Communications rebuilt it: in nineteen seventy-six, it had an auditorium with one screen, a balcony, and one thousand one hundred seats. A fire on November fifth, two thousand two, ended the cinema’s history. A hostel for travelers and newcomers was then set up here; it too caught fire, in August two thousand seven. The guests returned, but makeshift rooms, additions, and partitions gradually accumulated inside. Nearly all the stairs and entrances ended up blocked.

In September two thousand seventeen, the building’s owner decided to end the previous lease and invited Shin Chang—an architect who made a living designing projects and restaurant establishments in the neighboring old shophouses. The owner needed someone prepared to take on operating sixty thousand square feet, rather than merely limiting the work to repairs. Chang brought in the creative director Shin Tseng. Together, they assembled seven partners and persuaded investors to pay for turning the former cinema into a venue for small businesses and cultural events. If visitors did not come, there would be no way to support such a large space.

For nine months, the team waited for the previous tenants to be relocated. Chang and Tseng then dismantled dangerous additions, opened up the stairs, and replaced the wiring and pipes, but left the gray walls, the tall hall, and the mosaic steps. They cleared the spaces one by one and immediately tested them in practice. When work had to be suspended for Chinese New Year, only the former open parking area on the lower level was ready. The architects invited small flower sellers there. Residents of the neighborhood, friends of the participants, and tourists filled the temporary market; it was then that the partners realized the building could generate income even before the conversion was complete.

For later vendors, the partners introduced contracts resembling partnerships: young entrepreneurs without substantial start-up capital were helped with space and fit-out, charged a small service fee, and asked for a share of their revenue. In the autumn of nineteen nineteen, regular events began in the cleared halls. The former parking area became a restaurant court, while the stepped part of the cinema was taken over by the tiered shelves of BookXcess.

Nothing remains here from the building of nineteen forty-seven: before us is the concrete cinema built after the first fire in nineteen seventy-six. Below, vendors occupy the site of the first trial market; above, the book-lined stairs repeat the levels of the former auditorium, and tickets are once again sold in the space of the former screen—now for exhibitions and digital performances.