According to various ‘What to do in Johor Bahru’-type websites, one place to visit is the Johor Bahru Art Gallery (Galeri Seni Johor Bahru) in Jalan Petri. I have driven past this beautiful building many times and it always looks closed, but I have been told by friends that it is open, so this afternoon Lawrence and I went for a walk to check it out. And, it is very much closed. The official notice stuck on a door says that it is closed for internal renovation, but I could not see any evidence of work going on here.
So, here are a few photos of the outside of the building as we circled around it, and a brief bit of its history. The Dato Abdullah Jaafar Building dates from 1910 and was built by the Syed Ahmad Sahil bin Ahmad family from Singapore. It was the official residence of Dato Abdullah bin Jaafar, the third chief minister of Johor, between 1922 and 1925. The building was left vacant until after World War II when it was used to house government agencies, and it was renovated into an Art Gallery in 1994.
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