Consuming colonial nostalgia: The monumentalisation of historic hotels in urban South-East Asia

Abstract: This article examines the renovation and commercial re-launch in the 1990s of some of the grand hotels built in South-East Asia during the high colonial era (1880s–1910s) and their social construction as historic monuments. The analysis focuses on architectural enhancement and discursive authentication as the key practices whereby the semblance of historic authenticity is bestowed on these hotels and made available as nostalgia to consumers. The article also considers whether renovated colonial hotels should be regarded as sites of consumption or as emerging ‘mnemonic sites’, filling in the vacuum caused by the progressive obliteration of ‘mnemonic environments’ in South-East Asia's urban landscape.