"Narrowest Five Foot Way" Sculpture, Stewart Lane, George Town

Narrowest Five Foot Way is a set of steel-rod sculptures along Stewart Lane in George Town, Penang. There are five standalone sculptures all together. They were designed by cartoonist Lefty for Sculptureatwork Studio. The suclptures are placed against the columns that shelter the five-foot way. From left to right, they depict an Indian dhoby with laundry basket, a Chinse amah or housemad, a young jogger, a coolie and an English planter, who remarked, "Obviously this is less than five feet".

Narrowest Five Foot Way Sculpture, Stewart Lane, George Town, Penang (30 June 2012)


The "Narrowest Five Foot Way" Sculpture celebrates this uniquely local architectural element in the design of townhouses and shophouses built between the mid 19th century to the later part of the 20th century.

The creation of five-foot ways is attributed to the founder of Singapore, Stamford Raffles. Raffles was said to have been drenched by a torrential downpour while serving in Batavia (Jakarta). (This should be somewhere between 1806, when the Batavian Republic collapsed with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of Holland, and 1824, when the Anglo-Dutch Treaty was signed.) He insisted that sheltered walkways should be made a feature of all new urban structures, to protect pedestrians from the elements. This was said to have been included in Plan of the Town of Singapore, also known as the Jackson Plan of 1822.

One of the five Narrowest Five Foot Way sculptures (30 June 2012)

List of Steel-Rod Sculptures by Lefty, Marking George Town Sculptures and Penang Street Art