with upturned rickshaws, were mistaken by the bombers as anti-aircraft guns; and thus were bombed heavily with serious casualties. A bomb in particular, scored a direct hit on the Sia Boey Market, which was by then the most populated market in Penang. Planning The decline of George Town as a major entrepot in the late 1950s, exacerbated in the following decade when Penang's free port status was revoked, created recessions. Proposals to rejuvenate the city-centre were first devised in 1962. In 1969, then newly appointed Chief Minister of Penang, Lim Chong Eu approved the formation of the Central Area Redevelopment Plan. The urban plan called for preservations of heritage and modern developments in the city. Design was carried out by Architects Team 3 (AT3), led by Lim Chong Keat, Lim Chong Eu's brother. The construction was to mark the arrival of a shift in Penang's stagnancy, the start of a period of industrialisation, embracing modern approaches to its architecture. It was meant to revitalise the city of George Town by creating a complex that would house administrative, commercial, retail and transportation functions under one roof, as well as projecting Penang's relative new modernist architectural scene in the post-independence era. The urban renewal effort was first proposed in 1962. A report from Robert Nathan recognised that George Town was beginning to show signs of decline, with the majority of the city's residences consisting of 19th-century shophouses that were in derelict conditions and had turned into slums. By the time Lim Chong Eu took over as the Chief Minister of Penang in 1969, the state of decline in Penang had been exacerbated by the revocation of Penang's free entrepôt status. Thus, the Komtar project was seen as an attempt to reverse the declining fortunes of George Town and revitalise both the city and the state of Penang as a whole. Design A masterplan for George Town drawn up in the 1960s called for the conservation of the historic city centre as a heritage site, whilst an 11-hectare area bounded by four roads—Prangin, Maxwell, Penang and Magazine Roads—was to be developed into the 'Penang New Urban Centre' consisting of a four-storey podium, three 17-storey residential blocks and a central 65-storey skyscraper. The proposed complex also included a geodesic dome inspired by the designs of Buckminster Fuller, a colleague of Lim Chong Keat. The central skyscraper was to house administrative offices of the Penang