/ FEATUR E /
CONSERVING SINGAPORE’S MODERN BUILT HERITAGE THE ARCHITECTURAL COMMUNITY WEIGHS IN ON THIS TOPIC AND IDENTIFIES THE OBSTACLES THAT STAND IN THE WAY. WORDS LOW S HI PING
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/ P H OTOGRAPHY JEREMY SAN, SHS COLLECT ION
EDITOR’S NOTE
This is the first feature in a year-long series where we spotlight the conservation of Singapore’s modern built heritage across six different themes. Visit the d+a website for complementary stories on this important issue.
L
et us be honest: Modernist buildings are not the easiest to love.
“These are the tangible legacy of the
Abstract, hard-edged, unornamented
visionary leadership of local politicians,
and often composed of solid, simple walls of
planners, developers and architects who
reinforced concrete, they are the antithesis of
created a vast new landscape during 1965
conventional definitions of beautiful architecture.
to 1975,” says Ho Weng Hin, one of the three
In Singapore, they are everywhere, since
founding members of the Docomomo-Sg
the country underwent rapid urbanisation
Working Group-In-Progress and Founding
when the modern tradition was in vogue,
Partner of Studio Lapis.
loosely defined as from the 1950s to the 1980s.
For example, the Pearl Bank Apartments,
It naturally begs the question of why they
designed by architect Tan Cheng Siong,
are special and worth saving – in short, what
became an important prototype for high-rise,
exactly is the fuss?
high-density urban living that embodied the
ARCHITECTS STATE THEIR CASE Perhaps the most compelling argument is that they are symbols of Singapore’s “can-do
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spirit” in its nation-building years.
pioneering spirit and innovation of that era. While it still stood, it was studied and feted
by
architects,
architectural
planners,
historians
and
urbanists, heritage
enthusiasts both as an elegant solution to
