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Asian Ethical Urbanism
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A Radical Postmodern Perspective
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Asian Ethical © Urbanism A Radical Postmodern Perspective
WILLIAM SWUM With an Introduction by Leon van Schaik
Y | > World Scientific NEW JERSEY
• LONDON
• SINGAPORE
• BEIJING
• SHANGHAI
• HONGKONG
• TAIPEI • CHENNAI
Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 Email:
[email protected] USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lim, William Siew Wai, 1932Asian ethical urbanism : a radical postmodern perspective / by William S. W. Lim. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 981256313X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. City planning—Asia. 2. City planning—Asia—Case studies. I. Title HT169.A77L56 2005 301.1'216'095~dc22
2005043825
Subject classifications: Cultural studies—Asia Postmodern urbanism Asian urbanism-case studies British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2005 by William S W Lim All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.
For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher.
Design and artwork by Kevin Lim
Printed by Fulsland Offset Printing (S) Pte Ltd, Singapore
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MILLIONS OF URBAN POOR IN THE ASIAN EMERGING ECONOMIES WHO DESERVE AN EQUITABLE SHARE OF THE DEVELOPMENT BENEFITS.
Contents
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by Li Shiqiao, John Philips and Sharon Siddique Preface
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Acknowledgements
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Introduction
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by Leon van Schaik
Part I Chapter 1. Asian Ethical Urbanism: A Radical Postmodern Perspective Orientation Multiple Modernities Ethics and Happiness Radical Glocality
03 06 11 15
Asian Ethical Urbanism Conservation and Memories Safeguarding the Commons Spaces of Indeterminancy Land Spatial Justice
19 22 23 24 25 27
Post-Planning as a Credible Instrument for Asian Ethical Urbanism
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Conclusion
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Case
Studies Post-planning in Central, Hong Kong by Koh Wan Ching Learning from Bangkok by Kevin S K Lim
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Part II Chapter 2.
Asian Architecture in the New Millenium: A Postmodern Imagery
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Chapter 3.
Ancient Quarter Hanoi: A Living Tradition
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Chapter 4.
Have You Been Shanghaied? Culture and Urbanism in Glocalised Shanghai
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Chapter 5.
Architecture, Art, Identity in Singapore: Is There Life After Tabula Rasa?
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Works Cited
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Index
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Photographic Credits
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Comments
Li Shiqiao Associate Professor Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
There has never been expansion and intensification of urban centres in the history of human settlement quite like what we are going through today, although traces of such expansion and intensification may be found in cities such as Kaifeng in the Song dynasty, Medieval and Renaissance cities in Europe and the cities of 19th and 20th century industrialisation. The world has changed in ways never seen before. Technologies have emerged to enable a "network society", economies have reorganised to function like a global chain of command, with outsourcing at the peripheries and intensification of innovations at the centres and ideas have been reimagined to allow a new logic of shifting multiplicity. All these are taking place in the context of the huge growth of population centres in Asian countries epitomised by India and China. But, for too long, the growth of our cities have been underpinned by a faith in the city of the machine; in bringing the crude imaginations of the experts' machine cities (usually based on the model of the market or a superficial understanding of the biological body) into reality, we have arrived at a painful point where diversity and difference have been reduced to a pitiful state. What is perhaps worse is that, in an attempt to redress this sorry state, diversity and difference have been "re-enacted" by centres of management, projecting a signifier of diversity while masking the reality of a lack. While critical theory flourished in recent years and a multitude of cities have been imagined on paper, ideas about ways to build cities have remained relatively in
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limbo. This is less of a problem with traditional urban centres like London, New York and Tokyo where the built environments are stabilised; but with the spectacular growth of urban centres in Asia, the lack of credible theories of action is perpetuating a deep crisis of thoughtless pursuit of design and planning ideas originating from the machine city, which is grossly inadequate for the new conditions of speed, technologies and cultures. William Lim remains one of the key valiant voices sustaining spaces of thinking in Asian architecture and urbanism. Here, his recent essays are collected together to advance a "theory of action" through two critical concepts, "ethical urbanism" and "post-planning", both deeply rooted in the commitment to human liberty and justice. Several things set him apart from many commentators on Asian cities. He is a stakeholder—he is thinking about his own backyard. He is a practitioner, a man of action who thinks about what he does. He also has a unique intellectual makeup: his knowledge and experiences are global, but his views are decidedly "Asia-centric". In this position, he is well-placed to put things in historical and theoretical contexts, pushing the studies of urbanism in Asia far beyond empirical reports and crises management. Through the cases of the cities of Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Bangkok, Lim argues for "ethical action". The idea of "post-planning" simultaneously acknowledges the realities of planning and the crucial importance of "de-planning", a complex urban process which is founded on the belief in localities, cultures and the human spirit. Drawing from a wide range of contemporary scholars, Lim upholds the idea that justice is as much a fundamental legal conceptualisation as it is a form of spatial practice (common memory, common spatial possession and indeterminate spaces). With these essays, Lim sets the issue of architecture and urbanism at a very fundamental level: defining and defending a good life for all. Like the conscience of the profession, he reminds us to place more faith in life-worlds than systems, more commitment to justice than profit, more interest in liberty than control.
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John Phillips Associate Professor National University of Singapore
To speak of an urban ethics would be to speak of conditions that are at once necessary and yet subject to the overdetermination of unexpected contingencies and intractable historical forces. To these we must also add the more or less informed but also arbitrary, sadly sometimes destructive, decisions and desires of the architects, planners, governments and bureaucrats responsible for urban projects. Even if it was possible (and at the very least it will be extremely difficult) to establish the conditions according to which an ethical program of urban development might be mobilised, the likelihood of such a program being followed poses perhaps greater difficulties. This new phase in William Lim's ongoing engagement with urbanism in Asia is marked by the remarkable tenacity with which both these aims (the ideal and the practical) are envisaged. In response to both the need and desire for, and the great practical difficulties of, instituting an ethical urban project in Asia, two bold assumptions underlie Lim's extended engagement in his new book. First, the ethical conditions in question are realisable. They are necessary and it should be possible to realise them. They are ideals but not idealist in that sense. Even if this fact is not obvious, not clear, not even perhaps fully developed and still subject to probably interminable debate and dialogue, it must be assumed from the beginning. In this sense the idea of an ethical urbanism precedes the contingencies and undoubtedly transformed global conditions in question. Lim's great achievement here, drawing on a select but potent range of contemporary concerns with spatial justice and urban development, is that while he never fully or finally elaborates the specific content of this idea, for essential and ethical reasons that he gives, he has nonetheless in very concrete ways established much of what might need to be done to bring it about. The second assumption is that the historical and
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systematic conditions that are currently transforming the urban landscape in Asia, its spaces, its economies, and its cultures, must form the grounds of any future project. These real conditions would not give rise to any simple realism, for what is at stake is, of course, the future of Asian urbanism, a future whose possibilities must for ethical reasons be regarded as somewhat open. The idea of ethics in question here is very old. Lim's implementation of it belongs with the "radical postmodern perspective" that he has enthusiastically adopted, in that this old name, orpaleonym (to use an old word for the procedure itself), ethics, must be regarded as having a force and signification held in reserve, yet to be established, remaining open to the chaotic and irrational breeding grounds of experimental social life and culture. The terms of Lim's ethics are uncannily familiar: happiness, sustainability, justice, right, equitability, wealth and health. But in his hands they take on novel significance as they evolve in the contexts of global conditions from which no one could hope (or perhaps even desire) to entirely escape, and which are if anything more systematically unpredictable in their force than the ethics that Lim proposes to combine with them. In his analysis of these conditions certain hard historical facts are established and reiterated. First, capitalism in its global form (no less than in any other of its forms) imposes unpredictable transformations to the economies it touches. The principles of profit, which are manifested by the greed and poverty that seems everywhere to both lead capitalism on and trail in its wake, cannot be easily shaken, to be sure. But an ethical management on local scales of capitalist economic phenomena ought to be possible. Secondly, the imminent demise of certain doctrines of Eurocentric modernity, as influences on the architecture and planning of Asian cities, has already in principle and in fact been replaced by incipient kinds of development that promisingly fail to add up to anything like a systematic program as such. Lim's many examples, like those of Hanoi, Bangkok, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Kalkota (significantly not Singapore), reveal an urbanism on the move that does not reduce to simple homogeneous
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conditions, like urban growth, population counts, and figures of economic injustice, provide a solid counterpoint to the specific proposals that Lim suggests might be adopted as positive ways forward, like the principles of post-planning, the virtues of spaces of indeterminacy, and the effectiveness of the commons. Given the great difficulty of the challenge, which is never in doubt, Lim's proposals are admirable in that they never amount to a vain optimism. The force of the demand for an ethical way forward in urban planning is supported, for instance, by worldwide initiatives for democratic opposition to injustice and economic exploitation. It is unlikely that these initiatives will alter the historically conditioned progress of the great world powers, whose activities have been responsible for massive destruction and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. But conditions that currently pertain in many urban environments in Asia, as Lim demonstrates in this book, offer a hope for a more equitable, more energetic and more creative future for their populations. We can hope that Lim's book will be studied and his ideas digested and perhaps applied by those who have some influence in how their world goes.
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Sharon Siddique Sreekumar. Siddique and Co Co-Founder, Asian Urban Lab
Architects view urban spaces quite differently from social scientists. They generally contribute quite parallel perspectives on the development issues of cities. They rarely talk to each other. Even more rare is an architect who immerses himself in social science literature, and the rarest of all, is the architect who adopts social science theory to enhance explanations of the brick and mortar creations of his own discipline. This book is an example of what fascinating forms can be created if the two are successfully merged. In adopting a postmodern framework, William Lim suggests a post-planning approach to understanding the current processes of change in Asian cities. But he goes further; he argues that this post-planning process can actually be used to facilitate the emergence of what he terms "Asian ethical urbanism". This entails nothing less than evolving an entire alternative narrative on urban space. Certainly not a task to be taken lightly. Postmodernism dictates that such a theory must be multifaceted, bottom up, and, well, revolutionary.
As David Gissen has remarked: "Within the city,
everywhere there is space, everywhere there is nature, biology and growth, there is a zone of contention that has a problematic past."1 This book is a potpourri of postmodernism. William Lim uses various concepts to elaborate his perspective. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to comment on the totality of his argument in this volume. One window into his ideas is to focus on one of the most (for me) interesting "case studies" which he has used to illustrate his ideas. I find his chapter on Singapore particularly fascinating because certainly one of the biggest challenges to developing an alternative urban narrative must be the city state of Singapore, where modernism, and the modernist planning paradigm appear almost impossible to challenge.
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One of the most interesting postmodern concepts which William Lim applies in his Singapore chapter, is the term, tabula rasa. There is real power in the term, and the potential to generalise concerning the state in—and of—other modern cities. Tabula rasa (literally, blank slate) alludes to the fact that the dominant conclusions concerning Singapore are somewhat distant from reality—"a glossy image of a city" explains little. Of course tabula rasas can only exist at the conceptual level. Four million people are living and working in Singapore's urban spaces, and therefore of course the city is not a true tabula rasa. But it is necessary to posit this, in order to transcend it conceptually. And this is what William Lim is offering—an alternative, minority, shadow, but equally valid narrative. If modernist-inspired urban planning and architecture is our dominant narrative, then what is the minority, the alternative narrative? And how can it be articulated? Asian ethical urbanism is his answer. It is useful to trace how this works in a concrete example with which we are familiar—Singapore. William builds (his)story in a chronological fashion. The departure point is the colonial period and its architecture. There is an ambivalent identification with this colonial architectural heritage, particularly in the immediate independence period. This allowed for the formation, in the first post-colonial historical period— 1959-1975—of a nascent "national architecture", where (then) young Singapore architects were commissioned to design, quite simply, Singapore buildings. What was anticipated was a gradual evolution, with Singapore architecture, and its architects, engaging in a creative dialogue with politicians, bureaucrats, and clients, to create a postcolonial Singapore urbanscape. But, as William Lim argues quite convincingly, this didn't happen. Why? In 1975, the end of the Vietnam War marked the (temporary) division between communist and capitalist Southeast Asia. Singapore emphatically hitched its developmental future to American-led capitalism. This meant increasing dependence on attracting multinationals to Singapore, and plugging the economy into the global marketplace. Singapore became a global (capitalist) city. It aspired to be an international
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modern city. There was suddenly no space for organic development, and for a reliance on the evolution of a (parochial) Singapore architecture. International architects were called in to create the instant modern model global city to which Singapore politicians aspired. This period, 1975 to 1995, was marked by the modern transformation of the Singapore city skyline. But the transformation achieved was not organic. Very few Singapore architects participated, and when they did, it was either within the dominant narrative, which achieved the transformation of Singapore's residential and retail, as well as public building market along ratherrigid,modernist paradigms. The architectural (and artistic) community was relegated to the periphery. There was little or no dialogue allowed. Therefore the minority narrative existed during this period as a parallel track—a postmodern to the modern. William argues that these minority voices were heard in three areas: "conservation and adaptive reuse", "regionalism and tropicality", and "reaching out", by which he means the connection of this vocal minority with movements outside Singapore. Ironically, many of these architects and urban commentators became better known overseas than at home. And some lived from commissions outside Singapore. There existed a symbiotic relationship between the world of art and the world of architecture. Both developed a strong minority narrative in the face of an unyielding dominant perspective. The year 1995 marks the beginning of the USA recession that eventually led to the 1997/1998 economic decline in Asia. This is William Lim's final period, from 1995 to-date. Singapore was, and remains hard-hit. Also a new factor, an ascendant China has been added to the equation. The authors of the dominant narrative have launched "remaking" exercises, but thus far there has been no new vigorous model to replace the core capitalist export-oriented, MNC-dominated model which ruled for two decades, and undeniably was the basis of the double-digit growth which Singapore enjoyed during the boom years.
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Paradoxically this slowing down of the engine of growth has seen a strengthening of the artistic world—particularly in cinema and theatre. Alternative paradigms showcasing the minority narratives has been a key issue for young artists. Similarly one is seeing a burst of creativity in the world of architecture. Where is this occurring? Here William Lim borrows the concept of "spaces of indeterminacy" to explain areas of the city that were either relatively untouched by tabula rasa (Geylang) or which have been spontaneously generated (Holland Village). It is through the organic growth of such spaces, and their ability to "reclaim" space that a creative, organic, Singapore architecture can be resurrected. After almost 30 years, the younger generation of architects is again beginning to openly question the dominant narrative. And unlike during its heyday, the dominant ideologues are on the defensive. A convincing new modernist paradigm might tip the scales in their favour, but we have yet to see one emerge. The alternative, post-modern, narrative, on the other hand, is slowing gaining momentum, and its contours are gradually beginning to sharpen. This latest volume on Asian ethical urbanism is certainly a major contribution to its construction.
Notes 1 David Gissen, "Park/No Park" in Cabinet Magazine (2002).
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Preface Decades of committed interest in Asian urbanism and its rapidly changing conditions have made me increasingly conscious of the strong local peculiarities and chaotic, irrational spatial responses within Asian cities, as well as the irrelevance of modernist planning theories and practices. Over the years, I have critically analysed and discussed these issues in numerous essays and lectures. Since the early 1990s, I have become acutely aware of the vital necessity in broadening my theoretical knowledge and understanding of the growing complexities of contemporary multi-disciplinary discussions in order to actively participate in and make effective contributions towards the discourse of Asian urbanism today. Exposure to the writings of numerous cultural studies theorists has reinforced my conviction that the dynamics of Asian (post)moderaity and urbanism must be analysed within a framework that bridges various disciplines and must be firmly grounded in both local contextuality and postmodern pluralistic contemporiness. In the process, I have identified three crucial inter-related issues. First, with the impending demise of modernist planning, the footprints and corpses of failed modernist visions are littered everywhere. Second, millions of urban poor in the emerging economies of Asia suffer the brunt of urbicide and redevelopment and rightly deserve a more equitable share of development benefits. Third, the present vacuum of implementable radical urban theories has occurred at the time when unprecedented expansion and restructuring of cities in rapidly developing economies are taking place. It is within this challenging context that I have attempted to conceptualise a radical theory of Asian ethical urbanism, which transcends and discards the constraints and rigidity of modernist planning and situates its critical substances within the unprecedented and explosive conditions of Asian cities today. Special attention was given to the peculiarities and dynamism of present Asian urban and architectural
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conditions in order to contest and mitigate socio-ecological forms and political influences generated by the current neo-liberal global capitalism. Unlike many leading urban theorists who are not architects, my conceptual starting point must inevitably be spatial, three-dimensional and urban-oriented. It cannot be otherwise. Part I of this book consists of the main essay in three sections. First, "Orientation" establishes three issues—Multiple Modernities, Ethics and Happiness and Radical Glocality—as baselines for an effective formation ofAsian ethical urbanism, by clarifying ideas that have previously been unquestioningly bound up with Western values and discourses. Second, "Asian Ethical Urbanism" identifies, analyses and defines the essentiality of various ethical elements and discusses their effective integration into rapidly expanding Asian cities. In this exploratory synthesis, I have identified five topics: Conservation and Memories, Safeguarding the Commons, Spaces of Indeterminacy, Land and Spatial Justice. Many other issues such as basic rights, ecological sustainability, housing and shelter, transport and mobility, as well as those issues relevant only to specific localities, await further analysis. The final section examines the postmodern phenomenon of post-planning, a semi-anarchistic, flexible, chaotic and open-minded system which can become an effective instrument for Asia ethical urbanism. Part II of this book consists of three city studies on Hanoi, Shanghai and Singapore, which were completed in the last two years, and which attempted to match my theoretical formulation with actual conditions occurring in the cities of Asia. The Hanoi essay is an urgent plea for the preservation of the environment and sociocultural integrity of the Ancient Quarter. The preliminary observation of Shanghai attempts to capture the pain and excitement of the city's dramatic transformations in recent years. The new urban cultures and lifestyles, while unreservedly engaging with the global, are deeply imbued with a unique Chineseness. Professor Leon van Schaik commented that the Singapore essay "progressively removes the Orientalist other from the observational processes of these writers, so predominantly from the West, who flirt with the exotic in Asian cities and display them in zoo-like conditions to their
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compatriots." Also included is "Asian Architecture in the New Millennium", a critical examination of Western oriented contemporary architectural theories and discourses, as well as an attempt to engage with contemporary Asian architecture on its own terms, while taking a postmodern perspective.
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Acknowledgements My main thesis, "Asian Ethical Urbanism" required an inclusive and innovative approach in its content and structural arrangements. I would like especially to acknowledge the invaluable comments and contributions from Sharon Siddique and Koh Wan Ching towards this challenging task. I must convey my deep appreciation to Leon van Schaik for his inspiring and insightful Introduction. Notwithstanding their busy schedules, Li Shiqiao, John Philips and Sharon Siddique have all painstakingly written penetrating reviews, to give readers a deeper understanding and interpretation of the book. In addition, I must also extend my appreciation to Kevin Lim for his design and layout, and the many architects who have given permissions to produce examples of their works as well as my personal secretary, Patricia Lee for numerous matters pertaining to the production of the book. A special thank you also to Kevin and Wan Ching who provided interesting insights on Bangkok and Hong Kong respectively. Many thanks to Asian Urban Lab for granting permission for the reproduction of Architecture Art Identity in Singapore: Is There Life in Singapore After Tabula Rasa as well as Have You Been Shanghaied: Culture and Identity in Glocalised Shanghai in this volume. Finally, I need to extend my deepest gratitude to Shaw Vee-Meng of The Shaw Foundation, for giving generous financial support towards the research of the main essay—"Asian Ethical Urbanism". My deep appreciation must also be extended to Professor K K Phua, Mrs K K Phua and Cheong Chean Chian of World Scientific Publishing Co for their efforts towards the publishing of this book.
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Introduction
Leon van Schaik Innovation Professor of Architecture Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University William Lim is "a practising architect and a critical urbanist." This statement of his professional identity sits immediately adjacent to the topic "Spatial Justice" in Part I of this book (p 27). For me it frames the question that this remarkable argument poses: "The key question now is what should be done." (p 31) Lim's argument is situated in the discourse of post-modern Planning and Economics. He pointedly cites Castells, Harvey, Soja, Sandercock, etc. There are no architectural texts here at all. Looking into this through the lens of a slightly modified, more architectural enquiry, I
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ask what Lim's argument means for what architecture can or should do. I am emboldened in this by some curious precedents. Urban planning as a practice—is it a discipline? I doubt it—grew out of architecture, as does William Lim's enquiry. It is no longer, as Lim observes, part of the architectural discourse, and this alone is a challenge that Lim throws at the feet of his colleagues. But it was. I assume that I do not need here to mark a trail through this relatively short history, but I will return to delineate some schools of thought that have created the practices that architects employ when they act as designers on an urban scale. What I want to reflect on here is another cry from the heart from an architect who observed, as Lim observes, that what is happening in cities is not what planners or designers want to happen, that it does not conform to their theories, and yet it is in some senses good. Certainly in some sense better than what plans and designs project on cities as desirable visions. I refer of course to Denise Scott Brown's initiative Learning from Las Vegas1. Here was an architect who, like Lim, studied planning at the Architectural Association, and who—in moving to the USA—confronted a chasm between reality and theory. And here was an architect who together with Robert Venturi posed the question: what does it mean for architecture if we work from actuality towards theory rather than the other way around? Their architectural practice has been a concerted experiment in finding out. So has been Lim's. More about this later, too. Something has happened to make a re-stating of this enquiry an urgent matter. There has been a sea change in the ways in which we observe the world, one that imposes another layer of observing above the instrumental, projective gaze of modernism2. We architects are slowly discovering what this means about how we must look at actuality. What intrigues Lim about the emerging Asian multiplicity is the way in which it defies the modernist certainties that underlay planning theory in the modern past. In that past, Scott Brown brought a strongly modernist methodology to the study of Las Vegas: systematic, analytical and linear in its logic, but also projective in its intentions and outcomes. From the findings of this analysis, modes of acting flowed forcefully into a series of built works that sought to bring the spontaneously
xxviii I occurring forms of an "organic" urban growth obeying Lim's characterisation of postplanning: "in this post-planning process, economies and profits are the central players" (p 28) into a modern urban architecture. The results were, as we shall see, paradoxical3. What happens in the new, more reflective frame of the observers who observe themselves in the act of observing? Recently Ignasi de Sola Morales4 identified the phenomenon that has made this derivation of practice from observation so difficult for architects. He (along with Andrea Kahn5 and Nikos Papastergiadis6— all working independently) discovered a widespread adoption of and affection for the abandoned and the undesigned spaces in cities by inhabitants who spurned the consciously designed spaces. How, he wondered, could anyone "design" for a city when the very act of designing (within whatever paradigm was brought to the task by the designer) produced alienating space, and appealing space was created by obsolescence or war, and consequent dereliction and abandonment by regulating powers? Now all of this that happened in the "West". So, if some Westerners have encountered this problem already, is Lim a little late in singling out for critique those who look at the Asian city and "see" only dysfunction? No, not at all. Firstly this critique is not addressed at Westerners who—if they are alert—are already grappling with these issues thanks to the theorists mentioned above. The critique is addressed to the modernist within. Within every controlling bureaucrat, every entrepreneur with a vision of the city-fragment-beautiful, every engineer engaged in a vast city-by-IVF design for another of the farmlands from which "70 million Chinese farmers" have been ejected in that past decade. The critique is aimed at the modernist within every architect who comes, by one means or another—and more of this later too—to make their contribution to their city. This could be another modernist reform, in which the criticism runs essentially as follows: "your methods are faulty because your observations are inadequate." More rigorous observation of the city will reveal to you its multiplicities and the ways in which they are best encouraged and conserved, its own pathways to happiness, its (hidden) commons, its (hidden) spatial injustices—and these heightened awarenesses will lead you to a more "glocal" response. Such a conclusion, while it
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would be a good thing, would be to miss the full import of Lim's argument. The method that Lim advocates looks in two directions at once. As much as it sharpens focus on what is actually out there—the actuality of city growth—it drives inwards to the modernist within the observers themselves. Like Dipesh Chakrabati7 in his book Provincialising Europe, who argues that the formerly colonised need to locate and provincialise the Europe within them, the issue for Lim is not to change the "West", but to confront the "West" within us. Perhaps I can best explore what I think this means through a brief history of some highlights of Lim's own practice as an architect8. This career has two distinct phases. In the early post-colonial period in Singapore, Lim was one of those who were "given"—or "gained"—the opportunity to build the future of the city as they conceived it. This resulted in the mega-structure of Golden Mile, a signally "modern" superposition of functions in space. This was the most charismatic of a series of such urban pieces, delivering in a great measure the integration of services, transport and accommodation that was the keynote of modern visions of the city. What did the city learn from these remarkable structures? Today Lim can argue that the success of this approach taught the City State all the wrong lessons. It spelled out that integration needs a controlled environment. It internalised in the mind of the City State a profound first order modernity, based on linear logics and command structures. Singapore has become internally "modern". Meanwhile, elsewhere, in Thailand—never colonised, and in China—only peripherally challenged by colonisation, another form of development has emerged to the consternation of the modern observers, be they from the West, or self-Westernised. In the second phase of his architectural career, Lim rejects the cooption into the command economy, and chooses to act chiefly in its free-market periphery. And in this—as an architect—he adopts the approach of an individually recognisable, postmodern signature that defies the rational conformity of the City State approach. This opens him to a criticism that he, as an architect, has become peripheral to the development process. And this is certainly the case if you look at the bulk of what has been built in Singapore. What Lim is now labouring to do, as I see it,
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is to describe how his belief in the individual creativity of an architect aligns with the fundamental development processes of the new Asian city, processes that defy control and anonymity. Processes that require the observers to observe themselves observing, and find through that the locus in which to glean the opportunity to assist9. I will return to the possible efficacy of this position. First I want to address a response to his argument that seems obvious: why not simply better observe, and better respond? Earlier I mentioned the history of planning. There is no position that has not been prefigured in our 7,000 year history as city makers. Perhaps the most profound of all of the modernist plans devised for the expansion of a city was that of Cerda for Barcelona10. Where did this begin? Why, with a very close observation of the conditions in the existing city. An observation that drove to spatial justice, to conservation, to safeguarding the commons, even to a conscious strategy of indeterminacy. Here they discovered through the statistics of mortality that those who lived higher up in buildings, closer to the sun and the breeze and further way from the open sewers that were the streets, lived longer. Here Cerda and his investigators observed a need for pre-schools, pocket parks, neighbourhood markets—the full instrumentality of the hygienic city with equal access to services and environmental goods for all. And Cerda even predicted on the basis of what he observed that—all things being equal—everyone would want to own their own "horse-less carriage". All of this derived in a logical and linear way from the observations. But, and here is the key to what Lim is arguing, it was not implemented for decades because this elegant design lacked a political design. Parliament debated the plan early, and adopted it early. But sub-committee after sub-committee stalled its implementation for two generations of the average life span of citizens. Until Cerda devised a way of allocating development rights in the new grid proportional to pre-existing holdings of land in the farm land that lay beneath his beautiful, chamfered-corner grid.
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If post-planning is a way to spatial justice, then there has to be in Lim's argument a way in which "economies and profits [as] central players" drive to those ends. Where we sit relative to Lim's intuitions about where the main action is for architects depends on something that influences that hidden hand in a way that it is not currently being influenced. And here, like Cerda, we enter a period of debate—and as Ginsberg of the Architectural Association School ofArchitecture (AA) pointed out11, it has been ever thus. Can there be a taxation regime—like carbon trading (as is hoped)— that operates in the environment, as a benign market force addressing multiplicity, spatial justice, the need for commons, and makes us all happier because even in our greed we benefit the greater good? That is where the architect in me is taken by Lim's argument, an argument that is all in favour of diversity in demand and supply of architectural services. Can boutique practice, like the "arts—films, theatres and even literary writing" improve without such a regime? And if there were such a regime, how would it serve "multiplicity" rather than drive to a wave of globally normative practice? Here I will speculate a little about the regimes that Lim identifies that might serve such an end, and suggest how they could support local communities of innovation, neither merely modern and metropolitan, nor merely tribal or provincial. To return to the Scott Brown Venturi exemplar, let us consider what was learned from their experiment. It would be fair to suggest that here, as in the case of Lim's early career, the lessons others learned were the wrong ones. This is not for a moment to impugn any of the architectural achievements of Scott Brown Venturi; I can and will argue the case for any and all of them as important and enjoyable works. But in addressing Las Vegas as a potentially universal condition, the Learning from Las Vegas proposition sowed the seeds of the decay of the proposition that we should so learn. As Las Vegas has subsequently shown, it had more to teach than was observed at the time of the book that documented that pioneering research. What went wrong? If I extrapolate from Lim's argument, there was a modernist inside the minds of the researchers that led them to assume that what they observed was in some way universally applicable. And indeed Venturi did lecture about a very baldly modern binary opposition between
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the "duck" (a stall in the shape of a duck, the whole building acting as sign)—BAD, and a decorated shed (a stall with a false front carrying the signage)—GOOD12. As Lim insists as he surveys Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai, each city—indeed each part of each of these cities—has developed its own process of development. It is a consequence of his argument in its totality that each part probably has its own definition of its commons, its conservation mode, its own, often unexpected, means of creating spatial justice. And while the background engine may be the opposite of a command economy, Lim's approval of the notion of "Asian capitalisms" —note the plural—is crucial to his vision of how architectures—note the plural—might play their role "vibrantly" in these cities, avoiding the "copies of the original, outdated aestheticism, sham localism and senseless facade treatment" (p 33) that he sees as characteristic of the tall buildings of the cities. Returning to Lim's observations about the vibrancy of arts in these cities, I am struck by the importance of the tension and the balance between the forces of the local and the aspirations to the global that characterise the best of what I observe. Singapore Theatre13 engages with Singlish in the full knowledge of what is happening in world theatre, and in this it becomes of interest to the world. And in using that language it can surface what is inherent in living in Singapore in ways that disarm control. Without the foil awareness of the world beyond this could become a tribal mirror, narcissistic and destructive. Without an irony that comes from a lively investigation of the modernists within the directors and performers, this could also become a merely World Music fashioning of a new and quaint ethnicity. The creators must deal with their local actuality while always seeking out the global commons that tests that actuality, ensures that it has not become a form of special pleading, of excusing bad practice on the grounds of difference. Is there a parallel for architecture? At one level of observation, "post-planning" is the universal condition. In so many places we struggle to rectify what has been done, often for the best of all possible reasons. Multiplicity requires strong local cultures of architecture, and these are dependant on a multiplicity of procurement processes.
Introduction
I
xxx
'"
In Barcelona, once Cerda's plan was implemented, with its development rights rolled up into spatial envelopes rather than conforming to the boundaries of the pre-existing field system, no block in the grid was in the sole ownership of one person. A development process ensued that gave wide access to capital accumulation, based on a wide variety of parcel sizes. The architectural culture flourished because there was strong competition between owners, and blocks were constructed to the designs of several architects located side by side. In this hothouse of micro-opportunity there was extensive experimentation, and a distinctive local art deco evolved. This was the shell in which the renowned talent and religious mania of Gaudi14 was the grit, producing an innovative architecture even more distinctive and idiosyncratic. These are the micro-conditions for entrepreneurial operations that need to be harnessed in each multiplicity, and in the megalopolises, in each segment of the city. It is no accident that Taipei (so well documented by Sand Helsel in Taipei Operations^5) has a similarly differentiated urban fabric—its family enterprise dominated economy has created a similar competitive environment. But in both cities (Barcelona and Taipei) architectural culture has not had a sustained run of innovation. Those commissioning works of architecture have lapsed into the bad habit of choosing from existing international brands, rather than working to support more local innovation. It is evident to me that the state and the institutions of the state have a role to play in ensuring the sustainability of innovation in architecture. The most notable exemplar for this comes from Kumamoto prefecture in Japan16. Here the prefecture government has adopted a novel form of "post-planning"—an acupuncture approach. In this approach all pretence at a modernist systems approach to improvement across the board has been abandoned in favour of identifying small projects that could make a difference to the economic and social well-being of districts all over the prefecture, which has a population of three million centred on a city of a million inhabitants. Early works shored up the ancient heritage of the state—a commons of bridges and viaducts. Subsequent projects include public toilets at tourist bus destinations, observatories in scenic places, fire stations, museums that make a local tradition of parading into a perennial display for
xxxiv I visitors, a puppet theatre and school that has saved the economy of a remote village by transforming an annual puppet show into a perennial activity for many inhabitants. The design also pioneered new ways of using timber in constructing large-span, earthquake resistant buildings, so promoting the local timber industry. Thanks to the enlightened leadership of the first appointed commissioner, Isozaki, these small works have been given to young architects at the outset of their careers. Some of the most notable of the current generation of internationally acclaimed Japanese architects have begun their careers with works in the Artpolis; Toyo Ito, now commissioner, and Kazuo Sejima amongst them. This it seem to me meets all of the requirements that Lim sets out in his argument: here is a locally created process without precedent in the West, seemingly defying the universalising aims of modernist planning, and yet satisfying in some measure the needs of spatial justice, supporting and sustaining the commons, and aiding the development of an innovative architectural culture specific to the region and the country. Architecture itself is only worthwhile when it is so locally engaged, and within a hotly competitive situation which supports a multiplicity of practices in such a way that they are able to establish a research, and pursue it, within the compass of like minded peers and worthy adversaries. Globalisation in the mind focuses architects as much as planners and developers on a dismal me-too imitation of what happens in the universal metropolis that we professionals construct in our minds. Lim is right to insist that architects journey into the discourse of planning in order to emerge with good questions about how to conduct themselves in the gaining and effecting of commissions such that every multiplicity is graced with its own architectural culture. But the Artpolis experiment is only a straw in the wind. As I observed earlier, it plays out in a region that is not confronting the explosive growth that concerns Lim. Asian Ethical Urbanism sets out the challenge to all involved in the improvement of city life in times of explosive growth. And that, as Lim argues requires innovation from us all, policy setters,
Introduction
xxxv
developers and designers. Asian Ethical Urbanism gathers together the principles that such innovation needs to address if we are to be happy in these cities, remembering with Lim that Kant laid down the first of these principles: namely that one may not ask for yourself something that you would deny to others.
xxxvi I Notes 1 Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour and Robert Venturi, Learning From Las Vegas (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977). 2 Anthony Giddings has termed this new consciousness "second order modernity". Anthony Giddings, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990). 3 Scott Brown discusses this in her subsequent book: Denise Scott Brown, "Urban Concepts" in Rise and Fall of Community Architecture, ed., Andreas Papadakis (London: Architectural Design, 1990). 4 Ignasi de Sola Morales, "Terrain Vague" in Anyplace, ed., Cynthia C Davidson (Cambridge: The MIT Press 1995), 118-123. 5 Andrea Kahn, Mobile Ground. Transition (Melbourne: RMIT, 1992), map insert. 6 Nikos Papastergiadis and Heather Rogers, "Parafunctional Spaces" in AD: Art and Design— Art and the City: A Dream of Urbanity, Profile, 50 (1996): 76-88. 7 Dipesh Chakrabati, Provincialising Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). See also Amit Chaudhuri, "In the Waiting Room of History" in LRB 24 (June 2004): 3-8: "...if Europe is the universal paradigm for modernity we are all, European and non-European, to a degree inescapably Eurocentric ... Europe is at once a means of intellectual dominance, an obfuscatory trope and a constituent of self-knowledge, in different ways and for different peoples and histories. ... for almost two hundred years there has been a self consciousness (and it still exists today) which asks to be judged and understood by 'universal' standards." 8 His own account of this situation is recorded in William S W Lim, Architecture, Art, Identity in Singapore: Is there Life after Tabula Rasa? (Singapore: Asian Urban Lab, 2004). 9 This is the science of cybernetics, to which Ranulph Glanville has always been my portal. His PhD, Ranulph Glanville, "The Object of Objects—or, Something about Things", Brunei University, 1987, led to study of Heinz von Foerster, Observing Systems, Intersystems, (California: University of California Press, 1981), and more recently, and more accessibly: Heinz von Foerster and Bernhard Poerksen Understanding Systems: Conversations on Epistemology and Ethics (New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers, 2003) 10 Arturo Soria y Puig (ed.), Cerda: The Five Bases of the General Theory of Urbanisation (Madrid: Electa, 1999). 11 Leslie Ginsberg argued in lectures at the AA that I attended in 1970 that no planning idea was ever implemented less than 30 years after it was properly articulated, when he said, it was no longer of any use. He probably taught both Lim and Scott Brown. 12 Also in a lecture at the AA in 1970. 13 Kwok Kian-Woon, "The Bonsai and the Rainforest: Reflections on Culture" in Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore Theatre, eds., Tan Chong Kee and Tisa Ng (Singapore: Times Editions, 2004), 1-25. 14 Gijs van Hensberg, Gaudi (St Ives: Harper Collins, 2001) 15 Sand Helsel, Taipei Operations (Taipei: Ti Nan Chi Human Environment Group, 2004) 16 These observations stem from my study tour to the Artpolis in 1996. The Artpolis has a website: http://www.artpolis.net/english/english02.htmltt4. There are also period publications like: Kumamoto Artpolis (KAP) (1996), Soft Urbanism: 15 Projects and Kumamoto Art Polis Exec C'tee.
PART 1 Asian Ethical Urbanism: A Radical Postmodern Perspective
ONE
I Asian Ethical Urbanism
3
01
A Radical Postmodern Perspective
Orientation
In the last few decades, the phenomenon of globalisation has been marked by speed and intensity and has caused major upheavals in cultures, values and lifestyles on a global scope and scale. Global capitalism, abetted by insatiable greed and ruthless exploitation, has undoubtedly accelerated the pace and scale of what Marshall Berman has termed urbicide or murder of cities, in particular, central city areas. In recent years, local communities, minorities and under-privileged groups in many Western cities have become increasingly effective in reclaiming their rights, and the contest against the rich and powerful has become more intense. Major restructuring of cities and the employment of new urban spatial imageries seem unavoidable. However, the struggle is difficult, especially when political support is lacking. At the same time, the highly regulated top-down Utopian spatialisation of modernist planning theories and practices has become increasingly irrelevant and its demise is clearly inevitable. To quote Leonie Sandercock, "although the pillars of modernist planning have been crumbling for at least three decades, there is still no agreement as to what might replace that grand social project."1 A vacuum of implementable urban theories has occurred at the time when unprecedented expansion and restructuring of cities in rapidly developing economies are taking place. Beyond the modernist paradigm, there are no clear indications of where we can go from here. The capitalist inspired, exploitative free market system has proven its ability to generate wealth and economic growth, especially during the early stages of economic development. Many East Asian countries have demonstrated long periods of continuous rapid growth together with dramatic social transformation. However, while accepting global capitalism, these countries have retained overall strategic control
4
I
over their economies. Furthermore, Asian capitalism is largely influenced and moulded by its own peculiarities, constraints and priorities. A good example is the varied responses to the East Asian financial crisis in the mid-1990s and the remarkable recoveries of these countries. Many Asian countries now no longer accept the idolisation of Western modernity and some have implemented development models based on post-socialist-utopianism, and, where possible, avoided revolutionary socialism. To quote Fred Halliday, "the assumption that revolution is [now] inevitable is as questionable as the assumption that it is desirable"2 and again "the history of revolution in modern times is one not only of resistance, heroism and idealism, but also of terrible suffering and human disaster, of chaos and incompetence under the guise of revolutionary transformation."3 It is therefore conceivable that countries in the Asian region will soon establish development strategies that reflect their own brand of global capitalism, in which eradication of poverty and provisions of basic needs for all must be integral elements within the total development process. While Western countries surmounted these problems through the exploitation of vast empires and frontier lands and forcefully imposing unfair trade and investment rights upon others, there are now no such possibilities available for Asian countries. Given the inevitable demise and proven failures of Western modernist planning, we need new innovative solutions for Asia's recent explosive urbanism. In an age where economics increasingly takes precedence over everything else, urban transformation and expansion are more often immediate responses to the urgent demands of functional necessity, globality and profit maximisation. In the process, the quality of urban life for the whole community, and particularly for those of lower income, has been severely and adversely affected. Armed with the arrogant and self-righteous modernist logic and often supported by the rationale of greed and profit maximisation, valuable and memorable elements of existing social and urban fabrics are, whenever possible and necessary, discarded and destroyed. Dramatic urban changes occur ahead of and are not subjected to normal planning constraints. This form of urban development process appears
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5
unavoidable, and in the last two to three decades has already been unconsciously carried out in most countries in the East Asian region. Singapore is an exception in which the modernist model still applies.4 Lamenting the condition of Chinese cities, Hou Hanru recently coined the term post-planning to describe the devastating effects of an urbanisation that is largely devoid of community ethics and spatial justice.5 With considerable urgency, I have investigated and analysed some essential ethical urban elements that can be effectively introduced and implanted within the post-planning exercise. In the writing of this essay, I have found the works of many scholars most invaluable. In particular, I must refer to Manuel Castells and his seminal analysis of global city networks, David Harvey and his arguments for social and environmental justice, Leonie Sandercock and her vision for the multicultural cosmopolis, Saskia Sassen for her ongoing discourse on global cities, Edward Soja and his position on spatial justice and Leon van Schaik for his contribution towards articulating the interrelationship between theory and practice in architecture and urbanism. Numerous other concerned writers coming from a wide range of subjects and disciplines have enabled me to venture into challenging and unknown territories of various discourses. This essay is also an attempt to address the concerns of numerous scholars, one of whom being David Harvey: If the current rhetoric about handing on a decent living environment to future generations is to have even one iota of meaning, we owe it to subsequent generations to invest now in a collective and very public search for some way to understand the possibilities of achieving a just and ecologically sensitive urbanisation process under contemporary conditions. That discussion cannot trust in dead dreams resurrected from the past. It has to construct its own language—its own poetry —with which to discuss possible futures in a rapidly urbanising world of uneven geographical development.6
6
I Asian urban explosion is unprecedented and unpredictable. In its physical
manifestations, traces of existing modernist planning theories and practices are barely detectable. With the rise of digital and internet technology, urban substances embrace all at once, a bewildering and disproportionate hybrid of pre-modern, modern and postmodern. The attempt to establish baselines for effective investigation and theorisation of ethics in Asian urbanism encounters disturbing ambiguity given the overwhelming influences from Eurocentric modernity as well as the ethical neutrality of corporate capitalism and US style globalisation. These complexities will be addressed in three sections. First, "Orientation" presents three topics: Multiple Modernities, Ethics and Happiness and Radical Glocality to ground the investigation of "Asian Ethical Urbanism" where I will discuss some essential ethical urban elements. The third section is a study of the phenomenon of "Post-planning", which can be, in my opinion, an effective instrument for Asian ethical urbanism. Multiple Modernities Modernity is understood by the West as a process of historical transformation that took place in Europe and later in the United States. The new culture that evolved encompasses concepts of freedom, human rights and individuality as well as the rule of law. Opportunism as well as faith in Western modernity fuelled the belief that all cultures should be made in the image of the West. This surge in confidence was brought about by the advent of superior technology and economic development. Eurocentric modernity was the justification for civilising missions towards the nonWestern other as well as aggressive colonial conquests and numerous imperial undertakings. Today, it is often subconsciously reflected in mainstream cultural discourses and development policies, including those being employed by international financial institutions and aid agencies.
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Such Eurocentric modernist narrative did not go unchallenged. Edward Said's Orientalism and his subsequent writings exposed the damaging effects of and bias inherent in imperial-colonial agenda.7 South American scholars have severely criticised the hypocrisies behind the self-proclaimed Eurocentric modernity, especially with regard to the inexcusable acts of genocide committed against indigenous populations. AfroAmericans have repeatedly voiced the unbearable pain and injustice of slavery, which had clearly overstepped every conceivable boundary of justice and human decency. Many postcolonial studies have now identified the morally irresponsible, racist and imperialistic rules imposed by European countries, particularly during the 19th century. Arecent study on the American empire, "Empire's Entrails and the Imperial Geography of 'Amerasia' " has exposed the well-concealed policies of US imperialism.8 It is therefore important to put on record that democratic applications of modernity in the West were only successfully practised within the boundaries of Western nation states, and did not apply in any effective manner, in encounters with the nonWest. When one is totally immersed in one's own culture and belief, other cultures inevitably appear weird and at best exotic. Hence, European imperialism in the nonWestern world and racial relations in the United States converge along the lines of violence and discrimination. With the exception of Japan, which has already completed her transition, nonWestern countries have to experience a protracted step-by-step struggle towards modernity. This is a painful and disruptive experience. Given the diversity of their cultural essences and their varied stages of economic development, there can be no ideal solution. Western concepts of human rights and democracy cannot be effectively applied and should not be imposed without careful analysis and substantial modification. The modernity of each society must evolve from within its own cultural environment. In this way, alternative modernities will arise, each one profoundly different from the
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other. To quote Charles Taylor, "the future of our world will be one in which all societies will undergo change, in institutions and outlook, and some of these changes may be parallel, but they will not converge, because new differences will emerge from the old."9 In this section, I will focus on identifying and analysing the essence of China's Confucian traditions and her struggle with modernity, in order to highlight the differences and convergences with Western traditions and Western modernity. I refer particularly to the recent translation and re-interpretation of the Analects by Simon Leys10 and numerous books by David L Hall and Roger T Ames as well as other scholars of Chinese culture. Hall and Ames" have analysed and identified major characteristics of Chinese traditional core values, such as transcendence, rights, family and friendship, self and individuality that distinguishes them from Western concepts. Leys restores the human dimension to Confucius after centuries of formalistic and elitist official cultism by highlighting its forceful affirmation of humanist ethics and its commitment to social justice: "A man without humanity cannot long bear adversity and cannot long know joy. A good man rests in his humanity, a wise man profits from his humanity12 ... Riches and honours without justice are to me as fleeting clouds."13 The development of Chinese social and political thought stands in stark contrast to Western thought when one examines the centrality of rites in Confucianism: "A gentleman enlarges his learning through literature and restrains himself with ritual; therefore he is not likely to go wrong14 ... Tame the self and restore the rites for but one day, and the whole world will rally to your humanity."15 Many scholars feel that the present understanding of the word "rites" is outdated, as it is merely semantic and requires broader reinterpretation. According to Hall and Ames: "The centrality of ritual practice (li) in Confucianism is clear when measurable in terms of the quality of the relationships that one is able to effect. It is ritualising, taken in its broadest sense,
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enabling persons to assume roles which define their appropriate relationships with others."16 Rites therefore form a self-regulated moral code that provides the true basis of social cohesion that goes beyond what can be achieved through rule of law. To me, this is in fact an excellent reflection of the spirit of contemporary postmodernity. China has a very heavy burden of traditions. In order to modernise, she must continue to dispossess her traditions before attempting their reinvention. These were carried out most dramatically by Chinese intellectuals in the May Fourth Movement (1919-27) and by Chinese authorities in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76). This anti-traditionalism has since become dominant in the consciousness of Chinese intellectuals. On the other hand, China's attempt to follow the path of modernisation by way of experimenting with Western legal and political institutions as well as liberal democracy in the first half of the 20th century were notoriously unsuccessful. Since the 1989 Tiananmen incident, China has clearly decided to develop its own approach to modernity, which is underpinned by its strong cultural traditions. Dramatic development in the last two decades in major coastal urban centres drastically compressed the time span during which China could redefine its modernity and urbanism. Furthermore, China's belated search for its own modernity must also react simultaneously to the impact of globalisation as well as the complex, uncertain and dynamic forces of postmodern culture, within the contexts and constraints of local economic, historical and political conditions. The core values of a traditional society form the essential building blocks of its modernity. We must acknowledge the vast differences between civilisations, each with its own cultures and traditions. Each great culture is made up of multiplicities of traditions and folk domains. Over the centuries, different cultures continue to influence each other, sometimes in a very dramatic manner. In the context of the increasing acceptance of universal rights and values such as anti-slavery and education for women, nation states have now recognised the necessity of consciously integrating their own peculiarities and uniqueness while developing their own modernities.
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In particular, non-Western intellectuals have argued with increasing urgency for the need to recast widely accepted Western-based perceptions of modernity in order to reclaim the historical legitimacy of their own modernity.17 For example, since the forced disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the reactions of the Islamic communities in the Middle-East to the imposition of economic exploitation and political manipulation as well as the unequal contest and destructive confrontation with Israel have been stressful, disruptive and violent.18 Let me quote Shamsul A B, who lectures and writes extensively on political Islam in South East Asia: "If one were to begin to understand the complex and heterogeneous nature of Muslim communities and their equally complex responses to a variety of local global issues, a structuralhistorical examination of the development of a particular Muslim community is imperative."19 The development and discourse of an Islamic-based modernity by scholars in numerous Muslim communities continue with increasing vigour and intensity. Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was recently lauded as one who "seeks modernity without surrendering pride in Islam."20 Similarly the contemporary relevance of Buddhist philosophy and practices as non-violence, forgiveness and happiness is now being vigorously debated and redefined. According to Sulak Sivaraksa, a prominent Thai intellectual, Buddhism can be a personal and political resource towards peaceful, sustainable social change. "In order to truly practise nonviolence, we need to eliminate the three poisons of greed, anger and ignorance and cultivate positive qualities transforming the three poisons with generosity, compassion and wisdom."21 Many scholars now agree that "different starting points for the transition to modernity are likely to lead to different outcomes, and thus that new forces of modern society are likely to evince new forms of difference."22 Furthermore many nation states in the non-Western world such as Malaysia and Singapore have complex crosscultural populations and are pluralistic in terms of race, religion, language and culture. Their hybrid modernities have been further complicated by varied stages of economic
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development and modernisation. In recent decades, the cosmopolitan, multicultural West has also been confronted by strong demands from migrants and minorities for a hybridised cultural environment, which accepts loyalty to the nation and the larger community, while resisting cultural assimilation and universality.23 Ethics and Happiness Philosophers and scholars in all civilisations strive for true happiness. Happiness resulting from enslavement to materialism, financial success or pleasurable activities is rejected as temporary or even false. There is nothing meritorious about a person pursuing his own happiness, but moral praise and respect must be given to those who promote the happiness of others. Bhutan's adoption of Gross National Happiness (GNH) as one of its national goals besides Gross National Product (GNP) is an enlightened concept that has generated considerable international interest in recent years.24 Nevertheless, there can be no simple formula for the maximisation of happiness, as the vital factor of what makes us happy varies from each individual. A central principle of ethics in Western intellectual discourse since 18th century Enlightenment is embodied in the phrase, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Thomas Jefferson wrote in the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 that "all men are created equal" with the same "inalienable Rights" to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". The noble spirit of the document contributed greatly to the many liberal concepts of modernity. However, it was severely marred by black slavery, and is still being criticised today in relation to racial and cultural induced problems of income disparity and unequal opportunity. In the final analysis, social injustice is clearly a denial of due happiness. Another example is Singapore. The national anthem Majulah Singapura was written in the period from 1956 to 1957, just before Singapore gained self-rule from the British. The first two lines read: "Mari kita rakyat Singapura, sama-sama menuju bahagia." (Come, fellow Singaporeans, Let us progress towards happiness together). Since independence in 1965, Singapore has achieved rapid and nearcontinuous economic growth. It is now a rich nation, with GDP per capita income at
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PPP US$24,040 in 2002.25 Although many policies are conducted and implemented with fairness and compassion, studies by psychologists and sociologists show that while Singapore's per capita income and purchasing parity are substantially higher than that of India, the happiness scores of the two countries are exactly the same.26 A sense ofjustice and ethical principles can ultimately be attained, only by striving for a higher quality of life and a deeper sense of happiness, for all. No doubt a certain level of economic wellbeing is a necessary condition for happiness. Economist Ng Yew Kwang convincingly argued that the "main reason why welfare economics is incomplete is that it stops at the stage of individual preferences and does not go on to analyse individual welfare or happiness."27 Recent studies of happiness have given strong indication that once income rises past a certain level, higher income seems not to make individuals significantly happier. Findings from the World Value Survey, a set of surveys on life satisfaction in more than 65 countries conducted between 1990 and 2000, indicate that statistically significant correlation between happiness and income disappears when per capita annual income (in 1995 purchasing power parity) rises above US$ 13,000.28 Hence, there is evidence to suggest, "The more materialistically inclined are less happy. People whose goals are intrinsic (oriented towards self-acceptance, affiliation and community feeling) are happier."29 According to a recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) report: "The most important determinant of welfare happiness is not income level... The most important factor is the extent of income security measured in terms of income protection and low degrees of income inequality."30 Hence, although free operation of the market may very well be the most efficient method in generating economic growth, its merits must also be judged by its ability, or in fact inability to effectively reduce both the absolute and relative poverty of those who are presently least well treated by the system.31 Globalisation and forceful introduction of US style capitalism, together with global mergers, downsizing and outsourcing, has caused job and income insecurity to increase everywhere, in some instances dramatically. Scholars and the international community have belatedly recognised the inverse relationship between one-dimensional global economic growth on one side and ethics and social justice on the other. Pascal
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Lamy, head of the European Union trade commission, warned that "globalisation and the spread of the market system have created a tough selection process, which rewards the strong more than the weak. If you don't compensate by ensuring inclusiveness for the weak, the system will explode at some stage."32 In fact, each country can decide and regulate decisively the level of job and income security for their citizens. The ILO report notes, "The global distribution of economic insecurity does not correspond to the global distribution of income. Some lower income countries, including many in South and South East Asia, achieve higher levels of security—and are therefore happier than some such countries with similar income levels."33 Positive examples include Vietnam and Sri Lanka, which have implemented relatively well-designed public policies and have provided services to the whole community. Conversely, the level of happiness in the US has gone down in recent years, even though income levels have risen.34 Given the current situation, according to Ng, the "questions of whether economic growth increases happiness and what types of public policy increase happiness are the most important questions that economists [and policy-makers] should try to answer."35 Ethical discourse on the international stage is most often based on the Westerncentric UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights. Its limitations are evident from the fact that the right of self-determination was not even mentioned in the 1948 document.36 Similarly, only in the last few decades has the concept of human rights expanded to address a more inclusive agenda of basic needs. These range from food, shelter, education and health to unemployment and poverty reduction—often the main sources of affliction on poorer countries. The Human Development Report published annually by the United Nations Development Program, (UNDP) presents the findings of the Human Development Index (HDI)—an innovative attempt towards measuring the progress and relative performances of different countries in key issues such as gender related development and human poverty. The reports have continued to argue strongly that human development is more a question of politics than economics, as it is politics which decides whether the poor and marginalised can get equitable access.
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| In this new millennium, it has become increasingly necessary to formulate a
new global ethical agenda that embraces diverse ethnicities, religions, languages and values. In the context of this new cultural and political landscape, the 2004 UNDP report entitled Cultural Liberty in Today s Diverse World strongly criticised many long established practices, particularly towards those directed against exploited indigenous people, minorities and migrants.37 Its core thesis advocates freedom for all citizens to choose their multiple identities, and to lead the lives they most value without being seriously disadvantaged in the process. Hence, human rights and ethical discourse, already broadened by the consideration of social rights and politics, now has an added dimension of cultural rights and cultural justice. The report convincingly contested and exposed four important beliefs and myths. First, cultural determinism—Max Weber's 1930 thesis on the essentiality of Protestant values in the successful development of the capitalist industrial economy has been challenged by the recent economic success of non-Protestant countries in Western Europe.38 Similar lessons can be drawn from the myth of the East Asian economic miracle being attributed to Confucian work ethics. Second, cultural traditionalism, where certain traditional practices and values are rigidly preserved often becomes an effective instrument to freeze cultural development of the other and to oppress "inferior" cultures. All cultures must continue to change, and adapt to major disruptions generated by rapid economic growth and the externality of IT and globality. Third, cultural homogeneity—where the conventional image of a strong state is characterised by a strong, singular identity, consisting of one language and one uniform culture, and which is now disputed. Diversity has in recent years become a necessity, as many nations are encountering increasingly strong demands for the implementation of previously unthinkable solutions. Canada for example has recognised the equality of status between both the English and French speaking communities. Fourth, singular identity—where the notion of identity is perceived as fixed and stable—is increasingly challenged while the theory of multiple identities has gained ascendancy. One can have many different identities at the same time, and it is up to each individual to prioritise various affiliations if and when necessary.
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It is my opinion that the HDI report should respect the cultural rights of nation states irrespective of their political and economic ideologies. Culture can be seen as an inherent right possessed by nation states and communities.39 Chinese President Hu Jintao's recent comment that "Western-style democracy was a blind alley for China"40 demonstrates that the report's repeated emphasis on Western-oriented interpretations of individual freedom and democratic institutions will not be universally accepted. A less interventionist approach that is more sensitive to political realities is needed. This will ensure that admirable objectives of the report can still be effectively implemented based on a more inclusive concept of cultural rights and cultural justice. It is by no means an easy task to define and measure happiness. The Human Development Index is an innovative approach towards measuring the ends and objectives of development. However, a more holistic indicator for human well being that gives primacy to the value of happiness has yet to be universally recognised. Furthermore, contemporary postmodern culture has prompted dynamic changes and resulted in new values such as tolerance of differences, pluralism and rebelliousness. These new challenges require painful adjustments to traditional mainstream ethical codes and natural ethos in all countries. A deeper understanding and respect of cultural rights will contribute towards a new ethical discourse based on happiness, social justice, equality and radical pluralism. Radical Glocality In the last two decades of the last millennium, the rapid ascendancy of US led economic globalisation is a historical anomaly. This development model of corporate global capitalism operates by removing barriers to corporate trade and financial investments and by organising the world economy into a universal free market. It receives full support from influential US dominated international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). However, these institutions have yet to achieve their stated prime objectives, which were to increase rates of economic growth in the developing countries, and to help the world's poor out of their poverty trap.
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Notwithstanding remarkable global growth and economic performances of many developing countries, inequalities among and within countries continue to widen with visibly disturbing consequences. This is particularly serious for countries in subSaharan Africa. The East Asian crisis, which started in 1997, was mainly caused by unrestricted speculative capital flow. The economies of Thailand, South Korea and Indonesian were devastated. Malaysia avoided the crisis by putting in place strict currency control. With their strong governments and large currency reserves, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan were able to deter the currency speculators and avoid serious adverse consequences. Countries in the East Asia region, other than China, all felt the overall gloom with the collapse of the tourist industry and the dismal investment climate. Let me quote Joseph Stiglitz: "all the IMF did was make East Asia's recessions deeper, longer, and harder."41 After many painful years, most countries have substantially recovered, as many countries have greatly improved the efficiency and standard of governance in key sectors of their local economies. I concur with John Gray that "Asian capitalisms will emerge from the current crisis altered unpredictably rather than remade on any Western model."42 With this example, the universalistic claim of US corporate globalisation and free market can now be challenged, as it was the collective strength of Asian's own cultures, values and business practices that spurred the dynamic recovery. Since the 1990s, many concerned scholars have written publications with credible analysis on the negative impact of US style top-down globalisation, but their efforts have largely remained as lone voices. At the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle, thousands of protestors from numerous non-governmental organisations (NGOs) joined forces with delegates from developing country to contest unfair trade rules and to call for their fundamental review. The collapse of the Seattle talk was a great shock for the establishment. The NGOs operated without central organisation, leadership or a defining ideology but were becoming increasingly effective. Massive demonstrations continued in many subsequent meetings, including protests against the World Bank and the IMF in Washington DC in the year 2000. However, these protests have not deterred the continuing, aggressive applications of global capitalism everywhere. Of the 2001 WTO
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meeting in Doha, Qatar, Martin Khor lamented that the grievances of the developing countries were generally ignored and that, "instead, the largest developed countries pushed very hard to have the WTO expand its negotiating and rule-making mandate, including into new areas such as investment, competition policy, government procurement, and trade and the environment."43 In 2002, a Report of the International Forum on Globalisation (IFG) entitled Alternatives to Economic Globalisation was published with the combined efforts of many scholars and activists over three years from 1999-2002.44 This exciting and inspiring book provides an effective tool to inform the public and to challenge and modify the system of corporate globality towards meaningful integration with peopleoriented localisation and ecological sustainability. To the surprise of many, a group of developing countries known as G22—a coalition of poor populous countries, including China, India, Brazil and South Africa, united to condemn hefty farm subsidies in the US and European Union, at the 2003 WTO meeting. Their actions completely disrupted the planned outcome of the Cancun meeting.45 As the G22 is a solid and well-informed political force, it must be treated with respect. G22 is fully aware of the mandated deadline on 1 January 2005 and the need to continue with WTO negotiations in a constructive manner but much has already been demanded from the rich and powerful. Hopefully, this can be the beginning of an enlightened epoch of hope, where drastic changes will occur towards more justice and equality. Otherwise, this event will just be another futile exercise of expediency. Besides negotiations in international arenas, individual countries are able to enforce radical glocality in their own ways. Accelerated technological advance and affordable applications of IT have become effective tools for rapid economic growth in developing countries. An outstanding case is the rapid urbanisation and industrial expansion of China's adjoining rural areas. The first major example is the development of Pearl River Basin, where Hong Kong entrepreneurs pioneered the establishment of a huge low-cost production zone mainly for toys and textile. In the East Asian region,
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millions of local, small enterprises continue to provide critical support and ancillary services to companies that have gone global. Hence, global elements, including multinational corporations, are accommodated within scopes defined by the nation states. This development model has ensured the primacy of continuous control by the locals in the development process, hence allowing for the retention of local peculiarities. At the same time it recognises the fundamental role of the markets in generating global competitiveness and production flexibility. The term glocal, a blending of global and local can be used to describe this phenomenon. This word entered the Oxford dictionary in 1991 but was first used in Japan and modelled on the Japanese word dochakuka which meant adapting farming technique to one's local condition.46 East Asian countries have clearly proven that national control is an essential factor for rapid economic growth and achieving broad improvements for the community such as those measured by the UNDP's HDL With increased economic resources being made available, many developing economies urgently require comprehensive social-oriented policies to provide all citizens with basic needs such as food, education, health, shelter, water and sanitation, as well as to achieve ecological sustainability. Direct intervention by the authorities is often effective and necessary. After two decades of breathless and rapid economic growth, urbanisation and changes in culture, values and lifestyle, China has recently broadened and revised her overall development strategy to seriously tackle numerous social justice and environmental issues such as increasing income gaps, regional development disparities, rural and urban dichotomies, pollution and ecological sustainability. Since 2000, grain production has dropped year after year. In the context of China's overall development strategies47, authorities have since taken actions such as awarding direct subsidies and tax reduction to farmers and revoking indiscriminate land zone development status on crop farming land, in order to lift grain production and raise rural income.48 In his address to the nation, India's new Prime Minister, defined his top national priorities as follows: the improvement of the income and welfare of India's vast rural population, the promotion of agricultural development, as well as the stimulation of economic growth accompanied by equity and social justice.49
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In this era of time-compression compounded by the universalisation of IT and the media, issues of cultural rights have become just as important as the provision of basic rights and social justice. Since the late 1960s, NGO activists and protestors together with strong support from numerous publications and research by concerned scholars have continued to broaden their agenda of cultural rights to include major issues such as gender equality, sexual liberation, gay rights, subalternity, and indigenous and minority rights. Cultural rights provide new challenges and opportunities as they are of profound political significance, and can offer an alternative and too often underutilised foundation for defending and extending group rights as well as resolution of conflicts for both minorities and indigenous people.50 Establishing a local cultural agenda requires a new mindset that embraces both local peculiarities and radical postmodernity—one which is influenced by the spirit of contemporariness of the younger generation and dynamic evolving values of the intellectual and art communities. The special glocal characteristic of each nation can then effectively contain and regulate the impact of globalisation and international capitalism.
Asian Ethical Urbanism
Ethics is the science of morality. Its goal is to maximise the level of happiness for both the individual and for society as a whole. One of the most important challenges of today is to establish if major urban redevelopment and expansion can increase the happiness of a city's inhabitants. One must resist the notion that Western established knowledge about urbanisation processes can be successfully applied to Asian urban sites. The explosive urbanism in the rapidly developing economies of major Asia cities has prompted numerous ad-hoc urban actions by states and private sectors. These interventions are
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often uncoordinated, and the resulting visual impact often chaotic, unexpected and shocking to many mainstream observers. Critics and modernists would simply consider them as instances of "failed planning". Yet, a decade ago, Bangkok's traffic was practically at a standstill. Taking advantage of the slack years after the late-1990s economic crisis, several alternative transportation devices were introduced without the authorities resorting to major demolition for highway construction. The vibrancy of the city was therefore unaffected. Bangkok's solution differs fundamentally from Robert Moses's undertaking of highway construction, which led to the urbicide of New York City during the 1950s and 1960s. Shanghai and other Chinese cities have realised the importance of maintaining and even enhancing their urban vibrancy, while providing major interventions to substantially increase transport facilities, even though this has mostly benefited motor vehicles. Hong Kong's Central has retained its historical character and ambience, while continuing to perform highly efficient financial and global functions.51 Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai can be considered to be among the most vibrant and exciting cities in Asia today. Their varied, affordable, unconventional and innovative applications require creative and out-of-the-box mindsets unrestricted by modernist conventions. They operate beyond formulaic modernist solutions, unlike Singapore's recent Orchard Road improvement proposals.52 The explosive urbanisation in Asian cities, though exciting and replete with endless opportunities, can also lead to disastrous results particularly for the workers and the poor, when uncontrolled market and property speculation, gross income disparity, environmental degradation and spatial injustice continue unchecked. In many Asian cities, basic urban amenities like sewerage, water and electricity works as well as garbage collection are not provided for the poor, particularly those living in slum and squatter areas. The problem of excessive air and water pollution needs urgent attention. In the extensive period of their early industrialisation, Asia must not repeat Western experiences with the gross negligence of the poor and the under-privileged.
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The incredible power of capitalism as a social system lies in its capacity to mobilise multiple imaginaries in generating wealth and rapid economic growth. The capitalist system is very malleable. Its bottom-line being profit maximisation, it can operate within nations with various ideologies and in different stages of development. Capitalism works in countries with a comprehensive welfare system or otherwise, with strong unions or none at all, and with free media or controlled media. It is in all possibility that by exercising a strong will, the flexibility and dynamism of the capitalist system can be harnessed towards eliminating poverty everywhere and reversing the increasing wealth gap between the rich and the poor of the world's urban population, particularly in the developing economies. As the non-West begins to successfully challenge the dominance of Eurocentric modernity and take their own paths towards modernities, Asian economies have increasingly come to seek a unique glocality different from the exploitative mode presently imposed by Western global capitalism. The immediate challenge is for Asian societies to pursue ethics and happiness in governance and in urban policies in order to transcend and redefine the dominant logic of materialism and commodification. Only in this way can the quality of life of the majority be enriched. In the last section, I will argue that the postmodern approach of post-planning, with its semi-anarchistic, flexible, chaotic and open-ended system, can create incredible opportunities for urban innovations and can be an effective instrument for Asia ethical urbanism. It is in this context that I wish to identify, analyse and define the essentiality of various ethical elements and to effectively integrate them into the rapidly expanding Asian cities. In this exploratory synthesis, I will elaborate on five issues: Conservation and Memories, Safeguarding the Commons, Spaces of Indeterminacy, Land and finally Spatial Justice. There are many other issues such as basic rights, ecological sustainability, housing and shelter, transport and mobility, as well as those issues relevant only to specific localities which awaits further development.
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Conservation and Memories Cities have enormously complex histories and memories. They are sites consisting of various social, political and economic spheres within which various forces such as money and power as well as ethnicity and gender collide and interact. These differences surface as a series of power struggles that determines in the end whose histories, memories and heritage are preserved. Official history tends to reflect only what the rich and powerful have chosen to remember. However, memories of the common people and the marginalised must also be given due recognition. Having decided to improve the historical sites of Taipei city, government planners encountered the problem of upgrading the Taipei New Park. Historically, it is the site of many important political and religious events. However, it is also a frequent meeting place for the local gay community. As a city planner puts it: "In the recovery of Taipei's historical sites, should the New Park's significance for gay people be taken into account and thus become part of the collective memory of Taipei?"53 This issue is clearly a contest for the recognition of those presently being marginalised by the official version of history. Visual memories of traditional downtown areas often present chaotic historical layering. To quote Iain Chambers, "Memory .. .is never a mere continuum providing instantaneous time travel between the present and the past ... Sometimes, it is as important to forget as it is to recall."54 Buildings with collective or individual historicity and memory should be preserved but a variety of smaller but no less significant places such as shrines, warehouses and cinemas with distinct architectural character can also be left to evolve on their own. Each city is unique and evokes different feelings in its residents and visitors. Memories are by nature abstract and unreal, as is life, which is full of absurdity, tension and contradiction. In preserving historical buildings, one must realise that memories cannot be quantified and assigned an exchange value. All human beings desire some degree of security, or knowing and belonging in their surroundings. Individuals are attracted to cities in different ways, depending on their moods, and particular phases in their lives. The quality of urban life is actually based on the perpetual struggle between rigid routine and pleasurable anarchy. The
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richness of history, memories and local identities is often an indication of how much an urban environment is enjoyed by the people. It is an essential condition of our existence that we find ways to connect meaningfully with the physical environment in an intensely personal manner. We must consciously elevate the value of visual memories in our urban environment beyond the criterion of commodification. Safeguarding the Commons What have been known as commons are aspects of life "that have been accepted since time immemorial as collective property, or the common heritage of all peoples and communities, existing for everyone to share as they have for millennia."55 In the last two decades, global capitalism has aggressively expanded its rights everywhere, from water supply to intellectual properties to genetic patents. On the global level, I share the concern of numerous scholars and activists around the world who are battling hard against many serious outstanding and unresolved issues arising from encroachment onto the commons by global corporatism, ranging from global warming to ecological sustainability. In addition, Vandana Shiva accused the US of ethical perversion by forcing its own patent system onto the world through the WTO. The Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPs) not only "made US style IPR laws global but also removed critical ethical and moral boundaries by including genetic life forms and biodiversity into patentable subject matter."56 Nation states must act responsibly as trustees of common rights and services for the whole community. It is a dangerous departure when water and communal land are privatised and when education, health and social security are operated solely upon capitalistic concepts of profit maximisation. In the context of cities, the commons include a wide range of sites of varied usages ranging from parks, gardens, parade grounds, public squares, cemeteries, communal meeting places, nature reserves, water elements such as beaches and canals, to national, religious and archaeological sites. Filling up the numerous canals in Bangkok in the early post World War II years was an environmental disaster, which resulted in the loss of the once charming "Venice of the East". The recent destruction of a major cemetery in Singapore for housing and private
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sector usage was an incredibly insensitive act, as cemeteries are physical reminders of a presence in the public space, where death is remembered and integrated as part of the living experience. The timely parliamentary decision to save the major archaeological finds in Hanoi and to stop the construction of and eventually relocate the National Assembly building, was admirable.57 It is the sacred duty of city authorities to safeguard the commons whenever possible, particularly against profitable usages, and to add new sites in appropriate locations and to ensure their accessibility for the whole community. Spaces of Indeterminacy When properties are no longer considered economically viable or when they become dilapidated, they are inevitably subjected to demolition and reconstruction. However, these spaces are often unique and chaotic. They are rugged in nature and are able to withstand abrupt usage changes, fragmented design expressions and uncompromisingly irrational spatial arrangements. This random, impulsive, self-regulated environment continuously adds chaos to chaos in the most exciting and surprising manner. They provide alternative lifestyles and natural resistance against global forces of rational conformity. Spaces of indeterminacy are anchored in the postmodern. They are pluralistic and exhibit tolerance of differences and complexities. They may exist as substantial areas, such as in the western districts of Taipei and the Geylang district in Singapore or as in-between spaces—cracks and gaps created by new urban projects and major infrastructure development, an example being disused land under highways. These life theatres offer potential environments from which to promote contemporary and cuttingedge intellectual, artistic, cultural and sociological discourses.
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The spatial configurations of these spaces often teem with open displays of sexual sensuality and often become favourite hangouts of the avant-garde and the art community. Desire becomes a facilitator for inspirations and narratives. The dialectics of art and desire are at once articulate, irrational and mystical. Together, they break the mould of expected normalcy, heighten the sense of desire within the city and provide greater texture to everyday life. Such spaces are people-oriented and borderless. Irrespective of class, racial, gender or occupational differences, users can identify with, and even take psychological possession of these spaces without the need for legal ownership. Common traits may exist but these spaces are also highly unique and reflective of local culture and peculiarities. However, if the significance of spaces of indeterminacy is not effectively demonstrated or is unappreciated by the city authorities, we lose the opportunity to provide resistance to destructive modernistic urban interventions. No doubt some degree of demolition is avoidable, and older areas in central locations such as Montmarte in Paris and Times Square in New York may also be upgraded and gentrified. However spaces of indeterminacy can be expanded, with the addition of older buildings and outdated residential areas. When these older areas are spared from being torn down and are liberated from existing regulation and control, they have the potential to become spaces of indeterminacy. They can become contested spaces in which to establish vibrant grassroots communities as well as dynamic, creative and unpredictable art communities that amplifies the creative vibrancy of urban areas. These spaces meet the demands, particularly from the younger generation for new locations with distinct identities. Land Land is the most valuable asset of cities. Land policies are powerful tools with which to achieve a wide range of political, economic and social objectives. They should therefore be firmly anchored with ethical concepts and be beneficial to the whole community. In Asian cities, it is the rich and powerful that have gained from spatial
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reconfigurations. They have amassed wealth from land value appreciation, increase in development intensity, which essentially translates to an increase in plot ratio and density, and the conversion of rural land, particularly farmland to urban usages during the period of rapid economic growth and urban population explosion. For many property developers, rising land value is the single most vital factor for profitability. For effective urban governance, it is important to note that both the governments of Singapore and Hong Kong have for many decades generated substantial incomes from the regular competitive sales of urban sites. Furthermore, Singapore has applied an incremental tax called development charge to ensure that the authority will share in the economic benefits to be gained from the change in use and increase in development intensity of urban plots.58 When land sales are officially condoned and manipulated by the rich and powerful as an effective device for private wealth accumulation, widespread corruption becomes unavoidable. According to a recent press report59, 70 million farmers in China lost their land to urban usages in the last decade. With the necessary legal orders, land is acquired with token compensation, resulting in unimaginable suffering and disastrous consequences. This is a serious issue when urban areas are substantially expanded at the expense of irreplaceable fertile agricultural land. Since this has seriously affected food production on the national scale, authority has recently intervened. In China, urban residents have not stayed immune to land seizures. Millions have continued to be forcibly displaced from the older sections of Shanghai, Beijing and other cities often with minimum compensation. However, China is not alone in this dilemma. According to Amita Baviskar, a few years ago, Delhi's bourgeoisie environmentalists and consumer rights groups initiated a process resulting in the "closure of all polluting and non-conforming industries in the city, throwing out of work an estimated two million people",60 as well as in the removal and relocation of squatter settlements on public lands by demolishing "the homes of more than three million people". It is inconceivable that such an act of
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urbicide could have occurred in India's democracy. It remains to be questioned why the urban poor in Delhi could not voice their vision of the city when their counterparts in Mumbai and Kolkata have been able to protect their jobs and shelters given their long histories of strong unionised labour. The issue of land must clearly be analysed beyond the frameworks of legal status and rights of ownership. It is the ethical responsibility of both the authorities and the collective voices of the poor to ensure equitable and fair solutions. Scholars and concerned activists urgently require much more in-depth studies which examine collective community rights to use and occupy land without legal possession, and against eviction without fair and adequate compensation. Spatial Justice I am a practising architect and a critical urbanist. For several decades, I have lectured and written on Asian architecture and urbanism, as well as many issues relating to equity and the urban poor. Since the early 1990s, I have been increasingly conscious of my limitations and the vital necessity of broadening my theoretical knowledge and understanding of the growing complexity of multi-disciplinary discourses in order to make effective contributions to Asian urbanism today. Unlike many leading urban theorists who are not architects, my conceptual starting point must inevitably be spatial, three-dimensional and urban-oriented and cannot be otherwise. I therefore give wholehearted support to and identify with Edward Soja's declaration of being "an avowed spatialist, a determined advocate for the critical power of the spatial or geographical imagination. ... and through the city, in making sense of globalisation and other complexities of the contemporary world."61 It is important to recognise that throughout history, the rich and powerful have always created spatial arrangements most favourable for themselves. In most Asian cities, the more affluent classes are provided with facilities such as high-end shopping centres and they increasingly respond with higher levels of consumption while insulating themselves from the deteriorating social and physical spaces around them. On the other hand the poor are crowded into environmentally degraded areas
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that are systemically denied basic infrastructure and services. The effective implementation of urban spatial justice is clearly a difficult task, as it is necessary to re-examine and challenge many of the present long-established planning theories and practices. In my opinion, we should start modestly to evaluate a few obvious examples of local specificity with universal relevance particularly in regard to affordability, accessibility and suitability. How long should work-home travel time be before it has an adverse impact on the quality of life, by depleting the time for relaxing, thinking and being with friends and families? Why are there so many golf courses even in land-scarce Singapore and some Chinese cities, and will having more land allocated for parks and playgrounds be a more attractive option? Will areas of mixed usages with residents from various income, races and religions be considered more desirable and exciting than uni-usage urban settlements? Will museums, theatres and art performances always only be targeted at and affordable to the elites, or can more sites and facilities be provided for popular local performances and festivals at affordable prices for everyone? Much has already been written on these issues, but few are listening especially in the rapidly developing Asian cities. Collective and dedicated commitment by local citizens is clearly needed to improve the quality of spatial justice in each specific location. Notwithstanding different stages of economic development and local cultural traditions, major Asian cities all have multiple polycentric nodes of intensive development. A little distance away from the main streets with their symbolic modernist order and high-income Westernised housing estates, complex urban conglomerations collide and explode, generating incredible energy. Interestingly, this floating, flexible and locally anchored urbanism can respond very effectively to the new demands of globality and to new interpretations of spatiality influenced by the new internet technology.
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When conservation sites, commons and spaces of indeterminacy are more widely accepted and especially, when slums and squatter settlements are given their due recognition, urban landscapes will take on very different spatial characters. Urbicide will be substantially curtailed and large-scale tabula rasa may soon be just another discarded planning instrument. There is hope yet for an exciting urbanism with spatial justice for all.
Post-Planning as a Credible Instrument for Asian Ethical Urbanism
In recent years, global population growth rate has dramatically decreased. According to the world population estimates and projections prepared by the United Nations Population Division, global population is now growing at 76 million persons annually in the period 2000-2005, down from 82 million persons per years in the mid-1990s.62 Global population is now expected to stabilise at 8.9 billion by the year 2050, as fertility drops to replacement level or lower.63 This event deserves celebration since it means that global ecological sustainability is now more than ever an achievable goal. With continuous and rapid improvement in science and technology, poverty can be abolished, basic needs can be met and quality of life can be improved. However, we must have the collective will and vision to make this happen as painlessly and quickly as possible. To this end, developing countries need a continuous period of rapid economic growth. Many countries in East Asia offer proof that this can be achieved. However, development priorities must also be carefully regulated so as to apply extra care and consideration to the needs of the poor and the underprivileged, minimise wasteful consumption and maintain an ecologically sustainable environment. At the same time, the rate of urbanisation has escalated, particularly in the densely populated developing economies. We are fast approaching a time when the majority of the world's population will be living in urban areas of more than one million inhabitants. Exploring the nature and substances of urban life in the area of
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globalisation "has become not just a field of specialised academic interest, but an interpretative window on to every aspect of the contemporary human condition everywhere on earth."64 The historical, political and intellectual development of human societies does not just take place in cities, but it is also in significant ways generated from cities 65 . This is especially true in Asia, where rapid, unpredictable and unprecedented changes have taken place not only in the physical landscape, but also in the social and cultural life of people living in and moving into urban areas. Western Europe, with its urban population generally stabilised, has been increasingly successful in generating bottom-up, people-oriented interventions through insurgent planning.66 Furthermore, dramatic social and value changes that have occurred in the last few decades have greatly encouraged the establishment of popular culture and the arts as integral urban fabric in specific localities.67 For the younger generation, city living is increasingly based on "the performative, the topographical, the local and the incremental [experiences], rather than on the typological, the singular or the visionary."68 A major challenge in Western Europe today is the rapidly evolving trend of multicultural ism, one that demands acceptance of the increasingly complex cultural rights of migrants and minorities, in the postmodern spirit of pluralism and tolerance of differences. However, conditions in Asia are fundamentally different. To study Asian urbanisation is to study difference and multiplicity at play. With exceptions, Asian cities have consistently rejected the postwar model of Western modernist planning. The speed at which construction and destruction are accomplished is incredible. Perhaps the major Asian cities are still able to function and to maintain their attractiveness and dynamism, because of their chaotic pluralistic richness and unintentional complexity.69 With different historical and cultural traditions, it is inevitable that Asia's transformation to and perceptions of modernity would have distinct Asia characteristics.™ However, many aspiring global cities continue to produce numerous tall buildings in dense, centralised locations to create imagined versions of Wall Street.
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Rem Koolhaas should be acknowledged as a major contributor to Asian architecture and urban discourse. In "Generic City", he posited that with the impact of globalisation in recent decades, architecture and urbanism are increasingly more significant in similarities than in differences. "All Generic Cities issue from the tabula rasa; if there was nothing, now they are there; if there was something, they have replaced it."71 He also lamented that "some continents, like Asia, aspire to the Generic City, others are ashamed of it."72 In a subsequent article entitled "Junk Space"73, Koolhaas argues convincingly that with air-conditioning, climate is completely neutralised as an essentiality in architecture, particularly for tall buildings; with escalators, the horizontal scale is immaterial as it blurs the whole idea of limits and transitions. This emergent domain of architecture that Koolhaas called "Junk Space" has further reinforced the image of sameness and generic urbanism. Over the last two decades, China has experienced rapid economic growth and dramatic changes, particularly in the eastern coastal regions, with more than 130 million rural urban migrants.74 It is estimated that around 300 million more people will be urbanised by 2020.75 India and Indonesia will soon be experiencing uncontrollable urban explosion of similar magnitude. It is obvious that there is as yet no obvious answer to the unprecedented challenges of Asian urban explosion. The key question now is what should be done. The dynamics ofAsian cities urgently requires intellectual and ethical targeting as well as the formulation of thought and theory that are specific to Asian societies. China's spectacular urban explosion and modernisation has occurred with unprecedented speed. In an age where economics increasingly takes precedence over everything else, urban transformation and expansion in the major coastal cities are more often immediate responses to the urgent demands of globalisation and developmental economics than they are part of the traditional planning process. In other words, dramatic urban changes occur ahead of and are not subjected under any planning process, causing the art critic Hou Hanru to coin the term post-planning where "we are entering into an epoch in which any planning is systematically a
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'posterior' recuperation and a securing actions."76 In this post-planning process, economies and profits are the central players. They have replaced traditional ideological, social, environmental, historical and aesthetic elements as main driving forces behind the creation and expansion of cities. Everyone living in this situation has to confront urgent questions of instability, changeability and survival, while established social and urban fabrics are continuously being deconstructed and reorganised. In the process, major urban interventions have often resulted in dramatic, chaotic and unexpected visual arrangements as well as added unintentional in-between gap spaces that create challenging creative opportunities. A concentration of mass at the centre in Asian cities is a heritage from its colonial past and subsequent imitation of Western modernity. Following the example of Beijing's development in the early 15th century, East Asian cities established a horizontal order and dispersion with varied complexity. Traditional Asian cities do not have one centre, but consists of a series of focal events. Let me quote from Zhu Jianfei's excellent book on Chinese spatial strategies: "While the Western approach assumes a centric subject gasing upon a centric object distanced and exposed in a universal space, the Chinese approach involves a subject submerging and moving in the landscape."77 Furthermore, even the primary centre is "a void and a solid at the same time",78 but is never a physical statement of visual celebration. It is my opinion therefore that Asia may be more receptive to the concept of post-planning—a system that embraces multiple, complex and hybridised centres, which may strategically converge. The major coastal cities of China, such as Shanghai, as well as Hong Kong and Bangkok all illustrate varying and at times paradoxical aspects of post-planning. For decades, Thailand has examined many planning alternatives, and post-planning appears to be the only viable and implementable urban model for Bangkok, a city of consisting of over 10 million people.79 Many Thai peculiarities such as its fragmented political structure, a powerful local business community, the highly diversified landownership and the powerful influence of the monarchy, which has substantial ownership
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of land and property, are embedded within the phenomenon of post-planning. China, on the other hand, made a conscious political choice to give up the right to planning and embrace a quasi-anarchistic approach and tabula rasa strategy. In his observation, Hou Hanru lamented that this phenomenon "is deeply related to the ideologies of both communist and US style capitalist Utopias of modernity" and is further corrupted by "consumerist ideology and political-cultural uniformisation".80 Key existing urban streets in Asian cities are usually preserved and enhanced. However, their vibrancy can only be fully realised by creative innovative solutions and by discarding existing proven formulae, modernist planning rigidities and outdated urban aesthetic images. The flexibility and openendedness proffered by a post-planning approach has enabled Hong Kong's Central district to retain the scale of its main streets, its bazaars and the tramlines of yesteryear. Within the integrated, multi-layered urban communities that combine work and living places, it is more feasible to draw out the potentials of the site and thus continuously introduce complex interactive glocalised innovations, rather than stamp it with top-down planning directions. Another exciting transformation is the Bund in Shanghai.81 On the other hand, the full potential of Orchard Road, the main commercial street in Singapore has yet to be realised.82 In all these cities, the outcome of post-planning is likely to be vastly different in each city and will largely be determined by the choice of key variables and factors such as ecological sustainability, quality of life, ethics and spatial justice. Each city can incorporate its own peculiarities to achieve a distinct entity. A cursory observation of Bangkok and Shanghai should convince anyone that post-planning is likely to avoid the sameness and the sterile images of Koolhaas' Generic City. With exceptions, the construction of enormous numbers of tall buildings in cities of Asian developing economies have only produced copies of the original, outdated aestheticism, sham localism and senseless facade treatment. The essentiality of local creative energy and dynamic interaction to anchor architectural discourses and practices has yet to be fully understood or developed. Architectural lack and the
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Hong Kong
Bangkok
j Shanghai
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generic phenomenon are therefore both unavoidable and regrettable. Fortunately, judging from the increasing vibrancy in the arts—films, theatres and even literary writing—in the Asian region, it should not be too long before the quality of architecture will be substantially improved. In post-planning, tall buildings are erected everywhere depending on land availability, accessibility and profit. Even though they tend to disrupt the existing environment, care can be taken to ensure they do not cause needless destruction. The introduction of buildings of various scales and usages often interacts positively with the existing in unexpected and exciting ways. This method of revitalisation can be effectively applied with affordable cost while avoiding the complete clearance and displacement of the poor and the small local businesses.83 This is already taking place in many Asian cities, particularly where local occupants and the under-privileged are better organised. However, some cities still continue with tabula-rasa style redevelopment based on outdated modernist planning theories. In China, the cry of the displaced farmers and urban poor has now become louder and increasingly frequent.84 When main roads, an elevated highway, a monorail, pedestrian crossings and an underground subway collide, a chaotic visual explosion results. Vibrant urban activities continue unabated, notwithstanding dramatic physical changes and disruption to the immediate environment. The combinations of noises, together with countless surprising visual encounters provide unbelievable sensual stimulation and excitement, particularly when creative activities spring within gap spaces. However in modernist planning language this vision is an entirely depressing hellhole. Examples include the Siam Square area in Bangkok and Yan-an Grade Crossing in Shanghai.85 These developments are monstrous to Western eyes, but to local citizens, they symbolise a new, utopic urbanism of hitherto hidden opportunities and dynamic energy.
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It is encouraging that many cities in Asia have now accepted or have acknowledged the need for preservation of historical monuments and traditional areas as well as retained parks and nature sites. There is also increasing awareness of the need to preserve "commons" such as community meeting places and old cemeteries, and avoid converting them to other usages. These sites differ greatly in their physical characteristic. They vary in scale and are unevenly distributed. In the current postplanning climate in Asia, their collective social and psychological significance to the larger urban community must be recognised. Together with spaces of indeterminacy and countless in-between gap spaces, they provide vital substances for local peculiarities and the evolvement of distinct physical identities. The prevalent horizontality of conservation areas and spaces of indeterminacy will provide a complex network in the urban landscape and will absorb, subdue and integrate generic vertical intrusions. Notwithstanding major physical expansion and population explosion, each of the postplanning Asian cities will still be able to establish its own specific characteristics and distinctiveness. In the context of post-planning, introducing ethical practices based on spatial, environmental and social justice in order to regulate greed and exploitation is a formidable task. It is not nearly enough to dream dreams and inspire visions. The realisation of ethical urbanism involves making a deliberate political choice which requires great effort, determination and broad-based community support.
Conclusion
A global polarisation between the neo-liberal global capitalism led by the United States and the pro-radical Islam fundamentalism everywhere is now becoming increasingly apparent post-September 11. Self-perpetuating cycles of atrocity between urban guerrilla terror and state counter terror continue to escalate. This asymmetrical
Asian Ethical Urbanism
37
power struggle will not be easily resolved without dramatic changes of mindsets on both sides and the reconceptualisation of age-old prejudices. Unlike previous conflicts, this struggle revolves around ideologies, values and cultural substances. Notwithstanding the substantial expansion of global wealth in recent decades, poverty in many countries persists and is now the greatest potential source of unrest and instability. Ending poverty is to the self-interest of all nations and must now become a top priority.86 Post-September 11, it is obvious that violence can no longer be effectively contained within nation-borders. Cities are increasingly being targeted and destroyed, not just for urbicide, tabula rasa development and capitalistic spatial reconfiguration. In wars, cities as target87 have a long historical precedence—particularly devastating were the air wars employed in World War II. Parties in conflict increasingly recognise cities as targets. We observe the systematic infrastructural destruction of urban Iraq and Palestinian settlements by one side, and increasingly frequent terrorism in major urban centres by the other. Many innocent civilians were killed simply because they were in the way. Under present conditions of turbulence effected by forces of contesting terrorism and the overwhelmingly aggressive domination of global capitalism, Steven Graham courageously concluded in his recent article "Postmortem City" that "cities must be seen as key sites, perhaps the key sites, for nurturing the tolerances, diasporic mixings, and multicultural spaces that are needed to push fundamentalist fantasies of all sorts to the lunatic fringes where they belong."88 This admirable agenda will constitute a long and painful struggle; poverty must first be eradicated and Islam has to be given the respect it rightly deserves. In the meantime, with the impending demise of modernist planning, there is now a serious lack of viable urban theories. The footprints and corpses of failed modernist visions are littered everywhere. When the modernist planning approach was adopted in East Asia, its inherent dimensions of ethics and social responsibility was frequently put aside. Furthermore, the unprecedented pace and scale of expansion in
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Asian cities calls for immediate and urgent attention. It is in this challenging context that I attempt to formulate a new theory of Asian ethical urbanism, which transcends and discards the constraints and rigidity of modernist planning, to site its critical substances within the "post-planning" conditions of Asian cities today.
Asian Ethical Urbanism
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Notes 1 Leonie Sandercock, Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities in the 21st Century (London and New York: Continuum, 2003), 2. 2 Fred Halliday, "Utopian Realism: The Challenge for 'Revolution' in Our Times" in The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change in the Age of Globalisation, ed., John Foran (London and New York: Sed Books, 2003), 309. 3 Ibid., 306. 4 See William S W Lim, Architecture, Art, Identity in Singapore: Is there Life after Tabula Rasa? (Singapore: Asian Urban Lab, 2004). 5 Hou Hanru, "Post-Planning" in 32 New York/Beijing 2 (2003): 15. 6 David Harvey, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Maiden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 438. 7 See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978). See also Bryan Turner, "Edward W Said: Overcoming Orientalism" in Theory, Culture and Society 21.1 (February 2004): 173-177. 8 David Haekwon Kim, "Empire's Entrails and the Imperial Geography of 'Amerasia'" in City 8.1 (April 2004): 58-85. 9 Charles Taylor, "Two Theories of Modernity" in Alternative Modernities, ed., Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 182. 10 Simon Leys, trans., The Analects of Confucius (New York: W W Norton & Company, Inc., 1997). 11 See David L Hall and Roger T Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), and, David L Hall and RogerTAmes, Anticipating China: Thinking Through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), and, David L Hall and Roger T Ames, Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). 12 Leys, trans., The Analects of Confucius, 15. 13 Ibid., 31. 14 Ibid., 27. 15 Ibid., 55. 16 David L Hall and RogerTAmes, "The Focus-Field Self in Classical Confucianism" in Thinking from the Han, 32. 17 See William S W Lim, "Modernity of the Other" in Alternatives in Transition: The Postmodern, Glocality and Social Justice (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2001), 34-48. 18 See Derek Gregory, The Colonial Present: Afghanistan Palestine Iraq (Maiden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 76-143. 19 Azmi Aziz and Shamsul A B, "The Religious, the Plural, the Secular and the Modern" in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4.3 (December 2004): 348. 20 M J Akbar, editor of the New Delhi Asian Age was quoted in Michael Vatikiotis, "Voice of Reason" in Far Eastern Economic Review (23 September 2004): 14-15. See also, S Jayasankaran, "The Anwar Interview: In His Own Words" in The Business Times (22-23 January 2005): 3. 21 Sulak Sivaraksa, "Inner Peace for Social Action" in Seeds of Peace 20.3: 31-35. 22 Thomas McCarthy, "On Reconciling Cosmopolitan Unity and National Diversity" in Alternative Modernities, ed., Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 197-235.
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23 See Sandercock, Cosmopolis II, 85-153. 24 Dasho Bap Kesang, "Gross National Happiness," presentation at the Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore, 7 September 2004. 25 Figures from: United Nations Development Program, "Human Development Index" in Human Development Report 2004: Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World (New York: United Nations Development Program, 2004), 139. 26 Ng Yew-Kwang, "From Preference to Happiness" in Welfare Economics: Towards a More Complete Analysis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 262. 27 Ibid., 257. 28 See Ronald Inglehart and Hans-Dieter Klingemannh, "Genes, Culture, Democracy, and Happiness" in Culture and Subjective Weil-Being, eds., E Diener and E Suh (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000), 171. 29 Ng, "From Preference to Happiness", 269. 30 Sanjay Suri, "What Makes a Worker Happy..." Commentary in Today (8 September 2004): 22. 31 See Sir Anthony Kenny, "Beyond a Warm Feeling" in The Discovery of Happiness, ed., Stuart Mccready (London: MQ Publications Limited, 2001), 223-237. 32 Pascal Lamy, quoted in Vikram Khanna, "The Trade Warrior" in The Business Times (11-12 September 2004): 3. 33 Sanjay Suri, "What Makes a Worker Happy...", 22. 34 Ibid., 7. 35 Ng, "From Preference to Happiness", 277. 36 Bruce Robbins and Elsa Stamatopulou, "Reflections on Culture and Cultural Rights" in And Justice for All? The Claims of Human Rights South Altalantic Quarterly 103.2/3 (Spring/ Summer 2004): 423. 37 United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2004: Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World (New York: United Nations Development Program, 2004). 38 Ibid., 10. 39 Robbins and Stamatopulou, "Reflections on Culture and Cultural Rights", 427. 40 Joseph Kahn, "Democracy 'Blind Alley' for China, Leader Says" in International Herald Tribune, Singapore (16 September 2004): 1, 3. 41 Joseph Stiglitz, "What I Learned at the World Economic Crisis" in The New Republic (17 April 2000). 42 John Gray, "Postscript" in False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (London: Granta Books, 1998), 221. 43 Martin Khor, "Box F: The Hypocrisy of the North in the WTO" in Alternatives to Economics Globalisation— A Better World is Possible, Alternative Task Force of the International Forum on Globalisation, drafting committee, John Cavenagh etal. (San Franciso: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc, 2002), 51. 44See Alternatives to Economics Globalisation— A Better World is Possible. 45 Gustavo Capdevila, "G2 Warms Up for Post-Cancun WTO Talks"in Inter Press Service News Agency (2003),
. 46 Elizabeth Knowles and Julia Elliot, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of New Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 134. 47 See "Hu's Speech on Development Strategies Issued" in People's Daily Online (April 2004), .
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48 See "China Saves Farms from Brink of Collapse" in The Straits Times (Saturday, 2 October 2004): 13. 49 See "Text of Manmohan Singh's Address to the Nation" in The Hindustan Times (25 June 2004), . 50 Robbins and Stamatopulou, "Reflections on Culture and Cultural Rights", 426. 51 See Koh Wan Ching, "Post-planning in Central, Hong Kong" in this volume, 51. 52 See "Government Unveils Plans to Spice Up Orchard Road" in The Business Times (8 December 2004): 1. 53 Hsieh Pei-chuan, "The Spatial Performance of Sexualities", presented at the Mapping the Desire Conference, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University (20 April 1996). See also Chang Hsiao-Hung. "Taiwan Queer Valentines" in Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, eds., Chen Kuan-Hsing et al. (London: Routledge, 1998), 283-298. 54 lain Chambers, "Architecture, Amnesia and the Emergent Archaic" in Culture after Humanism: History, Culture, Subjectivity (London: Routledge, 2001), 139-142. 55 See "The Commons: What Should be Off-Limits to Globalisation?" in Alternative Task Force of the International Forum on Globalisation, Alternatives to Economics Globalisation, 79-104. 56 Vandana Shiva, "Box K: From Commons to Corporate Patents on Life" in Alternative Task Force of the International Forum on Globalisation, Alternatives to Economics Globalisation, 87. 57 See "Antiquity Treasure Trove Unearthed" in Reuters (Tuesday, 11 November 2003), . 58 A tax known as a development charge in respect of every development of land authorised by any planning or conservation permission, except where the planning permission or conservation permission is granted for a specified period often years or less is to be paid to a competent authority. See Planning Act, Singapore, Section 35, 1 April 1998, . 59 Jim Yardley, "New Class Struggle over Land in China" in International Herald Tribune (9 December 2004): 1-2. 60 Amita Baviskar, "The Politics of the City" in Shades of Green: A Symposium on the Changing Contours of Indian Environmentalism 512 (August 2002), . 61 Edward W Soja, "Writing the City Spatially" in City 7.3 (November 2003): 269-280. 62 Population Division of the Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects, 2002 Revision, 2003, . 63 Box 2 in "Long Way to Go" in United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 2004—The Cairo Consensus at Ten: Population, Reproductive Health and The Global Effort to End Poverty, 2004, . 64 Soja, "Writing the City Spatially", 270. 65 Ibid., 275. 66 See Plurimondi: An International Forum for Research and Debate on Human Settlements 2, Insurgent Planning Practices (July-December 1999). 67 Guy Baeten, "Inner-city Misery Real and Imagined" in City 8.2 (July 2004): 235. 68 Lucy Bullivant, "No more Tabula Rasa: Progressive Architectural Practice in England" in Harvard Design Magazine 21 (Fall/Winter 2004): 37. 69 See William S W Lim, Asian New Urbanism (Singapore: Select Books Pte Ltd, 1998). See also William S W Lim, "Modernity of the Other" in Alternatives in Transition: The Postmodern, Glocality and Social
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Justice (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2001) 34-48. 70 See William S W Lim, "Multiple Modernities," published in this volume, 6. 71 Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau and Office for Metropolitan Architecture, "Generic City" in S, M, L, XL (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1995), 1253. 72 Ibid., 1250. 73 Rem Koolhaas, "Junkspace" in Bridge the Gap? (Kitakyushu: Center for Contemporary Art and Koln: Verlag de Buchhandlung Walter Konig, 2002), 71. 74 See "Migrant Workers Need Fair Treatment" in People's Daily Online (April 2003), . 75 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/ Population Division, World Urbanisation Prospects: The 2003 Revision (New York: United Nations, 2004), 42, . 76 Hou, "Post-Planning", 15. 77 Zhu Jianfei, Chinese Spatial Strategies: Imperial Beijing 1420-1911 (London and New York: RouteledgeCurzon, 2004), 245. 78 Ibid., 244. 79 See Kevin S K Lim, "Learning from Bangkok: A Slice of the Post-planning Phenomena—from Siam Square to Phloen Chit," published in this volume, 52. 80 Ibid. 81 See William S W Lim, Have you been Shanghaied? Culture and Urbanism in Glocalised Shanghai (Singapore: Asian Urban Lab, 2004). 82 See William S W Lim, "Vision of a Great Street: Orchard Road, Singapore" in Alternatives in Transition: The Postmodern, Glocality and Social Justice (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2001), 97-103. 83 See Baeten, "Inner-city Misery Real and Imagined", 235. 84 See Jim Yardley, "New Class Struggle over Land in China" in International Herald Tribune (9 December 2004): 1-2. 85 See Lim, Have you been Shanghaied?, 2-3. 86 See James D Wolfensohn, "Ending Poverty is the Key to Stability" in International Herald Tribune (Thursday, 30 September 2004): 8. 87 The "City as Target International Workshop", organised by the National University of Singapore, was held from 20 to 21 August 2004. A publication consisting of the workshop papers is forthcoming. 88 Stephen Graham, "Postmortem City: Towards an Urban Geopolitics" in City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 8.2 (July 2004): 192.
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Post-planning in Central, Hong Kong Text and Photography by Koh Wan Ching
Central District on Hong Kong Island was one of the earliest areas to be developed under British rule, and was initially designated as a strategic, military and governmental centre. Between 1841 and 1843, the island's first two main roads, Queen's Road and Hollywood Road were constructed. At the same time, the British advanced Central's commercial development by denominating Central and its surrounding areas as Victoria City with Queen's Road as its focal point. Land reclamation began as early as 1851 and produced Chater Road, Connaught Road and Des Voeux Road with its completion in 1904. This study focuses on the areas around Des Voeux Road Central and Queen's Road Central, a location that is characterised by intricate and equivocal layerings. Hong Kong's global city imagery is signified by its harbour view of skyscrapers, highways and incessant traffic. The magnificent coastline however, shields its background, which in my opinion provides equally vital factors as to why Central has been and remains as Hong Kong's political, financial and commercial core and can be considered among the most distinctive and vibrant areas in Asia. ^ggtL
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Asian Ethical Urbanism
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In the study area, traditional notions of planning ^ 1 - if'ff^^JjjBf are inapplicable. The devastations wrought by "^^JC^WSBM commercialisation and a developmental economy are JZs*g^ ^HBm plain to see. A harrowing traffic situation, pollution and ^ tiBEjF K H j tasteless modernist skyscrapers constitute the foreground " • L L ^ T ^ ^ ^ H while oppressive mixed use commercial and residential ,KjjMJ|jJH^^H buildings run in perpendicular streets away from the main wjfflflf^^^B thoroughfare. Central exemplifies post-planning in its ^ ^ ^ S S S S ^ ^ H haphazard, mostly vertical developments. It is a zone of •""' •* 'flP urgency created out of the immediate demands of the B-~-^«y*-- \tjm pressures of rapid urbanisation, population explosion and • jHH ^H hyper density, where, it is fairly obvious, that economics Hf S ^ B m^m and commerce are the main players, and little else matters. * . JHH f/B Hence authorities, the public and NGOs must immediately cooperate on issues of dire urgency such as environmental degradation, severe dilapidation, urban poor and urban living conditions as they often pose immediate health and social problems for the country. The city negotiates all these pressures and manifests all of these struggles in astounding spatial configurations.
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Broad and Flexible Planning Planning authorities have somewhat relinquished rigid control over planning and zoning regulations since the urgency of the situation meant that urban change went far ahead of conceptual planning theories. It is inconceivable that any planning theory could have proven entirely efficacious for one of the world's most crowded area, with a population density of nearly 16,000 per square mile, and which has nearly 1.2 million jobs. Behind the rows of commercial skyscrapers are mixed-use residential blocks of various shapes, levels and sizes built in inexplicable proximity. Smallscale businesses ranging from food vendors to childcare centres, as a rule, always occupy the lower levels. City dwellers have adapted arguably well to such a compact form of urban life and most find it convenient and well suited to their lifestyle. As a result, this sort of multiple and intensive land use buildings have been replicated in various parts of Hong Kong and has become a distinguishing feature of life in Hong Kong.
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Factors such as proximity, levels and contingency conspire to create incidental happenings in the urban landscape
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Urban dwellers constantly encounter the
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• II ^ * t&f^^ encroaching. The pedestrian escalator is built I ** *"liiESra Hl^M barely centimetres away from existing h ^ iBSilitil ' I ' ^ ^ S buildings, stimulating the convergence of fflK' *WH^^MH^^BK private and public spaces.
Second-level windows of this resi~'i«F^^^^^B^^HHHHH^9 dential building opens onto the ». KS A&. ' W ^ S ^ ^ ^ s B H ^ ^ ^ ^ H Wa On Lane Sitting out area, one ""MfSPliI; -; £V|&T,L^^^^^^^H ., * i wl • % *^#» 4 F M N I ^ ^ H ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ I B of the few mini parks in ^ ^ISiSjf I IK^^^^^^^H Central, which provide some green relief in the congested >?• l.~&mxM?t ,^M, t l i ^ ^ B I ^ B W environment. v»^' ^ ^^^^^E'X"' :
;^ si! **^ > The different shops housed in this building comJC" ., pete for attentions with a legion of signs posiMp 1 t i o n e c l i n various ways. Interactions with build' ' ' " ' j ^ ' r ? ? i ? i i f v l £ in 9 !anguage, users and passersby erupts in " / I f l T ' T s i t n e urban landscape. $^
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decorations advertisement banner glass window display protuding signboards a^K^^'^Si?^-*'^^
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Asian Ethical Urbanism
The entire area is obsessively networked and connected, both internally and with the rest of Hong Kong. The A huge bus interchange tucked underneath a pedestrian walkway and the Exchange Square brings in busloads of commuters daily from Kowloon and the New Territories. The Airport Express train station is just next to the interchange, as are the ferry terminals offering cheap and fast access to Kowloon and the other islands. A mini bus network that plies the inner streets supplements the MTR, tramways and buses.
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^T^^^^3^PH|M^P ^^^^^^B^t/^^^m "--*-'*••*. -- „ _ J H M H I I
The recent pedestrianisation project of Central, which involved building a flabbergasting system of pedestrian crossings, elevated walkways and building connectors give unlimited convenience to tourists and commuters alike. This is not so much a result of meticulous city planning but a spontaneous and flexible attitude of those involved in solving urban problems. One innovative urban intervention is the 800 metre long pedestrian escalator that gives an estimated 210,000 people free access between areas in Central and the Mid Levels everyday.
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Central has endured its fair share of hardship resulting from slum clearance and massive demolition during the urban renewal and housing programs of the 1950s to the 1990s. It has nevertheless managed to retain a palpable sense of history, albeit one which is constantly under threat from the decision-making mechanisms monopolised by Hong Kong's singularly powerful commercial logic. Essentially a colonial city, Central's architectural heritage runs the gamut of colonial and institutional or else religious monuments and buildings. However, the vicinity around the pedestrian escalator and leading towards Sheung Wan— historically part of the Chinese Quarter—is enriched by the presence of several small, old establishments. Those shophouses that have been spared from demolition have also been favoured by niche businesses such as galleries and art studios. The owner of D'art Gallery, pictured here, estimates some of these buildings to be at least 80 years old but she like the other owners have carried out only minimal paint and reinforcement work. Apart from buildings however, there are other hints as to how Central's urban fabric retains its fragile intimacy. Streets and especially alleys have not only kept their old names but also their width and appearance. For example, several archaic cobbled pavements that emphasise Hong Kong's characteristically hilly terrain have been kept intact even with the building of the newer pedestrian escalators.
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The thoughtful conservation of the tramways ensured it did not degenerate into a white elephant tourist attraction but remained a cheap and viable form of transport for locals. Also, tram stops have largely remained in their original locations on the streets. The trams are now a beautiful and nostalgic but also indispensable feature of city life. The alleys and streets cramped with markets and bazaars have also been spared from clearance and displacement, enabling them to serve the families living in the residential streets between Queen's Road Central and Hollywood Road. In addition cafes, clubs, bars and restaurants serving the city workers fit into delightful and quaint abodes in nooks and crannies around the sloping lanes of Lan Kwai Fong and Soho. Central has never been and never will be merely a rigidly delineated commercial zone. It is in essence a lived-in place, laden with the memories, struggles and desires of its inhabitants.
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Existing buildings and even streets are constantly re-articulated by temporary, ad-hoc structures. Shops signs, awning and canvas appear as extensions of buildings and some cluster together as a sort of roof over the lanes.
flHHJ9I^ISiMiBfil The author is a graduate of the National University of Singapore. She is currently a freelance theatre practitioner, writer and translator.
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Learning from Bangkok A Slice of the Post-planning Phenomena - from Siam Square to Phloen Chit Text and Photography by Kevin S K Lim Introduction As Bangkok moves closer into the realm of the mega-city, she has reinvented herself with new transport networks and has delicately managed to maintain her thresholds of tradition, culture and spontaneity. Transport infrastructure in the form of the relatively new sky train system (inaugurated in 1999 to ease traffic woes) has generated a series of localised micro systems that have filled the in-between gaps on a smaller scale and finer density. This could only be possible as Bangkok depends on the collaborative efforts of strategic assimilation, adaptive spontaneity and cultural and physical tolerance to achieve a symbiotic synthesis between macro and micro urbanism. An example of such a phenomenon but not necessary an exhaustive one is the stretch along the Sukhumvit Sky train line from Siam Interchange to Phloen Chit. This stretch boasts one of the trendiest shopping streets in Bangkok with a potpourri of experiences such as Bangkok's leading fashion centre, Siam Square and one of the most renowned religious shrines in the region, Erawan Shrine. This study looks at how mega-structures like the sky train system or an expressway has been able to accommodate micro-structures and generate micro-situations to negotiate the urban condition of high density and complexity. Historical and Cultural Roots Bangkok is a relatively new city founded only some two hundred years ago by King Rama I. Commercial activity was mainly concentrated around the waterfront of the Chao Praya River and Khlongs (canals) until the demand for roads caused many of these Khlongs to be covered and converted. Private land has been difficult to obtain as many families practise a system of land sub-division during inheritance, which causes diminishing land parcels and increasing landowners. Private landowners often build sois (small lanes) to gain accessibility to their land from the main roads with few cross connections to adjoining parcels. This often leads to congestion along the main roads, as vehicles often have to navigate along main roads to get to adjoining parcels. All these historical and cultural situations have partially resulted in the fragments of myriad experiences of Bangkok today from the juxtaposition of tall towers like Siam centre against the 38 years old low density fashion hub of Siam Square; and the presence of narrow sois and urban niches that reside in close proximity to
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the huge commercial developments and transport infrastructures. The presence of opposites could only have been possible with the relinquishment of absolute control of city planning and the spontaneous collaborative efforts of commercial developments and traditional inertia.
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Strategic Assimilation and Adaptive Spontaneity The elevated sky train system has resulted in a series of post-planning phenomena that capitalises on its new structural insertion into the city. One of which is the construction of elevated pedestrian walkways that interweave and hang from these new sky train structures. This phenomenon is especially intense in the shopping area of Siam Square and the cross intersection between Rama I Road and Phaya Thai Road (fig. a). This has increasingly spread in a rhizomatic fashion with the help of both private and public funding along the Silom line. Shopping centres in this area along the stretch have slowly begun to open up secondary entrances and connections to these walkways to provide ease of commuting (fig. b, c, d, e, f ) and to attract shoppers.
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Pedestrian walkways interweaving at Rama I and Phaya Thai road intersection. Lightweight structures utilise existing sky train supports to channel commuters across this busy road intersection. Vendors are often seen peddlng their wares on these walkways.
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Mahboonkrong Centre second-level connection that opens up the existing facade to attract skytrain communters.
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Siam Centre direct connection to Siam Interchange sky train station.
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Existing pedestrian bridge is incorporated into the new I pedestrian walkway rather than opting for demolition and new construction to provide aesthetic uniformity.
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Covered walkway to Amarin Plaza that is ^ ^ ^ ^ H ^ H [ [ H ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ H ^ ^ ^ | differentiated asthetically from the rest. ^ l ^ B B H l ^ i l ^ B B J ^ ^ B B J ^ ^ F
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Informal patterns of strategic assimilation have sporadically emerged along this new mega structure. Informal inter-modal traffic interchanges are often seen near the vicinity of the sky train station. Motorcycle taxis and tuks-tuks (3 wheeled taxis) often congregate around stations waiting for passengers to ply the smaller sois (fig. g). These informal transport networks use existing car parks or pedestrian walkways to gain easier access to their destinations, often in conflict to general road directions.
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Informal intermodal transport interchange that utilises the walkway structures for shade and appropriates them as signage markers for potential commuters. This is possible only with a relaxation of absolute control by the authorities.
These mega-structures besides ferrying commuters to the city centre also perform secondary , roles as climate shelters and informal • ^ ^ B H ^ ^ ^ ^ — _ _
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spaces for cobblers and vendors. ( B S 3 5 | P ^ ^ ^ V ^ M H i l i | ^ ^ ^ ^ M _ I l These huge structures provide ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^^^^TWWBB immediate relief from the excessive ^|HHHHHHHBBHrihj|iK/[XSi heat and provide a temporal shop front ^I^HH^^^^^^^^^^^HjH^^H
for their goods. The presence of a
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larger example of such a ^ ^ ^ ^ B H | ^ ^ ^ ^ H f S ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ | conglomeration is under the Port-Din H ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ B ^ ^ ^ H H H B ^ H B ^ W I Daeng Expressway, at the •U&^HJH^I!^^H£9fl£raEk~~''i&L' intersection of Phloenchit road and ^I^HwBH^aaB^^Bp^^^wP^ Sukhumvit road where Soi Zero BffiWlSS^^^r^^^^S^^^BBKEZ.. exists. This is a collection of eateries and pubs that stretch a few hundred meters beneath the expressway
Structure (fig. h), spouting its Own micro urbanism that complements the roads that surround it. Smaller traffic
like motorcycles and tuks tuks are seen whizzing into Soi Zero at ease to grab a quick bite or drink before heading onto their destinations.
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Cultural and Physical Tolerance One of the most amazing urban phenomena about Bangkok is its ability to insert a sense of tradition and local flavour in its metropolitan jungle. Roadside hawkers are seen hawking their wares alongside high class boutiques like Louis Vuitton in the Gaysorn area while traditional religious shrines are occupying prime retail frontage of large shopping centres. Examples of such include the Erawan shrine outside Grand Hyatt Erawan and the shrine outside World Trade Centre (fig. i and j).
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Erawan Shrine outside Grand Hyatt Erawan
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Siam Square are seen in extreme proximity to the stations (fig. k). Privacy issues are either tolerated or compromised with billboard and advertisements. The respect for urban inertia and the mutual tolerance is essential in maintaining the existing hubris of the streets.
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Asian Ethical Urbanism
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With the race to be the next economic tiger in Asian cities, many developing countries have to balance the scales between economic growth and identity. Bangkok is an example of such a post-planning phenomenon where the natural forces and interaction between government and private interventions have led to a blend of local peculiarity which is a specific characteristic of Bangkok and not as just another generic city.
Typical Bangkok street scene with vendors and hawkers enroaching upon pedestrian walkways and customer vehicles parked by the roadside. It is crucial to protect such urban phenomena from being removed as they are the crux to the life of Bangkok streets.
Kevin S K Lim graduated from the Architectural Association in 2003. He has worked on several international architectural competitions for firms in London and is now presently in practice in Singapore with both office and private projects. His current interests follow the lineage of material consistency and material/structural tendencies. He is co-founder of TRI-AD, a multi-discipline design group based in both Singapore and London.
PART 2 TAWO Collected Essays
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Asian Architecture in the New Millennium
np 02
A Postmodern Imagery
Introduction Decades of committed interest in Asian architecture and urbanism and their rapidly changing conditions have caused me in recent years to become acutely aware of the need to actively participate in contemporary cultural discourses on the larger issues of postmoderaity, glocality and social justice1, particularly in their applications to countries in the Asian region. With conscious effort, I have since broadened my theoretical knowledge in order to continuously develop, reformulate and enforce my ideas, through extensive reading and frequent intellectual exchange, particularly with scholars outside the professional field of architecture and urbanism. Until recently, architectural and urban discourses have been totally dominated by and have operated within a Western, modernist agenda, notwithstanding effective contestation from scholars of various disciplines such as geography and other social sciences. This is the context for my critical observations on three dynamically interrelated issues—Eurocentric Modernity, Jencks's Postmodernism and Spaces of Postmodernity—their impact, and their influences upon Asian architecture and urbanism. This analysis is done in the spirit of Saskia Sassen's words: "Epochs of transition such as this we live in demand taking theoretical risks."2 Eurocentric Modernity Modernity is understood in the West as the process of historical transformation that has taken place in Europe and later in the United States. It includes concepts of freedom, human rights and individuality as well as democracy and the rule of law. The West has experienced much conflict and pain in realising its modernist democratic systems. However, Western modernist encounters with civilisations that embrace
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different religions and value systems often resulted in disastrous and tragic consequences.3 It is therefore important to put on record that democratic applications of modernity in the West were only practised within the boundaries of its nation states, and did not apply in any effective manner to the non-Western other. By the last quarter of the 19th century, the entire South and East Asia with the exception of Japan and Thailand were colonised or semi-colonised (as in China and other protectorate states). It is vitally important to recognise, as Brenda Yeoh did, that colonisation does not simply involve the conquering of physical spaces and "political and economic coercion, but also ideological and cultural impositions"4. In the colonies, important architectural traditions were debased and reinterpreted in the image of the colonial powers. Gulsum Nalbantoglu puts it succinctly, "in the unequal architectural encounter between the coloniser and the colonised, the lineage of Western architectural theory governs the limit for all possible architectural identifications."5 Colonial aesthetic dominance in the realm of civic projects, urban planning and public spaces greatly distorted visual images of the Asian urban environment and the appreciation of its past, and it has continued to do so, well beyond the end of colonial rule. The main characteristics and aspirations of the early Modern Movement in architecture clearly evolved from a dynamic period of art creation firmly oriented towards European creative, stylistic and aesthetic traditions. Before World War II, modernism was little more than a series of experiments being carried out in the colonies, particularly by the younger generation of Western architects. After decades of decolonisation, the dominance and exclusivity of Eurocentric modernity has continued unabated. Besides Japan, non-Western architecture is still supposed to remain as the other in global discourse, even if it is being increasingly presented internationally. Hassan Fathy, Geoffrey Bawa, Charles Correa and many others would perhaps not be internationally recognised today without the active and successful interventions of the Aga Khan Foundation's architectural programmes.6 However, many issues, such as the unequal relationship between centre and periphery7, modernity of the other8 as well as concepts of rights and justice have remained controversial.
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IT issan Fathy (Egypt) - Al Razek Villa (1941)
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Geoffrey Bawa (Sri Lanka) - Ena de Silva House (1960)
Geoffrey Bawa (Sri Lanka) - Kandalama Hotel (1992)
Since the early 1960s, many critics have already lamented the great blight of inhumane and rigid modernist planning, which has resulted in dull, boring and sterile environments in cities. In subsequent decades, US-dominated capitalism and globalisation exploited and hijacked the modernist vision of skyscrapers, megastructures and major highways and imposed them in cities with rapidly developing economies. The footprints and corpses of failed modernist visions are littered everywhere. When modernist planning approaches were adopted in East Asia, the
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dimension of ethics and social responsibility was frequently put aside, while profit and greed took its place. Applications of modernist inspired masterplans with rigid zoning and usage control often became effective tools with which business and political cronies made their enormous fortunes. Asian intellectuals—particularly those educated in the West—are often unable to divorce themselves from the influences of Western thought, theories and lifestyles. To interpret non-Western realities, it is essential for Asian intellectuals to consciously challenge the voices behind the theories, if not the theories themselves. It is also important to radically and continuously reread the texts, because their presentation, meaning and relevance are often predetermined by the dominant culture or the powerful, at different historical moments. Leonie Sandercock keenly points out that various planning histories and texts, one example being Peter Hall's Cities of Tomorrow lack diversity as well as critical and theoretical perspectives.9 John Clammer rightly maintains that we need to "listen not only to the texts, but also to both the voices from the field and those from other disciplines ... where similar issues are being raised and are often rooted in harsh reality."10 Jencks 's Postmodernism Richard Ingersoll, a critic and architectural historian wrote that "social upheavals of the 1960s, including civil rights conflicts, student protests and the anti-Vietnam war movement, had a significant impact on the culture of architecture. On one hand International Style and Urban Renewal were condemned for their insensitive scale and ruthless destruction of communities, while the New Brutalist style was vilified for its wasteful formalism."11 It was under these circumstances that Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown broadened architectural debate with their book Learning from Las Vegas (1972), while the New York Five (Charles Gwathmey, Richard Meier, John Hedjuk, Michael Graves and Peter Eisenman) challenged uninspiring functionalist architecture with their works, exhibitions and publications12, and British architectural historian Charles Jencks symbolically declared the death of modernism with the
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demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development in St. Louis on 15 July 1972. Collectively, they were successful innovative promoters of postmodernism in architecture. However, I must agree with David Harvey, that, "social conditions in Pruitt-Igoe—that great symbol of modernist failure—were much more at the heart of the problem than pure architectural form."13 The architectural approach offered by Jencks's postmodernism did indeed seduce many architects as it provided a sense of liberation against modernism's aesthetically over-coded design process, as well as its formalism, austerity and rationality. For several years, postmodern theories and projects were given considerable prominence in architectural discourse. The early heroic projects, replete with image-making pseudohistoricism, were done with considerable seriousness. However, most of the later projects deteriorated into ludicrous themeparkism. Fortunately, these stylistic exercises failed to attract widespread serious professional and academic support outside the US. Unfortunately, great damage is continuously being done in the name of postmodern architecture. With increasingly fetishistic and themeparkish interpretations, countless visually offensive and tasteless buildings of all scales and usages are being built. They are being occupied and sold to the gullible public everywhere. At the same time, this has provided a great opportunity for neo-conservatives in the US and elsewhere to promote stylistic revivals in architecture catering to wealthy gated communities. For decades, the public and even the academics were confused. Up to that point, the expression of postmodernism in architecture had done little justice to the essence of postmodernity. When in fact it allows for broad and complex interpretation, postmodernity was adopted as nothing more than a superficial stylistic design tool. Scholars like Fredric Jameson attempted, and in my opinion, failed to connect theories and major projects of postmodern architecture—such as John Portman's Bona venture Hotel in LA—to the broader agenda and discourses of postmodernity.14 In his prominent essay, "Towards a Critical Regionalism", Kenneth Frampton rightly criticised the universalising tendency of modernism and the superficial representations of Jencks's postmodernism.
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The architecture of postmodernity comprised only ironic expressions of various historical styles or visual gymnastics of little consequence rather than aesthetic expressions of the complex essence of the postmodern. Let me quote Michael Dear: "The burgeoning postmodern architecture was disturbingly divorced from any broad philosophical underpinnings, taking the form of an apparently random cannibalising of existing architectural archetypes, and combining them into an ironic collage (or pastiche) of previous styles. Called memory architecture by its detractors, postmodernism's obituary was published embarrassingly soon after its birth, testimony to the vacuousness of treating it solely as a matter of aesthetics."15 For several decades this disembodied interpretation of architectural postmodernism did great disservice to the understanding of the pluralistic, tolerant and humane philosophy of the postmodern. Finally, the demise of Jencks' postmodernism has provided new intellectual spaces for the repositioning of theories, particularly those generated within Europe, which are out of the Eurocentric mainstream—such as second-modernism, hypermodernism and super-modernism. These can now be viewed in the context of the emergence of increasingly important discourses on architecture and urbanism with postmodern perspectives, particularly in the dynamic cities of the East Asian region. Spaces of Postmodernity Spaces of postmodernity are multidimensional and can embrace various concepts ranging from the intellectual, spiritual, artistic and cultural to the physical and virtual. The word postmodernity clearly signals the complex relational fluidity, hybridity and deterritoriaJisation between modernity and postmodernity. Postmodernity is a global cultural phenomenon. Its dynamism and distinctiveness are glocalised and all embracing. Notwithstanding the intellectual and theoretical demise of modernism, its omnipresent influence has not been diminished. On the other hand, the postmodern is everywhere,
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particularly in the arts, and in the lifestyles and changing values of the younger generation. However, exciting and rapidly changing conditions of the contemporary has yet to be celebrated along with progressive and enlightened interpretations of ethics and social justice. It is crucial to recognise the importance of spaces of indeterminacy.16 They are in-between spaces—left behind in existing developments or unintentionally created by new developments. They are characteristically pluralistic, fuzzy, complex and chaotic. To quote John Philips, "these spaces emerge whenever an urban area of property falls out of economic favour. With dilapidation comes a level of chaotic freedom, which gives these spaces the flexibility to withstand rapid changes in use ... By focusing on such spaces [William S W] Lim can address issues of social justice outside the paradigms and rhetoric of technological progress."17 In similar spirit, Chang Yung Ho's micro-urbanism contested the necessity of tabula rasa, or, complete destruction in the course of urban transformation. Instead, he prefers to "scrutinise the real demands of the changing reality of urban life itself and redesign the organisational order of the old areas in order to inject them with new vitality."18 In meeting the incredible challenges of the complex world of glocality and rapid development of information technology, contemporary architecture shares many similar characteristics with the wider art community. According to art critic Hou Hanru, the peripheral avant-garde, the non-conformist outsiders and the non-Western migrant art community in Paris—what he calls exile—are a dynamic artistic force outside the Eurocentric mainstream which has effectively contributed to the fight against the worldwide tendency of neutralising criticality P Globally, but particularly in the rapidly developing economies ofAsia, many are going through serious identity crisis, de-identification and deterritorialisation. According to Arjun Appadurai, "there is an urgent need to focus on the cultural dynamics of what is now called deterritorialisation ... The loosening of the holds between people, wealth, and territories fundamentally alters the basis of cultural reproduction."20 However, notwithstanding the impact of globality and the fact that economic, social and cultural boundaries are becoming
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increasingly blurred, national territoriality is still very real and the interests and actions of nation states must be reckoned with.21 Furthermore, in contesting the universality of global capitalism, the essentiality of ethics and social justice must be recognised together with the fact that local peculiarities can function as essential anchors. Compared to art production, architecture and urbanism is arguably larger in scale and complexity, and therefore offer greater possibilities as well as more constraints. Their implementations are increasingly interlaced with the rapidly changing urban fabric as well as with cultures, values and lifestyles enriched by local peculiarities. In Asian cities undergoing rapid economic development and structural changes, radical and unprecedented transformations are creating innovative and fantastic visions towards new models of urbanism.22 In these cities, architectural and urban expressions are complex, pluralistic, uncoordinated and chaotic. They are beyond the accepted stylistic and aesthetic norms of modernism. For example, the huge elevated expressway interchanges in Shanghai may either generate a sense of pride in their dramatic urban forms or a sense of shame for the brutal destruction of the existing environment.23 These architectural and urban statements are in the realm of the unexpected. They reflect out-of-the box thinking and sometimes, are even beyond cutting edge. Their sustainability is uncertain and many will fail. However, they cannot be easily interpreted based on the cyclical Eastern philosophies or the Western linear conception of continuous progress. Like yin andyang, they are neither good nor bad, neither Utopian nor dystopian. Let me quote Umberto Eco: "Infinite progress does not exist, nor is there, as traditionalists wish to believe, a circle which we will for ever travel round and round. We are faced with spiral shapes or explosions."24 Perhaps we should pause to carefully examine the wisdom of this controversial statement.
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Conclusion
In the last few decades, Asian architects are increasingly involved in debating and searching for an identity with distinctive Asian-ness and local peculiarities. The importance of historical and environmental conservation is now better understood. In 2002, construction in Hanoi on the National Assembly building was halted after workers stumbled upon antiquities, some of which date from the 7th century. Another example is the sensitive conservation of Cheong Fatt Sze Mansion in Penang, Malaysia by Laurence Loh. Contemporary vernacular has now been increasingly accepted as an effective urban instrument for the development of local cultural anchorage particularly during periods of rapid economic development and indiscriminate urban destruction. It can be defined as a conscious commitment to uncover a particular tradition's unique responses to spatial arrangements, place and climate and thereafter exteriorise these established and symbolic identities into creative forms.25 Or as Heinz Paetzold clearly explained: "The concept of contemporary vernacular is neither nostalgia nor a return to regional practices as such ... [it] describes an architectural practice that attempts to rearticulate regional culture from the viewpoint of the existing world culture today."26 It is reflected in numerous writings by committed advocates like Wu Liangyong (China) and myself. Architectural examples include Vidhan Bhavan State Assembly in Bhopal, India by Charles Correa—which is an incredibly successful blending of the local and the contemporary.27 In 1988, Thai architect Sumet Jumsai, who designed the exciting Bank of Asia headquarter in the form of a robot, wrote a controversial book. His thesis was that the early Asian settlements could have been generated by aquatic instinct and tradition. In the process, he contested the view that Southeast Asian cultures were only by-products of Indian and Chinese cultural influences.28 His proposition was also supported by my article, "Southeast Asia: Nowhere to Somewhere and Beyond," in which I quoted Clarence Aasen: "Most important, and increasingly explored and
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accepted, is the possibility that there have been significant indigenous underpinnings for [South East Asian] cultural developments: that they were not entirely, or even primarily, derivative, and that the foreign factors should be viewed less as 'influences' and more as 'exchanges'."29 In response to the challenges of rapid economic development together with the forceful introduction of visually standardised and boring modernist skyscrapers, Ken Yeang of Malaysia30 and Tay Kheng Soon of Singapore31 have extensively and successfully theorised a bioclimatic approach to urban design and to manifest it in tropical skyscrapers. However, Abidin Kusno has critically examined at some length this architectural phenomenon from a broader postcolonial cultural perspective. "By defining the tropical skyscraper as a distinctive structure of the region ... all other levels of difference have to be suppressed to give way to the distinctiveness of climate as culture." He further states in his conclusion: "To this extent, the architecture of these Southeast Asian architects has tended to be incorporated into, and adapted for, the order of the world economy, rather than to provide a site to interrogate it."32 At the same time, others have focused on theories and practices relating to critical regionalism, tropicality and contemporary vernacular. For some of these theories, their appropriate applications are still being hotly contested. Therefore it is interesting that this sort of hybridised fusion, together with fetishistic applications of selected heritage elements have created architectural myths of tropical paradises, which are surprisingly well suited for adaptations to resort hotels everywhere. In architecture, we need avant-garde, cutting-edge and non-conformist ideas. Le Corbusier's Capitol Complex in Chandigarh made immense contribution towards the understanding of modernism and the subsequent development of Indian architecture. Notwithstanding near disastrous bureaucratic interventions, Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House has now become the pride and symbol of Australia. A major project of architectural excellence will continue to have incredible significance and catalytic impact on the local architectural community. In my opinion, Donald Bates's Federation Square (2002)33 is one such project that can provide the much-needed iconic symbolism to an already vibrant architectural scene in Melbourne. The collective
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impact of several avant-garde projects of excellence, constructed within a short span of time, such as those in China today, including Rem Koolhaas's CCTV Headquarters, Herzog Meuron's Olympic Stadium and Paul Andreu's National Grand Theatre, can strongly influence and stimulate present exciting, local architectural culture and critical discourse. Increasingly, young talents everywhere are working on and completing challenging projects outside their own countries. Their collective influence will strengthen and broaden local architectural cultures and can close the "quality gap" of architectural theories and practices between countries in an increasingly short time.
Donald Bates (Australia) Lab Architecture Studio - Federation Square (2002) Photo © Peter Clarke
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To write on Asian architecture today using the rational and analytical format of modernism is therefore an impossible task. Asian architecture and urbanism have with great speed generated incredibly complex urban images and structural dislocation beyond the broadest agenda and scope of modernism. This is particularly evident in China and countries in the East Asian region. Hou Hanru termed this new phenomenon post-planning, where "we are entering into an epoch in which any planning is systematically a 'posterior' recuperation and a securing action. Planning is always a 'post-reaction'."34 In this article I will illustrate selected highly fragmented and pluralistic design approaches in architecture in Asia. They are being implemented, often with disjunctive flows, with no theoretical connection to one another and with no overall direction. The selected projects range from product design to urban visions and they are presented in a chaotic organised manner of a postmodern imagery. This imagery in the context of the present global processes of the arts, architecture and urbanism is something critical, dynamic, exciting and disturbing. Though they are firmly anchored in local peculiarities, this disjointing postmodern imagery is the natural by-product of deidentification and deterritorialisation. It is in this context that I have selected some projects from the Asian region to illustrate the imagery of Asian architecture in the new millennium. They are: Australia: Kerstin Thompson, Drum House (2001) and House at Lake Connewarre (2002)35. China: Chang Yung Ho, Hebei Education Publishing House Building (2004)36, Liu Jiakun and Wang Lu, Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum (2002)37. Hong Kong: Gary Chang, Suitcase House (2000). India: Ravindra Gadre, Barge House (2004)38. Japan: Shuhei Endo, Springtecture B (2002)39. South Korea: Hun Kim, ibidem (2004)40 and Minn Sohn Joo, Mamdolgib (2001)41. Malaysia: Frank Ling and Pilar Gonzalez-Herraiz, Tierra House (2004)42 and Taipei West Side Rhapsody (2004). Singapore: Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ, Gilstead Brooks (2005)43. Taiwan: Jay Chiu and Chuang Hsueh-neng, 921 Earthquake Educational Park and Museum (2004)44.
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88 Notes This article was first delivered as a lecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Melbourne, Australia (May 2003). Following this delivery, the text and project illustrations are constantly being amended, expanded and updated. It was subsequently also delivered at: Thammasat University at Rangsit Campus, Bangkok, Thailand, (August 2003) Nanjing University, Nanjing, China (September 2003) Goethe Institute and The University for Civil Engineering, Hanoi, Vietnam (December 2003) AESA Awards Presentation, Pune, India (01-2004) Conference on "Sustainable City and Modern Culture", Asia-Japan Centre of Kokushikan University, Tokyo, Japan (February 2005). 1 See William S W Lim. Alternatives in Transition (Singapore: Select Books, 2001). 2 Saskia Sassen, "Social and Spatial Polarisation" in The Global City (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2001), 363. 3 See Mark B Salter, Barbarians & Civilisation in International Relations (London: Pluto Press, 2002). 4 Brenda Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment in Colonial Singapore (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1996), 11. 5 Gulsum Baydar Nalbantoglu, "(Post) Colonial Architectural Encounters" in Asian Architects vol. 2 (Singapore: Select Books, 2001), 18. 6 The Aga Khan,Foundation sponsored three very important architectural programmes. The MIMAR publications, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and Aga Khan Programme for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) at Harvard and MIT. For further information, please email: [email protected] 7 See Leon van Schaik, "Architecture in Asia: Province and Metropolis" in Asian Architects, vol. 1 (Singapore: Select Books, 2000). 8 See William S W Lim, "Modernity of the Other" in Alternatives in Transition: The Postmodern, Glocality and Social Justice (Singapore: Select Books, 2001), 34-48. 9 See Leonie Sandercock, "Rewriting Planning Histories: Official and Insurgent Stories" in Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities of the 21st Century (London and New York: Continuum, 2003), 3 8 ^ 1 . 10 John Clammer, "Asian Studies/Cultural Studies: Reapproaching Southeast Asian Societies/Studies" in Diaspora and Identity: The Sociology of Culture in Southeast Asia (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Pelanduk Publications, 2002), 58. 11 Richard Ingersoll, "Twentieth-Century North American Architecture: Technocratic Prowess, Historical Legitimating, and Ecological Resistance" in World Architecture: A Critical Mosaic 1900-2000, vol. 1 (Canada and United States: Springer-Verlag/Wien, China Architecture & Building Press, 2000), xlv. 12 Five Architects: Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hedjuk, Meier, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). This book is to some extent the outcome of a meeting of the CASE group (Conference of Architects for the Study of the Environment) held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1969. 13 David Harvey, "The Condition of Postmodernity" in The Spaces of Postmodernity: Readings in Human Geography, eds., Michael J Dear and Steven Flusty (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002), 172. 14 See Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in The Spaces of Postmodernity: Readings in Human Geography, eds., Michael J Dear and Steven Flusty (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002), 142-149.
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15 Michael J Dear and Steven Flusty, "How to Map a Radical Break" in The Spaces of Postmodernity: Readings in Human Geography, eds., Michael J Dear and Steven Flusty (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002), 4-5. 16 See William S W Lim, "Spaces of Indeterminacy" in Alternative (Post)Modernity: An Asian Perspective (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003), 11-18. 17 John Philips, "William Lim: The Evolution of An Alternative" in William S W Lim, Alternative (Post)Modernity: An Asian Perspective (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003), 6. 18 Hou Hanru, "Filling the Urban Void: Urban Explosion and Art Intervention in Chinese Cities" in On the Mid-Ground (Hong Kong: Timezone 8 Ltd, 2002), 177. 19 Hou Hanru, "They Dwell in Movement... Evelyn Joanna and Hou Hanru" in On the Mid-Ground (Hong Kong: Timezone 8 Ltd, 2002), 204. 20ArjunAppadurai, "Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology" in Modernity atLarge: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation (London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996),49. 21 John Clammer, "Diaspora and Identity: Cultural Studies and Southeast Asian Realities" in Diaspora and Identity: The Sociology of Culture in Southeast Asia (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Pelanduk Publications, 2002), 22-23. 22 See William S W Lim, "The Dynamics of East Asian New Urbanism" in Back from Utopia: The Challenge of the Modern Movement, eds., Hubert-Jan Henketand HildeHeynen (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002), 198-205. 23 See Abidin Kusno, "The Violence of Categories: Urban Space and the Making of the National Subject" in Behind the Postcolonial: Architecture, Urban Space and Political Cultures in Indonesia (London: Routlege, 2000), 97-119. Kusno also postulates that "driving through the elevated highways suggests an experience of flying over the top of the city, escaping from its congested roads and leaving behind the 'lower' classes who are routed through the crowded street at ground level." 24 Jean-Claude Carriere, Jean Delumeau, Umberto Eco and Stephen Jay Gould, "Signs of the Times" in Conversations About The End of Time (London: Penguin, 1999), 171-215. 25 See William Lim, "Contemporary Vernacular" in Alternative (Post)modernity: An Asian Perspective (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2003), 127-135. 26 Heinz Paetzold, "Post-Functionalist Urbanism, the Postmodern and Singapore" in Beyond Description: Singapore Space Historicity, eds., Ryan Bishop, John Phillips and Yeo Wei Wei (London: Routledge, 2004), 160. 27 Ibid., 159. 28 See Sumet Jumsai, Naga: Cultural Origins in Siam and the West Pacific (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988). 29 William S W Lim, "Southeast Asia: Nowhere to Somewhere and Beyond" in World Architecture: A Critical Mosaic 1900-2000, vol. 10, Southeast Asia and Oceania, eds., Kenneth Frampton ef al. (New York: Springer-Verlag/Wien, China Architecture & Building Press, 1999), xix. See also Clarence Aasen, Architecture of Siam: A Cultural History Interpretation (Bangkok: Chalermnit Press, 1988). 30 See Ken Yeang, The Skyscraper Bioclimatically Considered (London: Academy Editions, 1996). 31 See Robert Powell, Tay Kheng Soon and Akitek Tenggara, Line Edge and Shade: The Search for a Design Language in Tropical Asia (Singapore: Page One Publishing Pte Ltd, 1997). 32 Abidin Kusno, "Spectre of Comparisons: Notes on Discourses of Architecture and Urban Design in Southeast Asia" in Behind the Postcolonial: Architecture, Urban Space and Political Cultures in Indonesia (London: Routledge, 2000), 205. 33 More information can be found on the Lab Architecture Studio website: <www.labarchitecture.com>.
90 I 34 Hou Hanru, "Post-Planning" in 32 New York/Beijing 2 (2003): 15. 35 More information can be found on the Kerstin Thompson Architects website: 36 More information can be found on the Atelier Feichang Jianzhu website: <www.fcjz.com>. 37 For more information, please contact Jiakun Architect at [email protected]. 38 For more information, please contact Ravi Gadre and Associates Architects and Interior Design at [email protected]. 39 More information can be found on the Shuhei Endo Architect Institute website: <www.paramodern.com> 40 More information can be found on the Studio Asylum website: 41 More information can be found on the Wega Architects website: . 42 More information can be found on the Architron Design website: . In a recent lecture conducted at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Frank Ling and Pilar Gonzalez-Herraiz articulated their thesis entitled "Dialogue: A Design Process of Negotiated Equilibrium", which is very much a part of Architron's design manifesto. 43 More information can be found on the WoHa Designs website: 44 For more information, please contact Architectonics Office at [email protected].
I 91
Ancient Quarter Hanoi
03
A Living Tradition
Hanoi is an old settlement. Its precolonial history dates back to the beginning of the second millennium. The city began with the construction of a royal citadel in AD 1010. Besides its planned garrison function, Hanoi soon accumulated cultural, religious and political dimensions as well as considerable trading and commercial activities.1 These various functions formed, to borrow Terry McGee's term, a composite city and possibly provided much resilience and flexibility to aid Hanoi in dealing with the many challenges it has faced over the centuries. Notwithstanding overwhelming Buddhist influences and the imprint of Chinese Confucianism on culture, governance and language, the Vietnamese kings were "rulers in their own right, making their own sacrifices to Earth and Heaven, they sent regular tribute to Peking without loss of integrity".2
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Siddhartha Raychaudhuri's study of the "non-Western" city of Ahmedabad questioned the concept of colonial dominance as a one-way process where the colonial powers restructured the physical and social environments of cities according to Western visual images and standards of acceptable livability. Unlike in Mumbai and Kolkata, the indigenous elites in Ahmedabad played a major role in its continuous development. "The new social, cultural and spatial order promoted new national ideas and linguistic and literacy forms; though all were essentially modern, they were also not Western."^ In the case of Hanoi however, French colonial intervention was destructive from the outset. The royal citadel was forcibly remodelled and its relationship with the rest of the city reconceptualised in order to establish French domination. The subsequent construction of the European Quarter alongside the indigenous town or what has come to be known as the Ancient Quarter, symbolised imperial ambitions of establishing Hanoi as the capital city of French Indochina by transplanting French urban images unto Hanoi. For some time, the two areas within the city coexisted uneasily. In the Vietnamese nationalist movement, the new city, with its exclusivity based essentially on race, wealth and power, became a symbol of oppression of the Vietnamese people. It made a mockery of and exposed the myth of the civilising mission. In Hanoi, there are thousands of temples and other sites of memories but these buildings, monuments and compounds are not individually outstanding when compared to those found in other countries. The true essence of Hanoi lies in its extensive, rich and complex layering of history and living traditions. The Ancient Quarter in particular is abound with the hybridised, collective memories of her people, which are continuously being destroyed, forgotten, invented and even reinvented. Today, over half a million people move in and out of the Ancient Quarter daily. The dazzling colours, smells and sounds of street life imparts much energy, creativity and chaos to the area.
Ancient Quarter Hanoi
The Ancient Quarter
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The city's population has exploded to over 3 million. The opening up of the economy to market and global forces has escalated the pressure on Hanoi to provide adequate attractive sites for private development as well as to carry out major urban redevelopment and restructuring. The pace of destruction has already caused serious damages to existing urban fabric. Within this context, Hanoi has to establish major decisive strategies based on current urban and cultural theories and practices applicable to Asian developing economies. Two vital conclusions have recently been established. Theoretical discourse now recognises the essentiality and interdependency of globality and local peculiarities, and accepts the urgent need to investigate the implications of grassroots globalisation4 and alternative postmodernity.5 Second, the special characteristics of Asian new urbanism6 and their postcolonial conditions7 have increasingly been identified. However, most agree that modernist planning components such as high-rises, major road widening projects, massive demolition and redevelopment cause great irreparable damages to the complex fabric of old cities and erase their uniqueness and memories. The standard modernist solutions of building new towns and intensifying density and plot ratio in existing cities have proven to be ineffective and highly disruptive. William Logan lamented that, "to those Vietnamese who had fought under the socialist banner, this totally new type of thinking was indeed shocking, seeming to negate everything that the struggle of the previous half-century had been about."8 In order to slow down the present destructive redevelopment, it may be an attractive option to build a new contemporary city centre in close proximity to, and without disturbing existing older areas. Ho Chi Minh delivered Vietnam's Declaration of Independence on 2 September 9
1945. The first statement was a quotation from the Declaration of Independence of the United States ofAmerica in 1976. "All people are created equal. They are endorsed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the
Ancient Quarter Hanoi
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pursuit of happiness." In the same spirit, the national motto of Vietnam is "Independence, Liberty and Happiness". I am particularly impressed by the inclusion of happiness as it is an abstract concept that embraces a multitude of other values beyond material wealth. Let me quote from Ng Yew Kwang's recent book: A person who seeks pleasure or happiness for themselves will not find it, but a person who helps others will find happiness ... after a certain minimum level, higher income do not really make the individual significantly happier ... ultimately speaking, injustice is the denial of due happiness ... happiness is the truly ultimate consideration.10 It is this ethical dimension of happiness that fully embodies a commitment to social justice and its physical manifestation in environmental and spatial justice. Since 1874, the people of Vietnam have been involved in a century-long bitter colonial struggle. The government, having accepted that the global market economy is a more effective tool in generating economic growth and wealth for the country, introduced the Doi Moi policies in 1986. The priority of global capitalism is to maximise profit even at the expense of local culture and environmental interest. The government of post-socialist and post-revolution Vietnam must therefore ensure that the nation's long-term interest is safeguarded, and that it will honour its repeated commitments towards greater equality and social justice for all her citizens. In the same spirit, the Prime Minister recently signed an instruction for the "promotion of democracy, creativity at the communal level, mobilising people's forces, improving their living conditions, knowledge and strengthening political stability."1' In 1990, one of the first reports which indicated considerable interest in the conservation of Hanoi's Ancient Quarter was published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)12. The Vietnamese government has since increasingly introduced more complete regulations governing its improvements and redevelopment. UNESCO and Hanoi have now launched a campaign
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to add the Ancient Quarter to the list of world heritage sites.13 However, to establish the directions of its revitalisation, the ethics and political will of the government, as well as the inclination of the Vietnamese people, must be clearly identified and translated into implementable social, cultural and urban developmental actions. These applications must occur at a social and economic cost and level of disruption acceptable to both the inhabitants of the Ancient Quarter and the government. For the rest of the essay, I would like to examine four critical interrelated issues regarding the revitalisation of the Ancient Quarter. A Living Tradition Within a market economy, when the site location is financially attractive, and regulations allow landowners to repossess properties for redevelopment with minimum compensation to existing occupants, the process of gentrification—even with strict planning and architecture control—will occur. Furthermore, when it takes place within a short period of time, poorer inhabitants will be displaced and businesses will be disrupted. The charm and dynamism of existing locations will be lost. Examples include the gentrification of conservation areas in Singapore and themeparkism in Chinatowns in the United States, where even the reinvented historicism is debunked. On the other hand, one way of keeping the existing physical environment intact and to maintain the present lifestyles and traditional trades of the inhabitants is to freeze the present in time. The place will progressively lose its vibrancy and dynamism. It will soon become a heritage site of recent past and a wasteful exercise ofnostalgia. An important inherent characteristic about the Ancient Quarter is its instability and marginality. The characteristics of types of usages as well as income profile of users of such places change and evolve over time, sometimes quite rapidly. To maintain the living tradition in the Ancient Quarter, three qualities are essential towards its success. First, there must be recognition of the right of possession of inhabitants
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without legal ownership in order to prevent forceful evictions. Second, there ought to be effective and sensitive responses to the rapidly changing cultures, values and lifestyles of the country and finally, there must be acknowledgement of the voices of the inhabitants and of their active participation in the decision process. Upgrading Infrastructure Basic infrastructure and services such as water, electricity, sewage and drainage should be provided to all at affordable cost. By respecting existing roads and built structures, the present urban environments, including narrow back streets are left intact. The upgrading of existing buildings as well as erecting new ones with contemporary design should proceed but the scale and complexity of the traditional environment must be respected. Traffic should be sensibly improved to provide better safety for pedestrians and less pollution without over regulation. There are two other difficult issues that require our urgent attention. The excessive residential over-crowding in many properties mainly occupied by urban poor who often hawk their wares in the immediate neighbourhood for marginal income in order to survive needs to be relieved. To force their eviction will certainly create unavoidable social tension and hardship.14 The repairing and reconstruction of many dilapidated properties are likely to be beyond the financial ability of the inhabitants. Fortunately, as the State is the landowner, the solution is less complicated. It is my contention that the State must place a high value on maintaining the living tradition of the Ancient Quarter as a national treasure. However, there is no universal formula as to how this can be done. The government must find an effective and humane solution unique to the specific conditions of the Ancient Quarter.
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Usages and Lot Sizes Like in many traditional downtown centres such as the Bazaar City of Mumbai15 that have not gone through major intervention and redevelopment, a walk along the streets in the Ancient Quarter will be an unforgettable experience. One is likely to encounter incredible complexity of usages, crowded chaotic streetscapes, vibrant informal sector activities, various food stores and numerous small businesses, art and craft shops and more. Behind the facades are located numerous small offices, low-budget hotels, club houses and institutions as well as very crowded properties housing the urban poor. Many lot sizes are irregular and small. They often add charm and uniqueness to the environment. The apparent chaotic order is beyond the scope and understanding of modernist planning theories. These places have the capacity to change and continuously reinvent themselves. However, road widening, density intensification, high-rise and large-scale redevelopments as well as department stores and supermarkets can create irreparable damage. Conscious efforts should be made to encourage traditional crafts, contemporary arts, low-cost cafes and affordable spaces should be made available to budding art communities so as to minimise the impacts of global chain stores such as McDonalds and Starbucks. Cultural Tourism In 2002, Vietnam received 2.6 million foreign tourists and 900,000 arrived in Hanoi. Large number of tourists particularly those from China and other Southeast Asian countries will prefer to stay in the smaller, less luxurious and locally owned and managed hotels. In the process, many opportunities can be offered to local entrepreneurs and many new jobs will be created.
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educated young, where tours must offer meaningful social and cultural insight into local life. The Ancient Quarter is definitely a great attraction to the cultural tourists. Many are low-budget back-packers travelling with mates and some times with young children. They live in cheap and simple accommodation, enjoy strolling around, eat from local food stalls, and drink and relax in neighbourhood cafes. Some are like Walter Benjamin's flaneurs, in search of experience but not knowledge: "Intoxication comes over the man who walks long and aimlessly through the streets. With each step, the walk takes on greater momentum; even weaker grow the temptations of shops, of bistros, of smiling women, even more irresistible the magnetism of the next street corner, of a distant mass of foliage of a street name." Conclusion To preserve the Ancient Quarter as a living tradition that continues to reflect the unique vibrancy of Vietnam's rapidly changing urban culture is a challenging and formidable task. Unlike many heritage sites in other countries, such as the traditional centre of Penang in Malaysia, where the architecture and urbanscapes are of outstanding quality, what remains today of the Ancient Quarter, owing to destruction over the centuries wrought by wars and natural disasters as well as continuous reconstruction are an estimated three hundred houses which are "little more than hundred years old.'"6 I agree completely with Arnold Koerte that the urban culture of the Ancient Quarter displays "an almost perfect street space and very harmonious street and landscape highlighted by street-front houses, colours and trees... but it's the humans, who bring life and diversity to the city, who count most".17
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Much has been written about the commitment to save, restore and promote the Ancient Quarter. However, one critical element that is missing, is to inform, consult and involve the inhabitants. I fully sympathise with the concern of historian Le Van Lan that, "very little talk is done by the inhabitants themselves who probably know very little about what is discussed on their behalf... The Quarter's greatest assets— tangible or intangible—the assets with the greatest historical and cultural value—the people who have lived there for generations—are left out".18 In my opinion, their active participation is essential as the conservation exercise is highly complex and needs to develop, improve and amend continuously in response to each of the numerous inter-related issues.
102 I Notes Keynote address in "Housing for Low Income Groups", a conference organised by Goethe Institute Hanoi. Presented in conjunction with a workshop at the University of Construction. (November 2003). 1 William S Logan, Hanoi: Biography of a City (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press Ltd, 2000), 1-18. 2 Ibid., 19-66. 3 Anthony D King, "Actually Existing Postcolonialism: Colonial Urbanism and Architecture After the Postcolonial Turn" in Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities And Global Processes, eds., Ryan Bishop, John Philips and Wei Wei Yeo (New York: Routledge, 2003), 176. 4 Arjun Appadurai, "Grassroots Globalisation and the Research Imagination" in Public Culture 12.1 (Winter 2000): 1-19. 5 William S W Lim, Alternative (Post)modernity (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003). William S W Lim, Alternatives in Transition: The Postmodern, Glocality and Social Justice (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2001). 6 William S W Lim, "Asian New Urbanism" in Asian New Urbanism and Other Papers (Singapore: Select Books Pte Ltd, 1990), 35- 48. 7 Ryan Bishop, John Philips and Wei Wei Yeo, eds., Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities And Global Processes (New York: Routledge, 2003). 8 Logan, Hanoi, 224. 9 Lady Borton, "Declaration of Independence" in Ho Chi Minh: A Portrait (Hanoi: Youth Publishing House, 2003), 78. 10 Ng Yew Kwang, "From Preference to Happiness: Towards a More Complete Welfare Economics" in Welfare Economics: Towards a More Complete Analysis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 259260. 11 "PM Instructs Openness and Democracy at Communal Level" in Nhan Dhan, (10 July 2003), . 12 William Logan, Draft Project Description: "Planning for the Protection of the Old Sector of Hanoi City, Vietnam" (Paris: UNESCO, 1990). 13 "Hanoi's Old Quarter Aims for Heritage Listing" in VOV News (7 July 2003), . 14 It is important to note numerous recent reports of protests and confrontations staged by wrongfully evicted occupants in Shanghai and Beijing. 15 Rahul Mehrotra, "Bazaar City: A Metaphor for South Asian Urbanism" in Aktuelle Positionen Indischer Kunst/Capital and Karma: Recent Positions in Indian Art, eds., Angelika Fitz et al. (Vienna: Hatje Cantz Publisher, 2002). 16 "Indecision Places Old Quarter Structures at Risk" in VNS, (1 November 2003), . 17 "Specialist's Opinions of the Old Quarter" in . 18 Ibid.
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Have You Been Shanghaied?
04
Culture and Urbanism in Glocalised Shanghai
Introduction Historically, no major city has ever seen such an intensive, speedy and fearless boom as can be witnessed in Shanghai today. It is a clear expression of an insuppressible, collective yearning of the Chinese people, and of the Shanghainese in particular, for the future to arrive. Shanghai is facing tremendous opportunities for wealth and growth, thanks to the talented and entrepreneurial spirit of its burgeoning population and strategic central location along China's coastal line. It has now become an excellent sea and river port, boasting easy access to a vast hinterland. Shanghai is already a major global city1 inexorably linked to global networks and in the prime location of an emerging megacity in the Yangtze River Delta region2 (map 1). The city covers an area of 6,340.5 square kilometres (map 2). By the end of 2001, Shanghai had a population of approximately 13 million (not including an estimated 4 million of internal migrants). The average life expectancy of the population stood at 77.47 years for men and 81.83 years for women. Between 1992 and 2001, Shanghai registered a double-digit annual GDP growth rate, averaging 12% per year3. In Shanghai, since the late 1980s, intense economic activities as well as the pace of construction and destruction have continued and even escalated. The cityscape of new Shanghai is taking shape in the context of rapid economic development and an increasingly wealthy China (pic 1). Its orientation towards the future has gone beyond Eurocentric modernism and the stylistic rules of modernist architecture and urbanism.4
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Unlike cities in Western countries, most Asian cities, and Shanghai is no exception, have no dominant physical centres, where political or economic power is concentrated. Shanghai's urbanism is deeply rooted in its culture. In the making is the symbol of a new Chinese urban identity. At this critical juncture, one may ask what constitutes this new Chineseness and whether it will be something completely new and cut off from its past—a tabula rasa exercise. Shanghai is ceaselessly improvising; absorbing and reflecting all the newness that has been imposed on it over more than a century of incredible change. Alan Balfour lamented that "Shanghai is a city out of balance" but yet the people of Shanghai "have adjusted to continually changing political and physical environments without losing any of their energy or ambition. The reality of the future Shanghai lies much more in the character of its people [and the ethical, ideological commitments of the government] than in the visions of planners and architects."5
106 It is in this context that I responded to an invitation by Hans Ulrich Obrist, famed critic and curator, to submit a poster on Utopia for Utopia Station? The poster is entitled "Have You Been Shanghai[ed]?". The Merriam Webster dictionary defines "shanghaied" as "to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug or to put by force or threat of force into or as if into a place of detention."7 The background of the poster dramatises the huge intersectional infrastructure of the Yan'an Grade Crossing which was constructed recently over the city of Shanghai, resembling viscera spilled forth from the dragon's guts. Today, "Have You Been Shanghaied?" takes on a broader meaning altogether. Have you been seduced and have you incidentally discovered an imaginary paradise of tomorrow? Can you come to appreciate the citizens' zealous lust for an intoxicating potpourri of noises, sounds, lights, movement, speed and density? Or have you been overwhelmed, misled, and conned by the virtual explosion of mythical opportunities and the get-rich-quick syndrome? Does the celebration of this multi-layered traffic interchange leave you aghast? Shanghai demonstrates its perpetual challenge of traditional definitions of utopia and dystopia. Its daredevil, no-holds-barred spirit embraces an urban aesthetics that turns the predictable norms of modernism on its head. Let me quote an excerpt from the poster: The intersection of Yan'an Grade Crossing 8 presents a huge infrastructural spectacle (pic 2). Vehicles zoom by on ribbed-bar concrete clouds 10 metres above your head. On the ground, wave upon wave of buses bearing Mandarin advertisements with utopic idioms whiz past. Throngs of people, each making individual fashion statements, flood in and out of subway entrances, up, around and down the ringed pedestrian overhead bridges under the highways. At night, the visual spectacle of the blue-lit expressways becomes more arresting, more seductive. From a distance, rooftops of a forest of high-rise buildings with Gothic themeparkish crowns glow with radiance."9
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Where is China heading in the 21 st century? Where is everybody rushing to? Why do we still need to cater to the unlimited appetite of motor vehicles in the new millennium? Highways criss-crossing the inner cities are an environmentalist's nightmare, and have long been universally contested. Similar to cities of spectacular skyscrapers10, both are apocalyptic images of outdated modernity. However, the Shanghainese presently cannot do without them. These structures are symbolic affirmations of the contemporariness of Chinese life imageries. They are also psychological assertions that Shanghai is moving along at an amasing speed and is desperately aspiring towards making a new and exciting future not governed by the theories and practices of urbanism today.
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This paper attempts to describe the incredible phenomenon of Shanghai, a city caught up in an era of unprecedented transformation, which will force us to rethink our conceptions of time and space in the context of (post)modernity. The word (post)modernity clearly signals the complex, the unresolved (or even irresolvable), relational fluidity, hybridity and deterritorialisation between modernity and postmodernity." We will discuss Shanghai's cultural and urban aspirations by examining the nature of the global and the importance of its local peculiarities in three sections: Alternative Globality, Culture in Glocalised Shanghai, and Radical Postmodern Urbansim. Alternative Globality In April 1989, the world watched with unabated tensionand disbelief the unfolding events of Tiananmen Square. Inspired by an imaginary American dream symbolised by the prominent display of the Statue of Liberty, the Chinese protestors craved freedom and human rights even as these were restrictedly defined by capitalist-based Euro-American modernism12. University students and the academia formed a large portion of the protestors. The prevalent occidental gaze and the Western media commentary referred to the protest as a clear indication of the inevitable demise of the communist system. Yet, subsequent events proved them altogether wrong. Perhaps it is time to take a step back and question the validity of Western theoretical rationality on China and other developing economies. Through various bold and innovative reforms, China has now taken centre stage as the world's most dynamic major economy. Shanghai spearheads China's rapid transformation and symbolises the incredible "naked" energy of its people; unapologetic even for greed and ruthlessness, akin to the old Shanghai existing before World War II.13 After all, to use Deng Xiaoping's14 most oft-quoted adage: "It doesn't matter if it is a black cat or a white cat. If it catches mice, it is a good cat."15
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In the West, the transformation from traditional society to modernity was an uneven, century-long process, perpetuated by dramatic changes in the restructuring of rural economy and the introduction of Fordist-style productions. Notwithstanding portentous and dramatic changes in the last century, the premodern, modern and postmodern continue to co-exist in China today. Postmodernity is a reflection of rapidly changing values, cultures and lifestyles. Its new agenda and main characteristics are pluralism, tolerance of differences and creative rebelliousness. Information technology (IT) and its applications have undoubtedly increased the pace of acceptance of postmodernity, particularly by the younger generation of urbanites everywhere. However, modernism, in spite of its intellectual and theoretical demise, particularly in politics, has not diminished in its omnipresent influence. From the robust interaction among modernity, postmodernity and globalisation, a unique, hybrid Chineseness has now emerged. One must therefore be fully aware that the characteristics and philosophical essence of postmodernity are fundamentally different in countries that are still at various stages of economic development and have yet to complete the process of their own modernity. Globalisation was an effective instrument of Western and, later, Japanese imperialism and economic dominance in their colonial possessions and in other less developed countries. Its vastly expanded scope and importance today can best be summarised by David Harvey in his recent book, Spaces ofHope[6, and the critical analyses by numerous others. Recent theoretical discourse on late capitalist style globalisation has increasingly centred around a relatively new phenomenon: the global city, a term formulated to describe major cities with unique spatial dynamics, important economic strategic roles and which are, most importantly, linked with the global. In recent years, the characteristics of global cities have been exhaustively defined and investigated by many theorists, in particular Manuel Castells17 and Saskia Sassen18. The development of information technology and its rapid and effective applications have speeded up the opening of new markets. They have also effected cost-saving manoeuvres including relocations of production, mega mergers and takeovers of major companies across national borders. Although one cannot dispute
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the leading roles of New York, London and Tokyo, their hierarchical dominance is now eroded. Increasingly, a global network of linked cities with specialised global functions each effectively collaborating with the other is now emerging. To quote Saskia Sassen: "The key indicator of global city status is whether a city contains the capabilities for servicing, managing and financing the global operations of firms and markets."19 Increasingly in recent years, as countries deregulate their economies, there has been a sharp growth in the number of economic centres that have become part of the global city network. Though some major cities in developing economies perform important tasks in the globalisation processes, their global functions are substantially controlled by the advanced economies. Some have argued that this unequal power structure continues to resemble the hierarchical centre and periphery relationship. For example, Mexico City is called a "relay" global city.20 On Buenos Aires, the critics ask: "What is the meaning of the mostly foreign control over the development of urban space ... and the weakening of the nation state's control over its main city?"21 This globalisation process has often resulted in substantial increases in income disparity and the transformation of a section of society to becoming functionally irrelevant and even exploitable by the larger community. Increasingly, cities are being forcibly divided by invisible virtual boundaries of the unreal. The drastic urban impacts of globality are the proliferation of a significant high-income class, and a growing inequality in bidding power for space, housing and consumption services. Resulting spatial polarisation has disconnected the visual urban mapping of local communities. China, Shanghai in particular, and other countries in the East Asian region need to address these issues in order not to be entrapped by the perils of US style globalisation. Since the mid-1970s, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, China has realised the urgent need to restructure its over-regulated state-controlled economy. In a step-by-step learning process, cautious from the outset, the local private sector was immeasurably strengthened and enlarged, ineffective state enterprises were
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dismantled and foreign investments were encouraged. In the last decade, China's trade performance, though still modest, has improved by leaps and bounds.22 Responding to Deng's rousing declaration of "to get rich is glorious", the prosperity and personal wealth of selected individuals are now apparent, especially in the major coastal cities. In 2001, the average per capita GDP (PPP) for China stood at US$4,040 while Shanghai registered at US$15,090.23 China is determined to become an important global player, and actively participate in the international economy. Numerous negative lessons from the Latin American countries and the currency-speculation generated East Asian crisis of the late-1990s have made China very much aware of the serious pitfalls in the unrestrained acceptance of US late capitalist style globalisation. Even with increasing integration into the global economic system, China has retained state control and has consciously rejected foreign domination of her economy. Major foreign investments in key industries are often subjected to conditions for meaningful and effective Chinese participation. Markets and the private sector have played an increasingly bigger role, but state intervention and control have not declined. They have merely taken on new and different forms. The painful century-long struggle against semi-colonialism and the unsuccessful attempts towards modernisation, as well as wars and revolutions, have resulted in strong and unwavering commitments to Chinese nationalism. In order to ensure the sovereignty of its people, it is inevitable that rapid changes of globalisation and recent economic experiments have been carefully adjusted to the context of China's postsocialist and post-revolutionary experiences. China has managed to do this because of the hegemony of the Chinese communist leadership, and the Party's firm ethical and ideological commitments to social justice for all. Nevertheless, these ideological commitments in practice also require continuous, vigorous adjustments. This is where the intellectuals and the academic community as well as active citizen participation can make their invaluable contribution.
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of the productive forces, elimination of exploitation and polarisation, and the ultimate achievement of prosperity for all."24 According to World Bank estimates based on consumption surveys, China achieved a significant reduction of poverty with the proportion of people living on less than US$1.00 a day declining from 33% in 1990 to 16% in 2000.25 However, income inequality has increased in China.26 The western and inland provinces of China have glaringly lagged behind the coastal provinces in terms of infrastructural development, economic growth and consumption. Indeed, China's continuous, unprecedented, rapid economic growth during the last two decades has been concentrated along and around the major urban cities of the eastern coastal region. It is therefore encouraging that the new leadership of Hu Jintao27 and Wu Bangguo28 has repeatedly pronounced the urgent necessity of bridging the widening income and developmental gaps between coastal regions and the vast hinterland, as well as between urban and rural areas. They have also reiterated the Party's commitment towards providing better treatment and opportunities for the tens of millions who have migrated from the rural areas to the urban centres.29 After about 15 years of negotiations, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) successfully concluded China's terms of membership in September 2001.30 China has agreed to undertake a series of important commitments to open and liberalise. In the process, there are great opportunities to expand trade and export. However, it also calls for pressing major reforms and restructuring in many sections of the economy. To date, China has already taken numerous difficult and sometimes painful actions. However, much still needs to be done, particularly in the area of upgrading and even the dismantling of many inefficient state-owned enterprises. Many analysts view the opening of China's agricultural markets as a highly sensitive issue as it will have a great impact on the vast rural population. Without extensive and effective restructuring it may also precipitate great damages of crisis proportions. As the West and Japan funnel nearly a billion US dollars a day to subsidise
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their farmers, their surplus farm products have flooded the world markets and have already ruined millions of farmers in developing nations.31 The crucial issue on the agenda of WTO now is to drastically revise such rigging of global free trade arrangements.32 Indeed, China is in the course of establishing an alternative model of globalisation. In this process, the dynamic energy and competitiveness of global capitalism are effectively utilised as instruments to generate wealth, so as to implement Chinese socialist idealism and ethical obligations towards income equity and social justice. This alternative model may inspire other countries like Vietnam to carry out their structural transformations in a similar manner. Culture in Glocalised Shanghai With the abolition of the civil service examination system and the end of the last imperial dynasty in 1911, the status of Chinese intellectuals and their special relationship with the government were drastically altered. During the subsequent decades of wars, revolutions and chaos, the roles of the artists and intellectuals were confused and largely indefinable, though many continued to have strong commitments to social, ideological and nationalist causes. Many important left-wing intellectuals like Lu Xun33 (1881-1936) and key members of the Chinese Communist Party operated within the foreign-controlled treaty ports in order to avoid serious harassment. From pre-World War II, Shanghai was already known as the Paris of the East. Its cosmopolitanism was well established even under semi-colonial distortion and Eurocentric dominance. Leo Ou-fan Lee's recent publication, Shanghai Modern, uses primarily Chinese materials to present an insightful cultural matrix of Chinese modernity in the pre-World War II golden age of Shanghai's urban cosmopolitan culture.34 An example was the work of a gifted young writer Eileen Chang35 (19201995) whose perceptions of values and lifestyles of cosmopolitan Shanghai gave
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penetrating insights into Chinese contemporariness at the time. She became widely popular in her time and has recently enjoyed a resurging of popularity in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. To quote Lee's comments on Chang's preface to her collection of short stories: The immediate background to Chang's remarks was of course the Sino- Japanese War of 1937 and the fall of the city of Shanghai to the Japanese in 1942. But when she talks about the desolate state of "our civilisation" ... It seems that she is also referring to the hurried march of modernity—of the linear, deterministic notion of history as progress that would eventually make the present civilisation a thing of the past by the force of its own destruction ... she likens this "grand narrative" to a symphony, with all its polyphony and bombast but she would rather hear the plaintive tunes of a female singer in a local opera.36 In 1949, intellectual discourses and the arts were ideologically regulated and came under strict government control. According to this model, the artist's job was reflected in the slogan "art serves politics". During the decade of the Cultural Revolution beginning in 1966, China was in complete turmoil. Conditions were gradually normalised in 1975 with Zhou Enlai37 soliciting support for his Four Modernisations programme from the intellectual and academic community. This was soon followed by Deng's Reform Era (1979-1989) when Chinese intellectuals worked closely with and supported the government's attempts to actualise Chinese modernity as a process of integration into the global free market system. This was a comparatively open, relaxed and zealous period of learning, catching up and experimenting in many fields including the arts, architecture and urban planning. In many instances, they were successful; a good example would be the film industry. The directors of the Fifth Generation including Chen Kaige38 {Farewell My Concubine) and Zhang Yimou39 (Raise the Red Lantern and, recently, Hero) produced some beautiful and controversial works.40
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The traumatic events of 1989 must continue to be memorable for the Chinese people. For many contemporary Chinese artists and intellectuals, they were a historic landmark which shattered the deeply embedded, top-down hierarchical authoritarianism in post-socialist Chinese modernity. Fredric Jameson's signature analysis linking postmodernism and consumer society, and stating postmodernism as the cultural logic of US late capitalism and commodification41, had already been popularised among various Chinese intellectual circles since the late-1980s. Furthermore, postmodern deconstruction of Western-centric universality was already an important thread of theoretical discourse in China. It is therefore not surprising that postmodern philosophy and its imageries have since been accepted as an integral part of the contemporary Chinese cultural and urban landscape. Notwithstanding the current mainstream Western dominance of late capitalist postmodernity, the frontiers of radical alternative discourses have now been broadened to embrace basic needs, sustainability and social justice. Let me quote Zhang Xudong: Chinese postmodernism ... is intertwined with the Chinese experience that neither socialism nor capitalism seems to provide satisfactory answers anymore, that innovative thinking is urgently needed, minimally to understand why, how, or how long the Chinese economic, social and political structure can still manage to muddle through and, maximally, to articulate a new theory for a new social system and its cultural-intellectual discourse in the making.42 In 1992, Deng went south and gave lectures to revitalise the market economy. That marked the forceful official endorsement of the socialist market economy and Chinese consumer revolution which together provided a shift in thinking about culture to embrace the popular as an important facet of cultural capital. The new lifestyle economy is increasingly becoming a battleground for rapidly changing values and
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ideological control. With the easy availability of IT, and a greater opening to globalisation and external influences, the cultural environment is experiencing unprecedented tension and cogent interaction between local and global contemporariness. Nowhere in China is it more obvious than in cosmopolitan Shanghai. With its recent revitalisation, it is natural that Shanghai's cultural scene present the electrifying glocalising process in its most dramatic manner by simultaneously accepting and resisting global universality and perpetuating, with considerable pride, a distinctive and exciting new Chinese urban culture. The term glocalisation, a blend of local and global, embraces and defines both internalist-localisation and externalistglobalisation. This new and different concept of the global and local relationship breaks down the inherent opposition and opens up another mode of inquiry which lies hitherto unseen and unexplored.43 However, Nezar AlSayyad states that "the history of the world demonstrates a movement toward cultural differentiation, and not homogenisation, in which each individual claims allegiance to more than one culture and invokes different identities at different times and in different places."44 The vibrancy of the cultural scene, demand for popular culture and exploding pluralistic market forces ensure that material and human resources are being developed in Shanghai. On one hand, young people with originality and flair are discovered, on the other, the talented find themselves attracted to living and working in the pulsating city. As a result, the social networking infrastructure of the city grows more sophisticated by the day. Simultaneously, with the flourishing of leisure and entertainment, the sex culture has become increasingly open and visible, according to a recent publication entitled Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai.*5 Hou Hanru critically called Shanghai a "culture of desire. The city is naked, the body is naked, and, most dramatically, the mind is naked."46
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The present cultural scene in China is experiencing a rebellious youth wave. Shanghai's literary scene is but one example of the growing energy emanating from the wide array of soft infrastructure in art creation and the leisure industries. The recent opening of the first mega bookstore "Scholar" illustrates Shanghai's primacy as the site for marketing a new Chinese culture.47 The bookstore serves more than the art and intellectual communities. It also attracts and gives pleasure to the general populace in marketing the fashionable, tasteful and cosmopolitan. Recently on the Shanghai bestsellers list was San Chong Men by Han 48
Han , who started writing at 17. He and a new generation of young authors write with a distinctly local quality about Chinese urban citizens negotiating everyday realities with respect to the official world and the market economy in a city which has increasingly assimilated contemporary global influences. They illustrate a muchcelebrated struggle against officialdom and prove that consumers cannot be effectively controlled by officials and censors in this information age. In China, the internet as the first medium of publication has encouraged writing which addresses anything under the sun, including talented writers producing hugely popular electronic novels as well as officially banned literature like Wei Hui's Shanghai Baby.49 Taking the cue from these popular writers, Chinese intellectuals have also utilised the internet to provide non-commercial and non-official intellectual electronic presses as alternative channels for serious non-mainstream discourse.50 Jia Zhangke, in his early 30s, is a pioneer of the Chinese independent film 51
scene and highly influential. He and his contemporaries have exercised their creative rebelliousness by uncompromisingly interpreting the day-to-day realities around them and tackling a wide spectrum of critical social issues. Examples of their works include Jia's Platform, Wang Xiaoshuai's Beijing Bicycle, and Lou Ye's Suzhou River.52 In their works the directors reveal their having been exposed to diverse sources: from
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the gritty, ultra-realist, semi-documentary style of indie Western directors to the fantastical surrealist quality of Japanese cult movies. However, the distinct local character of the films also shows that this new generation of filmmakers have engaged in contemporary artistic discourse on their own terms. Confronted with the onslaught of consumerism, globalisation and the media, many artists have found pertinent ways of incorporating these elements into their art production by combining Warhol-like commercial everyday images taken from popular culture and traditional Chinese art motifs. However, other artists are more critical. Some have mourned the destruction of the historical environment while others have chosen to stage violent resistance and protest in their art. As China's contemporary artists, including those in exile 53 , get more international exposure and recognition, a new self-confidence is clearly reflected in their present works. Chinese arts today, including music, literature and cinema, all display an enviable multifarious and rebellious quality. They are constantly exploring different avenues and struggling to invent new alternative spaces to get their voices heard. The ideological compromise of Hong Kong television broadcasting, resulting in the acceptable formulae of "no news, no sex, no violence"54 is clearly not enough for the Chinese consumers. As a natural magnet of the young and creative in China as well as the East Asian region and beyond, Shanghai is fast rising as a major cultural site for design and art creation in Asia, at once challenging and complementing Tokyo's primacy today. Radical Postmodern Urbanism In Europe, as in other developed economies, intellectual discourse on modern architecture and Utopian urbanism continued with great vigour during the interwar years. The break with the past was intended to be absolute. According to the proponents of the Modern Movement, modernist architecture and urbanism should liberate us from history. This rationale dehistoricises the particular into a universal model of
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visual conformity with boring and repetitive images. However, just as modern architectural practice and academic discourse began to exert its influence in China, the country plunged into decades of war and chaos. Furthermore, the imperialist imposition of stylistic classical revivals upon the treaty ports was received with passivity on the surface and underlying, seething, silent protest. The urban reconstruction of World War IPs destruction in western Europe was executed with the intellectual tools of modernism. Fortunately, this was carried out in the context of a strong commitment of the citizens to conserve the traditional cities. In contrast, the US government since the 1950s has supported urban renewal in American cities as an effective instrument to promote economic activities and to accommodate the increasing demands of the market and private financial interests. This process resulted in the construction of numerous tall buildings, the criss-crossing of major roads in central areas, and large-scale clearances with substantial displacements of existing communities, resulting in much devastation of the traditional urban fabric. Since the mid-20th century, modernism has been the dominant force in mainstream urban planning and architecture. Under US-dominated economic and cultural influences, developing countries with market-oriented economies have assumed that there is no alternative urban development model. Thus the US model has moulded much of the urban character and visual environment of cities, particularly in the East Asian region. In 1949, The People's Republic of China was founded and the long years of war ended. Following this, Chinese architecture went through some design experiments. Underlying these changes was a strong quest for national forms as well as the reality of technical and cost constraints.55 For decades, China was substantially isolated from global debates relating to exciting experiments in arts and architecture. China also did not partake of the escalating criticism against modern architecture and the clear failure of its urban implementation.
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It is interesting that only three major city-scale projects based on Le Corbusier's Utopian urban planning model have been implemented and they are all located in developing countries. Since the mid-1960s, the cities, Chandigarh56, Brasilia57 and Singapore 58 , based their city planning heavily on a tabula rasa, or clean slate development approach. This approach is now being critically examined. It has taken decades for the West and the academic community to acknowledge that modernist planning theories have many inherent shortcomings, which often result in the creation of boring and sociologically unattractive environments. Yet, numerous new urban developments based on outdated modernist planning theories and compromised by market driven forces of greed and profits are still being planned and constructed. These are often missed urban opportunities. Important recent examples include London Docklands—Canary Wharf59, Melbourne Docklands60 and Shanghai's Pudong61. Despite poor urban infrastructure and the obvious failings of sound urban governance, many Asian cities from Shanghai to Bangkok to Mumbai are still able to maintain their attractiveness, energy and dynamism. Contrary to expectations, their attractiveness is precisely because of their chaotic disorder, pluralistic richness and unintentional complexity.62 This urban phenomenon has now generated worldwide interest, disbelief and even alarm. Hong Kong, however, is a case extraordinaire. Hong Kong has a very efficient urban structure, notwithstanding the fact that it breaks and ignores most of the basic rules of modernist planning theories. It continually innovates and integrates complex urban actions. Its most important innovations are first, to keep the width of and to intensify two pre-World War II main roads: King's Road and Queen's Road; second, to introduce extensive two-level connectors through numerous buildings and third, to provide free rides with multi-staged escalators to the Mid-levels.63 The characteristics of Hong Kong's urbanism strongly affirm the spirit of postmodernism as a cultural logic of US late capitalism and commodification.
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Hong Kong's economy is free market par excellence. It is the most important investor in South China, concentrating mainly in consumer light industries and services. It is also the primary pivotal site for the ongoing integration of the Pearl River Delta region64. Hong Kong's entrepreneurial style is largely high risk and greed dominated, often producing the best and sometimes the worst of free market capitalism.65 Indeed, Hong Kong is the first Asian Jamesonian postmodern global city. In the 1980s, urban modernisation was the Chinese dream. However, the stupendous pace of development in recent years has resulted in the adoption of an urban development model which effected tremendous urban destruction and transformation in many major Chinese cities. This process inflicted irreversible damages upon the traditional urban fabric including many of the residential areas. Hou Hanru wrote: "Such a process of urban transformation causes inevitable contradictions, chaos and even violence"66 and caused many artists to mourn their destruction. However, nostalgia as a mass mentality can often be attributed to the shocks and trauma of timecompression changes in values, cultures and lifestyles. The memories of people cannot be quantified and assigned an exchange value. We must consciously elevate the value of visual memories in our urban environment beyond the criterion of commodification. "There arises the need to find the seeds of continuity in the past that anticipated the future that has suddenly arrived."67 It is in this context that we must ask: What is the Shanghai Bund and should it be designated as a World Heritage site? Historically, it was a financially strategic waterfront site within a foreign concession. The architecture was copied from various European neo-classical styles. It blatantly reflected the aesthetic imposition of imperial agenda and powerfully symbolised China's semi-colonial past. The Bund's fantastic scenic setting, as well as its recent incredible transformation into a relaxed, active and spontaneous public space for locals (pic 3), well beyond its original financial function, should already ensure the Bund's status as the city's undisputed tourist attraction. It has now become a great street of international status and symbolic importance, generating unforgettable images and memories for both visitors and residents alike.68
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However, Shanghai should seriously examine a UNESCO listing for its unique nongtang (pic 4). The nongtang are collective dwellings with a courtyard and enclosed by walls. Arranged in rows, they are easily accessible by sublanes connected to a main lane leading out to a city road through an iron grille gate (pic 5). The hybridised architecture and varied plan arrangements of the nontang are truly reflections of the city's cosmopolitan traditions and evolving lifestyles of old. By 1940, a large majority of the population in Shanghai, nearly three million including many Westerners, lived in various types of nongtang. Physically dilapidated and densely populated by the working class, many nongtang are now identified as slums. However, these areas often provide the much needed accommodation and employment for unskilled workers and new rural migrants. Luo Xiaowei passionately argued: "Longtang (or nongtang in hanyu pinyin)69 is a product of Shanghai and belongs to the Shanghai people. It tells the story of Shanghai and reflects the culture, lifestyle and philosophy of the Shanghai people ... Reading the Shanghai longtangs is like reading the social history of Shanghai and the Shanghai people."70
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| Within an incredibly short time, Shanghai has developed into a major global
city. Its consumerist ideology and spatial polarisation are increasingly visible and dominant. Its architecture and urbanism have with great speed presented numerous complex visual images and unexpected new planning arrangements beyond the broadest agenda and scope of modernism (pic 6). Understandably, many scholars have expressed their concern about recent developments in China's urbanism. They include Rem Koolhaas in Mutations1'', Hou Hanru in On the Mid-Ground and Alan Balfour in World Cities: Shanghai. Shanghai has a much larger population than Hong Kong and is China's most important financial centre. Shanghai has also drawn important lessons from Hong Kong's experiences, particularly Hong Kong's successful defiance (under the nose of the British colonial master) towards modernist planning and the confidence to innovate and experiment with new urban instruments. The current challenge is for Shanghai to achieve international recognition as a prime site for arts and cultural activities as well as excellence in its academic institutions. Shanghai is a receptacle within which various levels of society, different values, lifestyles and standards of living as well as intellectual and artistic discourses coincide and collide. With the demise of modernism and the seeming intellectual and aesthetic vacuum, Shanghai has actively thrown off the restrictions and conventions of architectural styles and over-regulated planning rules. It has now begun to speak a new urban language of its own in order to reflect its chaotic time-compression development process by effectively hybridising its local peculiarities. From a broader perspective, Shanghai is a prime symbol of contemporary China. Its urban vision must therefore clearly embrace and give expression to China's socialist idealism and ethical obligations towards income equity and social justice. To date, China has been remarkably successful in managing the delicate balance between socialist ideology and free market economy; however it must now seek urgently to address issues of urbanisation with the effective and conscious application of spatial justice in the whole development process. To quote Edward Soja: "I do not mean to
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substitute spatial justice for the more familiar notion of social justice, but rather to bring out more clearly the potentially powerful yet often obscured spatiality of all aspects of social life and to open up in this spatialised sociality (and historicality) more effective ways to change the world for the better through spatially conscious practices and politics."72 In Shanghai, spatial justice means to continuously upgrade the environment and the quality of life for all citizens including the millions of rural migrants. This includes providing all with accessible housing and transport systems, public parks, green spaces, recreation, health and educational facilities. This highly challenging agenda demands a deep understanding of current knowledge in the complex urban discourses in order to effectively allocate the physical and financial resources available. Shanghai must practise, to use Leonie Sandercock's phrase, "Radical Postmodern Urbanism".73
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become dilapidated, they are inevitably subjected to demolition and reconstruction. However, these spaces are often unique and chaotic. These spaces of indeterminacy are rugged in nature and are able to withstand rapid usage changes, fragmented, idiotic design expressions and uncompromisingly irrational spatial arrangements.74 In Shanghai, many of the existing "in-between", "leftover" and "dead-zone" spaces are being destroyed and are constantly being replaced by new sites. However, large-scale demolition has diminished substantial areas of nongtang,15 along with their complex traditional environment where local energy, creativity and dynamism are generated. In the context of spatial justice, particularly in the provision of mass housing for the urban poor and rural migrants, the preservation of the remaining nongtang makes sound economic sense particularly when these areas can be energised by mixed usages and innovative planning arrangements. Nongtang will definitely be attractive to the art community. Many artists and creative individuals will live and work there. In time, these areas can prove to be resilient against eruptive changes, as they contain all the memories, desires and spirits of Shanghai throughout its recent history. Conclusion Within two decades, Shanghai has regained its cosmopolitan status. The development of Pudong has given clear signals of Shanghai's ambition to be a major global financial centre. The vibrancy and dynamism of the city's global substances are convincingly expressed in its becoming a chosen site for art creation, design innovation and progressive lifestyles.
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However, Shanghai exists in a special socio-political crossroad of post-socialist and post-revolution China. Its urbanism must therefore give expression to and be carefully guided by the principles of environmental and spatial justice in the broader context of China's national, ideological commitments to income equity and social justice. Shanghai should therefore not re-emerge with Utopian images of bygone colonial lifestyles and privileges, replete with cheap labour, exploitative sex and other vices— a dystopian hellhole for the poor and underprivileged. In the not so distant future, Shanghai will become the primate city of the Yangtze River Delta region, one of the most exuberant global megacity regions in the world. Shanghai will generate innovative, quality architecture and will offer many new and unexpected urban experiences. Shanghai will provide a sustainable and vibrant environment and affordable public facilities. Together with an increasingly vibrant art community and a rich, dynamic cosmopolitan culture, Shanghai will become a very livable place for everyone, and one of the most exciting, must-visit places in the world for locals and foreigners alike.
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Notes 1 The author considers Saskia Sassen's reservation on the social connectivity of Shanghai as no longer valid today: "The question that jumps out of this detailed account of the constructing of the technical base is whether Shanghai can produce the social connectivity that is the crucial factor for maximising the benefits of technical infrastructure." See Saskia Sassen, "Locating Cities on Global Circuits", Introduction in Global Network Linked Cities, ed., Saskia Sassen (New York: Routledge, 2002), 30-31. 2 According to Manuel Castells, megacities are "very large agglomerations of human beings ... But size is not their defining quality. They are the nodes of the global economy, concentrating the directional, productive, and managerial upper functions all over the planet; the control of the media; the real politics of power; and the symbolic capacity to create and diffuse messages ... They also function as magnets for their hinterlands, that is the whole country or regional area where they are located." See Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 403-410. See also "Delta Integration Revving Up" of "China Through a Lens" in China Daily (11 August2003), . 3 Figures from: People's Republic of China, Shanghai Municipal Statistical Bureau, Shang hai gai Ian (-LMW1&), . Some scholars are less optimistic about the amasing economic development of developing nations like China and India, expressing concern about the economic statistics released in numerous recent reports. 4 See William S W Lim, "The Dynamics of East Asian New Urbanism" in Back from Utopia: The Challenge of the Modern Movement, eds., Hubert-Jan Henket and Hilde Heynen (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002), 198-205. 5 Alan Balfour, Epilogue in World Cities: Shanghai, eds., Alan Balfour and Zheng Shiling (;£Wil?)(Great Britain: Wiley-Academy, 2002), 360-362. 6 Utopia Station is an ongoing project curated by Molly Nesbit, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rirkrit Tiravanija. In their own words, the "Utopia Station is a way-station. As a conceptual structure it is flexible ... We meet to pool our efforts, motivated by a need to change the landscape outside and inside, a need to think, a need to integrate the work of the artist, the intellectual and manual laborers that we are into a larger kind of community, another kind of economy, a bigger conversation, another state of being. You could call this need a hunger." Present and future contributors including artists, architects, writers and performers for the Station are asked to do a poster for circulation in the Station and in international exhibitions and museums, . 7 Merriam Webster Online, Dictionary&va=shanghaied>.
"shanghaied",
8 Yan'an Grade Crossing M$/j^S#Sr3£. 9 Extract from poster submitted to Utopia Station. William S W Lim, Chow Kim Nam and Goh Yong Qin, "Have You Been Shanghai [ed]?", May 2003. 10 On skyscrapers, the question is: "... whether a particular sign, namely, that of the spectacular skyscraper, invented in the United States at the end of the last century, can still claim to be a globally recognised, internationally acclaimed signifier of modernity ... the evidence suggests that this is not." See Anthony D King and Abidin Kusno, "On Be(ij)ing in the World: 'Postmodernism', 'Globalisation' and the Making of Transnational Space in China" in Postmodernism and China, eds., Arif Dirlik and Zhang Xudong ( & t e & ) (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), 63. 11 William S W Lim, Preface in Alternative (Post)modernity: An Asian Perspective (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003), xv-xvii.
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12 According to Zhang Xudong: Democracy "had never figured prominently in the pre-1989 intellectual lexicon, contrary to the popular impression derived from Western TV images of the Tiananmen "prodemocracy movement". See Zhang Xudong, "Postmodernism and Postsocialist Society—Historicising the Present", Epilogue in Postmodernism and China, eds., Arif Dirlik and Zhang Xudong, 414. 13 Hou Hanru (tMMn), "Shanghai, a Naked City" in On the Mid-Ground, ed, Yu Hsiao-Hwei (Hong Kong: Timezone 8 Limited, 2002), 230-245. 14 Deng Xiaoping ^P/J N I F. 15 Deng made his pragmatic economic viewpoint clear in the Seventh Plenary Session of the Third Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League where he uttered this signature phrase. See "Restore Agricultural Production", 7 July 1962. Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 1938-1965, vol. 1 in People's Daily Online, . 16 David Harvey, "Contemporary Globalisation" in Spaces of Hope (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 61-67. 17 See Manuel Castells: The Rise of the Network Society, vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford and Maiden: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). The Power of Identity, vol. 2 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford and Maiden: Blackwell Publishers, 1997) and End of Millennium, vol. 3 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford and Maiden: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). 18 See Saskia Sassen, Globalisation and Its Discontents (New York: The New Press, 1998). and The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 19 Saskia Sassen, Epilogue in The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 359-363. 20 Christof Parnreiter, "Mexico: The Making of a Global City" in Global Network Linked Cities, ed., Saskia Sassen, 145-182. 21 Pablo Ciccolella and Lliana Mignaqui, "Buenos Aires: Sociospatial Impacts of the Development of Global City" in Global Network Linked Cities, ed., Saskia Sassen, 322. 22 In 2001, China's imports stood at US$332.67 billion while her exports stood at US$276.28 billion, an increase of five times from the 1990 figure. People's Republic of China, Shanghai Municipal Statistical Bureau, Shang hai gai Ian (±.Sfffi|r&), . 23 Human Development Report 2003, United Nations Development Program, HD in Animation <www.undp.org/hdr2003>. The graph identified Beijing's per capita GDP (PPP) at US$9,750, Hong Kong stood at 24,850 while Singapore stood at 22,680. 24 "Excerpts from Talks Given in Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shanghai, January 18-February 21, 1992" in Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping 1982-1992, vol. 3, People's Daily Online, . 25 "Overcoming Structural Barriers to Growth: To Achieve the Goals" in Human Development Report 2003, Director and Editor-in-Chief: Sakiko Fukuda-Parr (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 73. United Nations Development Program, <www.undp.org/hdr2003>. 26 Human Development Report 2003, United Nations Development Program, HD in Animation, <www.undp.org/hdr2003>. The report identified China's Gini Index measured by the World Bank in 2002 using China's 1998 income figures as 40.3. 27 Hu Jintao iTO;<#.
130 28WuBangguo H » H . 29 "State Council Issues Decree to Protect Migrant Workers" in People's Daily Online (24 January 2003), . 30 "WTO Successfully Concludes Negotiations on China's Entry" in WTO News 2001 Press Release (17 September 2001) World Trade Organisation, . 31 "Trade Rigged Against the Poor", Editorial in International Herald Tribune (21 July 2003). 32 It is therefore not surprising that the WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico have ended in a collapse. See Elizabeth Becker, "World Trade Talks End in a Collapse" in International Herald Tribune (16 September 2003). 33 Lu Xun #ffl.. 34 Leo Ou-fan Lee (^BfcJE), Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 19301945 (USA: Harvard University Press, 2001). $ i £ J E l : , %^W, « ± ? « * S — - W S P i t T i f t f t t El 1930-1945)) „ ±»° itK-k^WMit, 2001. 302, 35 Eileen Chang 3|xSJ?. 36 Leo Ou-fan Lee, "Eileen Chang: Romances in a Fallen City" in Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945, 287. 37 Zhou Enlai M I S * . 38 Chen Kaige, Farewell My Concubine, 1993. |8SflSL
((it-T-SJ®)) „ ffjftJk&tiim,* 1993.
c 39 Zhang Yimou, Raise the Red Lantern, 1990. « 2 ® , (MUn&MMi)) . PS^»^iW!)i& «J> &yf*Ftti^-lk&iS]rn,Su 1990= Zhang Yimou, Hero, 2 0 0 2 . * 2 i 8 «5?it» , mUM^W/m, IS I S & t f W P B & n K j b M i f i l f f l U ^ W P I & ^ l HiBpn. 2002.
40 Some of these works addressed the social realities of socialist China but the more recent works are lavish and culturally romantic pieces, usually set in the distant past. These are now being increasingly challenged by the more radical and compelling works of the Sixth Generation and beyond. 41 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, N C: Duke University Press, 1991). 42 Zhang Xudong, "Postmodernism and Postsocialist Society—Historicising Postmodernism and China, eds., Arif Dirlik and Zhang Xudong, 429.
the Present" in
43 Edward W Soja, "Cosmopolis: The Globalisation of Cityspace" in Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 199. 44 Nezar AlSayyad, "Hybrid Culture/Hybrid Urbanism: Pandora's Box of the Third Place'" in Hybrid Urbanism: On the Identity Discourse and the Built Environment, ed., Nezar AlSayyad (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2001), 13. 45 James Farrer, Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 46 Hou Hanru, "Shanghai, a Naked City" in On the Mid-Ground, ed., Yu Hsiao-Hwei, 235.
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47 Li Zhaoxing, "Si kao le de shu hai zhu lin" in Shang hai 101: Xun zhao shang hai de 101 ge li you, eds., Li Zhaoxing, Tang Zhenzhao and Huang Zhihui (Hong Kong: Huan yu chu ban she, 2002) 1 0 1 -
102. &MX-, "S#*itt-t5sfit#"> «±m 101 „ wm±MW) 101 -tsM . i i s , $J&, n^W° #!&: Jff-tiiJi&ft:. 2002= 101-102 =
48 Han Han, San Chong Men (Shanghai: Zuojia chu ban she, 2000). ?$$, K t t o 2000o
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49 First published in Chinese, it was banned in 2000 by the Chinese authorities and subsequently translated into English. Wei Hui, Shanghai Baobei (Liaoning: Chun feng wen yi chu ban she, 1999). lESt, { ± I S f ! » „ &f, # R 5 : f ; t B ) S t t . 1999. 50 Chin-Chuan Lee, "The Global and National of the Chinese Media: Discourse, Market Technology and Ideology" in Chinese Media Global Contexts, ed., Chin-Chuan Lee (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 16. 51 S F Said, "In the Realm of the Censors" in Telegraph . JiaZhangke, Platform, 2000.1?#M, «&£?» . W^iH^m^Sh, 2000.
Arts
(28 June
2002).
52 S F Said, "In the Realm of the Censors", ibid. Wang Xiaoshuai, Beijing Bicycle, 2001. TyJ^i|J, « + h £ l » j £ $ » - fiK&W, :Jki(Hi®$y>t•&*»"«= 2001. Lou Ye, Suzhou River, 1997. U ^ -
M» = » f i r , pm^m^mf^K^'si,ffiitt^jft^K^-rfjuiWi.19970 53 Hou Hanru, "Total Exile?—Notes En Route" in On the Mid-Ground, ed., Yu Hsiao-Hwei, 114-125. 54 Chin-Chuan Lee, "The Global and National of the Chinese Media: Discourse, Market Technology and Ideology" in Chinese Media Global Contexts, ed., Chin-Chuan Lee, 10. 55 Zhou Denong (SP^fjfe), "20th Century Architecture of China I: Mainland". Subsection in Introductory Essay: East Asian Architecture of the 20th Century". Preface in East Asia, vol. 9 of World Architecture: A Critical Mosaic 1900-2000, ed., Guan Zhaoye (;£5IU5)(China: China Architecture and Building Press, 2000), xxiii-xxix. 56 Rahul Mehrotra, "The Architecture of Pluralism; A Century of Building in South Asia". Introductory essay in South Asia, vol. 8 of World Architecture: A Critical Mosaic 1900-2000, ed. Rahul Mehrotra (China: China Architecture and Building Press & New York: Springer-Verlag/Wien, 2000), xvii-xxx. 57 J Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1989). 58 Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, "Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis ... or Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa" in S, M, L, XL (New York: The Monacelli Press Inc, 1995), 1008-1089. 59 Janet Foster, Docklands: Cultures in Conflict, Worlds in Collision (London: UCL Press, 1999). 60 Kim Dovey and Leonie Sandercock, "Hype and Hope" in City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Action, ed., Bob Caterall, 6.1 (April 2002): 83-101. 61 Hou Hanru, "Shanghai Spirit: A Special Modernity", Prince Klaus Trust Fund Journal 6 (December 2001): 60-65. 62 William S W Lim, "Asian New Urbanism" in Asian New Urbanism and Other Papers (Singapore: Select Books Publishing Pte Ltd, 1998), 14-33.
132 63 According to G Byrne Bracken, Hong Kong is the "only city in the world where people commute from one part of the town to another by escalator". It links "the residential Mid-levels with the commercial Central district. More than 210,000 people use it each day. This significantly reduces traffic between these two crowded areas. Free of charge, the escalator runs in the down direction in the morning and up for the rest of the day and evening. Consisting of elevated escalators, moving walkways and a series of linked stairways, it stretches 800 metres from Central to the Mid-levels." See G Byrne Bracken, A Walking Tour: Hong Kong — Sketches of the Country's Architectural Treasures (Singapore: Times Media Pte Ltd, 2003), 24. 64 Michael J Enright et al., Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta: The Economic Integration (20 February 2003) The 2022 Foundation, . 65 Keith Bradsher, "Pain of the Hong Kong Home Slump" in International Herald Tribune (16/17 August 2003), 1+ . 66 Hou Hanru, "Globalised, Chaotic, Empty, Dystopian ... Artists' Positions in China's Current Urban Explosion", ShanghART, Texts on Chinese art, . 67 Ban Wang, "Love at Last Sight: Nostalgia, Commodity, and Temporality in Wang Anyi's Song of Unending Sorrow" in Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 10.3 (2002): 669-694. 68 William S W Lim, "Vision of a Great Street: Orchard Road Singapore" in Alternatives in Transition: The Postmodern, Glocality and Social Justice (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2001), 86-95. 69 Luo Xiaowei uses the Shanghainese pronounciation "longtang" in the publication Shanghai Longtang. This paper, however, uses the standard Chinese hanyu pinyin: nongtang. 70 Luo Xiaowei, "Shanghai Longtang, Shanghai People and Shanghai Culture" in Shanghai Longtang (Shanghai: Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 1997), 5-7. ^ ' h * , l.bM3h&. ±'MA°
±?«3ttt,o » o ±.m. -\-M-XRtiifm\-. 1997.
71 See Rem Koolhaas, "Pearl River Delta (Harvard Project on the City)" in Mutations, Rem Koolhaas et al. (Bordeaux: arc-en reve centre de architecture (ACTAR), 2001), 309-333. 72 Soja, Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions, 352. 73 Leonie Sandercock used the term "radical postmodern urbanism" in her commendations. See Leonie Sandercock, "Commendations" in Alternative (Post)modernity: An Asian Perspective, William S W Lim (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003) vi. A more detailed explanation of Radical Postmodernism can be found in the following. See Edward W Soja and Barbara Hooper, "The Space that Difference Makes: Some Notes on the Geographical Margins of the New Cultural Politics" in The Spaces of Postmodernity: Readings in Human Geography, eds., Michael J Dear and Steven Flusty (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 382. 74 William S W Lim, "Spaces of Indeterminacy" in Alternative (Post)modernity: An Asian Perspective, 11-18. 75 Professor Luo Xiaowei, author of Shanghai Longtang (see note 69), in a recent telephone conversation estimated that half or more of the nongtang have been destroyed. 76 Statistics from: Michael J Enright et al., Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta: The Economic Integration (20 February 2003) The 2022 Foundation, 198, table 8.2, calculated from Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 2002 and Zhejiang Statistical Yearbook 2003 using the China Statistical Bureau's definition of Yangtze River Delta which includes Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Nantong, Taizhou, Hangxhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Zhoushan and Shanghai, .
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Architecture, Art, Identity in Singapore
05
Is There Life After Tabula Rasa?
Introduction Discourse about identity in Singapore has to start from recognising its lack of a strong identity. "The city's constant perpetuation of change makes the prospect of attaining a settled sense of identity over time unrealistic and quite beside the point."1 To Rem Koolhaas, Singapore was conceived as the ultimate tabula rasa (or blank slate)—a razed plane for a genuinely new beginning2 while Yeo Wei Wei has described the tabula rasa and unreal, theatre-like phenomenon of Singapore's urban and cultural landscape.3 Systematic cleanups and rebuilding have destroyed much of Singapore's urban fabric. Having disregarded most of the old and the existing, the city is left with no distinct visual identity to speak of. Critics have with mounting frequency lamented that the visual environment has in fact no context, landscape, scale or history. This phenomenon is not just limited to the physical aspects of Singapore, virtually all facets of society are characterised by similar erasure, demolition and forgetting. To Peter Schoppert, however, "Singapore is about routes, not roots: an intersection point of the trajectories of a thousand journeys, Singapore is the sum of a hundred diaspora: at night, it seems everyone is dreaming about somewhere else."4 This paper attempts to examine the complex conditionality of Singapore's identity while acknowledging the reality of tabula rasa, in order to get past the anxiety of these recognitions and consider what might lie beyond them.
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Singapore Identity Separated from Malaysia in 1965, Singapore stood alone as a small city-state deprived of a hinterland. Survival of the nation as an independent social, economic and political entity therefore took top priority and demanded a strong rationalising strategy. The ruling party—People's Action Party (PAP)—considered economic and political survival of paramount importance and all other issues secondary. Survival thus became a sort of national ideology driving Singapore society, a society pervaded by a continuous sense of crisis and urgency cultivated by the ruling party, the legacy of which has remained up till today. National identity was gradually subsumed into state policies and cultural identity was henceforth totally regulated and intertwined with economic functions and political agenda. Ethnic pluralism is an intrinsic part of Singapore society as its diverse population originated from various parts of Asia. Since Independence, the state has continued to strive towards a "Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others" (CMIO) model of multiracialism under an overarching Singapore national identity. Recognising that Singapore's ethnic pluralism is highly complex and "always in constant flux", having evolved out of the "dynamic interplay of local, regional and international ingredients, forces and developments within various historical contexts",5 Lai Ah Eng questions if current government actions and policies are adequate and appropriate. As global capitalism causes space to become increasingly homogenised, there is an urgent need to strengthen local peculiarities. A contemporary understanding of traditions, heritage and memories is essential for the development of hybrid glocalisation. However, in the painstaking construction of national identity undertaken by the PAP, elements of traditions, multicultural diversity and collective memories that could have been the essence and source of a pluralistic Singaporean identity have been badly eroded. On the urban landscape, planners have systematically removed and destroyed
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unprotected city areas and historical sites that had acted as containers of history, values and cultures. The city continues to dispossess its past. An appalling example is the recent destruction of the Bidadari Cemetery, amongst the oldest and largest cemeteries in Singapore, to provide land for new public housing.6 No wonder writer Lau Siew Mei laments thus in her novel: "In this city, you can't walk away and return to find things the same as they were. What then of the city's inhabitants who have to live with so much inconstancy in their landscape? Is there a foundation for a stable identity?"7 The publication A History of Singapore Architecture1' gives detailed descriptions of old and significant architectural works, which are often followed by after notes informing the reader that the building has already been demolished. Much of the destruction took place between 1960 and 1985, when the PAP embarked most vigorously on its policies of economic development and urban renewal. Certainly, in this city, as poet Arthur Yap tells us, "there is no future in nostalgia".9 On the one hand, Singapore's bland, dehistoricised and depoliticised condition is often the result of pragmatic political decisions and policies as well as the puritanical orientation of the ruling party. On the other hand, governmental efforts to invent pseudo-historical symbols such as the Merlion—a half-lion, half-fish creature' °— and the themeparking of sites like the reconstructed Bugis Street to generate visual identity are often coloured by the need to gratify nostalgia and to create interest for tourism. The devastating effects of modernist planning, major rehousing and redevelopment have left Singapore with little more than a manufactured, over-regulated, glossy and tidy image of a city. In the process, it was stripped bare of vitality, complexity and chaos, qualities which make neighbouring Asian cities like Bangkok, Tokyo and Shanghai appear much more vibrant and exciting. Architecture is always linked to questions of visual and cultural identities. Architecture is an essential element in the spatial language of forms and is deeply embedded within the complex fields of urban and cultural discourses. Cultural theorists have convincingly maintained that "culture is constituted not by a system of objects alone, but by a discourse that imbues these objects with meaning. Cultural identity,
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therefore, emerges as a complex field of operations that engages with—but is not defined by—cultural artifacts such as architecture."11 For this reason, this paper attempts a broad survey of various forms of cultural production, practice and discourse, from architecture to theatre, literature and the fine arts. One thread of discourse, which imbues these objects with meaning, could well be historical. My approach to the investigation of architecture and identity in Singapore is not so much a historical record but a critical reflection on historical events. I agree with Sanjay Krishnan that "history is fundamentally concerned with the present and not the past. We live and die in the present. We worry and plan for the future as a future will become present... A historical sensibility will emerge only if we learn to open ourselves to the present as historical, in all its complexity and imperfection."12 The historical link between architecture and identity in Singapore is prominent not least in spite of tabula rasa. Rather than being a blank slate, Singapore has, to borrow Alfian Sa'at's words, experienced "multiple coats of'blanking out'".13 A closer look into these layers will find the emergence of memories, narratives and resistance as well as our hybridised identity. The investigation of architecture and identity requires a multidisciplinary approach that simultaneously recognises the importance of reading and experiencing the city.14 I would like to end this section with a quote from Edward Soja, whose views are largely congruous with mine. Soja, who describes himself as a "radical postmodernist", "avowed spatialist", and "determined advocate for the critical powers of spatial and geographical imagination",15 espouses the "extraordinary power and insight of foregrounding space as a primary mode for interpreting the world".16 In the following extract, Soja, drawing upon the ideas of Henri Lefebvre, affirms my belief in the need to make sense of unprecedented urban changes when approaching the study of architecture and identity:
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As I read him, Lefebvre is saying that human society, indeed, all forms of social relations and social life, originate, evolve, develop and change in the materially real and socially imagined context of cities. They do so through what he would call the social production of urban space, a continuous and contentious process that is filled with politics and ideology, creativity and destruction, and the unpredictable interplay of space, knowledge and power.17 Colonial Period (1819-1959) Historians now no longer accept the year 1819 as the starting point of Singapore history.18 From the kingdom of Sri Tri Buana in the late 14th century to the precolonial sporadic settlements of fishing villages in 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles landed on the island, Singapore has gone through some dramatic transformations.19 Raffles, representing the East India Company, successfully and swiftly negotiated the trading rights and boundaries of settlement with the Malay rulers in the region. Based on his earlier experiences in Java, guidelines for planning the settlement were quickly established. The plan imposed a highly regulated spatial system by segregating the races and privileging the rich and powerful colonial masters. The urban spatial arrangement forcefully demonstrated the imperial ideological agenda and stark asymmetry of power between the colonised and the colonisers. Occasionally, there were exceptions to the pragmatic colonial plan. On Raffles' own initiative and reflecting his personal interest, a site was allocated for a botanical garden, which later developed into an important research station and provided an excellent leisure facility for the community.20 This has since become the popular Botanic Gardens, a significant national feature for both citizens and tourists today. The island's free port policy soon attracted great numbers of traders and merchants from the Asian region; when Singapore was officially handed over to the British Colonial Office in 1869, the population already stood between 80,000 and 90,000. Many civic and commercial buildings were built, as were many educational
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institutions and important religious landmarks.21 Different ethnic communities funded and built their own institutional buildings and places of worship, and their designs were often done in the style of the respective community's architectural traditions. Thus from the early days of the colony, the great variety of architectural styles seemed to suggest that the multiethnic communities possessed some visual autonomy in the urban landscape. Selected notable examples include the Armenian Church by G D Coleman (1835)22, Thian Hock Keng Temple (1839-1842)23, Sri Mariamman Temple (1843) 24 , Hajjah Fatimah Mosque (1846) 25 , St Andrew's Cathedral by Ronald Macpherson (1856-1862)26, St Joseph's Institution by Brother Lothaire (1865-1867)27, and Telok Ayer Market by James McRitchie (1894)28.
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L to R : Armenian Church (1835) - George Drumgoole Coleman, Thian Hock Keng Temple (1839-1842) Sri Mariamman Temple (1843), Hajjah Fatimah Mosque (1846), St Andrew's Cathedral (1856-1862) - Ronald Macpherson, St Joseph's Institution (1865-1867) - Brother Lothaire, Telok Ayer Market (1894) - James McRitchie
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Colonial cities are often characterised by a social stratification system along the lines of ethnicity and class that makes them inherently different from the cities of the colonial powers. According to Brenda Yeoh, colonial authorities, "through local institutions of urban governance such as the municipal authorities, attempted to structure the urban built environment in such a way as to facilitate colonial rule and express colonial aspirations and ideals."29 In Singapore where there is multiracial migration from many non-Western countries, the system becomes particularly complex. The varied cultures, beliefs and values of these migrant communities, reinforced through a network of institutional and kinship support, were a major resource of resistance against colonial imposition 30 . However, voices of resistance from the migrant communities and the locals remained weak against the hegemonic control of the colonising power. Physical expansion in Singapore was an inevitable response to the urgent demand of the Asian migrants, particularly the Chinese. The migrants' growing economic wealth and importance became increasingly recognised in the 1930s when Asian businesses expanded into modern enterprises such as banking and insurance. Apart from the Malay communities, which still lived in traditional kampongs (villages) and the affluent elite who stayed in detached houses, the majority of Asians lived and worked in numerous variations of two to four storied shophouses or terrace houses. Examples include middle-income residential estates in Emerald Hill,31 shophouses in Chinatown32 and warehouses and godowns in Boat Quay.33 These compact buildings exhibited a strong urban character as well as qualities of high density and flexibility in usage. They provided accommodation for different income groups as well as housed various commercial activities and community facilities. Meanwhile in Europe, intellectual discourse on modern architecture continued with great vigour during the interwar years. Socialist inspired utopianism informed the agenda of modernist urbanism and placed it within the framework of paternalistic ethics and controlled spatial justice. Its advocates intended an absolute and authentic
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break with the exploitative past. It was in this context that modernism was introduced into colonial Singapore in the 1930s. Modernist buildings erected in this period include the Kallang Airport by Frank Dorrington Ward (1937)34 and the multi-storied Cathay Building by Frank Brewer (1939).35
L to R : Kallang Airport (1937)
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-Frank Dorrington Ward, Cathay Buildibg (1939) - Frank Brewer, Tiong Bahru Housing Estate (1936-1954) - Singapore Improvement Trust, Asia Insurance Building (1954) -Ng Keng Siang
In February 1942, the British surrendered and Singapore was occupied by the Japanese until the end of World War II in August 1945. During those years, the economy deteriorated and living conditions became increasingly difficult.36 After World War II, young British architects continued to build in the modern idiom, mostly translated into major public housing projects. One example is the Tiong Bahru Housing Estate by the Singapore Improvement Trust (1936-1954). 31 In the 1950s, a few local architects
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who graduated from abroad were commissioned to build. Notable examples include the Asia Insurance Building by Ng Keng Siang (1954).38 At the same time, a young and idealistic British team of architects and planners completed a comprehensive Master Plan (1958) for the whole island.39 After some modifications, the Master Plan, together with the unpublished United Nations Report of 196340, became instruments with which to regulate the explosive development of subsequent years. It is interesting to note that after more than a century of great social and economic changes, including outward physical expansion, Singapore has kept the original basic urban plans and structures of the traditional colonial city nearly intact, notwithstanding the continuous reconstruction and upgrading throughout the colonial era. The colonial government dictated the character of Singapore's cultural identity by imposing upon the colony, among other things, the British national anthem, celebration of the Queen's birthday, and the study of British empire history. The government similarly dominated the visual identity of Singapore's architectural and spatial arrangements, particularly in the commercial and administrative centres as well as the European residential locations. The coloniser controlled the total agenda and regulated the degree of permissible local autonomy. However, local communities still attempted to resist colonial imposition through their negotiation of everyday reality and of the urban built environment. After World War II, Singapore and Malaya embarked upon decolonisation. The British colonisers were deeply entrenched in the divide-andrule policy, which tended to confer certain privileges on the indigenous Malay community and avoided being perceived as pro-Chinese. It was therefore not surprising that a Singapore-centred national identity was hardly articulated when self-government was effected in 1959.
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Members of the different ethnic communities continued to identify themselves with their countries of origins. The extensive Chinese diaspora, with its concomitant cultural and business connections, added another dimension to the complex, hybrid identities of the migrants. Each ethnic community communicated in its own language or dialect, while Malay was the lingua franca among the locals. This was the background from which the urgent need for a collective national identity emerged as a serious challenge to the new nation after its Independence in August 1965. Immediate Postcolonial Period (1959-early 1970s) The 1950s were a decade of tension and disorder for Singaporeans. Violence and disturbances, very much a part of the painful process of decolonisation, included the widespread racial based Maria Hertogh riots in 195041, anti-national service protests by Chinese school students in 195442 , major strikes by left-wing unions in 195543 and the collapse of constitutional negotiations in 195644. The People's Action Party (PAP) was formally inaugurated on 21 November 1954. The party narrowly won the city council elections in 1957. In 1959 the party won 43 of the 51 seats in the island-wide general elections with 53.4% of the votes. Following the 1959 elections, the new constitution of 1958 giving full internal self-government to Singapore came into force. The PAP was eager to forge unity and a common identity in order that Singapore would be able to deal with the difficult challenges ahead. However, the issues of state formation and Singaporean-centred consciousness could not be given priority as the PAP was still firmly committed towards the unity of Singapore and Malaya. In the years following up to the brief merger with Malaya from 1963 to 1965, Malayan culture and the Malay language were actively promoted by the leaders so as to create a national image deemed acceptable to the Malayan leadership. The PAP also aggressively confronted and suppressed the left to eradicate divisive and anti-government elements. In education, the government "planned to replace the Chinese-oriented identity with a Malayan-oriented consciousness; or ... to actualise the distributive principle of
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desinicisation through Malayanisation."45 However, the vague definition of "Malayanness" and scarcity of materials prevented the successful rewriting of the curricula in all schools to embrace a "Malayan" outlook and instead, sometimes, fell back onto the more established Eurocentric models46. Thus, until the end of Singapore's turbulent two-year inclusion in the Federation of Malaysia, government policies towards ethnicity and national identity appeared indecisive and inconsistent and were sometimes rather ineffective. Despite government action, ethnic based tension would be a major catalyst behind the growing crisis between Malaysia and Singapore.47 On 9 August 1965, Singapore stood alone as an independent nation state. Its population was about 1.9 million with 76% Chinese, 15% Malay, 7% Indian and 2% others.48 Its land area was 581.5 km249 and subsequently extended by extensive land reclamation to the current 697.1km2.50 It had an unemployment rate of 10% and its per capita GDP was S$l,600.51 Following Singapore's removal from the Federation of Malaysia, the policy of Malayanisation was hastily abandoned. It is in this context that the PAP government embarked on the immense tasks of economic survival, state formation and national identity formulation. The ensuing vigour and commitment towards state formation were admirable but also seemed to reflect the limited choices facing the government of a tiny new nation fraught with postcolonial problems and located in a region of great instability. Policy making tended to fall back on Eurocentric or colonial solutions in the absence of feasible multiethnic examples for the young nation. As Singapore was surrounded by two predominantly Islamic countries, its leaders were eager to maintain harmony with its neighbours and to adopt a neutral stance towards all ethnic groups. According to Chan Heng Chee, it was also during this "dramatic sombre period that survival was adopted as a one-word political slogan as well as a main theme underlying all analyses of problems and statements of policies and intent."52 Political hegemony was quickly achieved by freely exercising the asymmetrical power relationships between the state and the other, mostly by coercion, sometimes by force; a whole range of political weaponry, detention and legislation was effectively applied
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against political opponents resulting in the control and limitation of all political activity other than that of the ruling party. The subsequent well-known story of Singapore's economic miracle does not require further elaboration. The contribution of the very dedicated and competent political leadership must be given well-deserved credit. To quote the introduction of the book Lee s Lieutenants, "any attempt to attribute Singapore's economic success and depoliticisation to [Minister Mentor] Lee [Kuan Yew] alone would be simplistic and unreal. The accomplishments were those of a team and not an individual alone."53
Critics have continued to identify the heavy
price that some individuals and the community have had to pay, particularly in the way of personal freedom and political openness.54 However, decades of continuous material improvement have provided sufficient compensatory benefits for the government to obtain electoral support from the majority. The creation of national identity, in itself a complex issue, was and still is an important policy matter on the official agenda. The PAP embarked on a series of policies to build national identity, which included compulsory national service for males of 18 years of age, national day celebrations and the promotion of national symbols like the flag, anthem and pledge. The aim was to forge a common Singapore identity of "one united people, regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society based on justice and equality."55 Nevertheless, cultural, ethnic and linguistic plurality in Singapore has continued to pose complex challenges for policy makers.56 The government also undertook a total reorientation of Chinese education, and was so successful that it went well beyond the process of depoliticisation.57 With the inevitable disintegration of Chinese schools, the political detention of the editors of the Chinese daily, Nanyang Siang Pau, on the charge of Chinese chauvinism (1971 )58 and the climax of the closure of the Chinese language Nanyang University (1978)59, desinicisation in Singapore was complete. This produced a shocking sense of cultural disorientation for the large Chinese-educated community.60 Other dramatic changes
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which caused similar severe disruptions to ethnic based identities and traditions include the large-scale clearance of squatters and Malay kampongs. Over the years government action had effectively neutralised voices and agencies of contestation. Thus, a lack of resistance from the grassroots enabled the political leadership to undertake an unprecedented and deliberate act of tabula rasa culminating in near total urban destruction in later years. In the excitement of the immediate postcolonial period, nationalism, idealism and anti-colonialism offered architects, intellectuals and the art community considerable space to contribute to and express their aspirations for the new nation. In response to the turbulent political environment, the intellectuals and the art community responded very positively. Substantive writings by local authors were published, and the earliest to gain pre-eminence was poetry.61 "Edwin Thumboo remains the most influential voice, primarily for his topical and insightful exploration of social and national themes."62 Several contemporary local plays were performed. In particular, two young playwrights at the time, Goh Poh Seng and Lim Chor Pee, made substantial contributions.63 In 1964 an English literary magazine, Tumctsek, was published in which both Lim and Goh were involved. The aspirations of the writers were articulated in an editorial by Goh: "The momentous events, the exciting revolution that is being enacted here, and elsewhere, demand that we become closely involved, that we take up the challenge of our time and participate. Otherwise if calamities befall us, if we are blown to smithereens, we cannot even complain, for we would have been careless and wanton with our own destiny."64 Since the early 1960s, the idea was to develop a Malayan theatre, but after separation in 1965, the cultural orientation shifted towards Singapore.65 A cultural and arts group, Centre 65, was formed with Goh as the president. "The programme will be nationalistic in outlook and the committee will endeavour to work towards the development of a national culture," it disclosed. Years later, writer Robert Yeo lamented that "the Singapore play stumbled very badly after 1966 and did not resume its run until the mid-1980s ... If Goh Poh Seng and Lim Chor Pee had continued their playwriting activities and if there had been others to follow, drama in English would
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certainly have surged ahead and found its mark in the mid-1960s instead ..."66 I question this assumption since, from the early 1970s, the national agenda of state formation and economic development had begun to dominate all social activities, except a segment of non-complying minority, which attempted to forge an independent and creative space. During this period, publications in the Chinese language were abundant and diverse. Newspapers and journals as well as literary works written by the younger generation were mostly infected with nationalistic enthusiasm but some acutely reflected the local social conditions and hardships of people from all walks of life. Overseas Chinese sensibilities, even though still greatly influenced by events and developments in China, had gradually localised. A Malayan consciousness manifested itself in the writers' choices of local settings, subjects and even the use of smatterings of dialects and Malay terms.67 Other cultural activities were also vibrant, and most were carried out within societies and clubs associated with the Chinese schools, or various amateur drama societies. The Chinese drama groups tended to be highly political, and protested the harsh social realities of the time. These groups were often perceived by the government as leftist, even dangerous.68 However, dramatist Kuo Pao Kun noted in retrospect that "it is a good thing that Chinese theatre in the 1980s cut itself off from active party politics because only then could it begin to exist on its own as an art form."69 Years of continuous disruption and instability since the student protests of 1954 were followed by what I termed as the "heroic period" (1959-1975)70 when local architects and urbanists made their mark with many innovative public and commercial buildings on the new architectural and urban landscape. Many also shone in their educational contributions and especially in their contributions to theoretical discourse on architecture and urbanism and their applications to the city-state. The architectural discourse of that period also centred on the question of generating a Malayan architecture with a strong local identity. However, such public debate was abruptly discontinued after Singapore's Independence in 1965.
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Shortly after its election to power in 1959, notwithstanding its severe budget constraints, the PAP government decided to implement massive and ambitious, but well considered and effective, public improvement programmes. The government pursued a near Utopian agenda of state formation. Within a short time span, large numbers of schools, public housing and important public projects such as a huge industrial estate in Jurong were constructed. Several of these public projects were selected from architectural competitions restricted to the participation of local architects whose fraternity and talent pool had been greatly enhanced by many gifted, recently returned graduates. Major public projects included National Theatre by Alfred Wong Partnership (1963),71 National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) Conference Hall by Malayan Architects Co-Partnership (1965),72 Singapore Telephone Board Exchange by Design Partnership (1969),73 Jurong Town Hall by Architects Team 3 (1970),74 Public Utilities Board (PUB) Headquarters Building by Group 2 Architects, (1971— 1977),75 Subordinate Law Courts by Kumpulan Akitek (1975),76 and Singapore Science Centre by Raymond Woo and Associates Architects (1975).77 In these public projects, speed, cost control and professional human resources were the foremost considerations. It is important to record that these projects were designed and built while Singapore was still a relatively poor developing country where building technologies were basic. Furthermore the architects were not only few in numbers, but young and inexperienced. At the same time, numerous innovative projects of modest scale were built. They included the charming churches and houses of Alfred Wong as well as the houses of Lim Chong Keat and myself, which exhibited more challenging contemporary statements. However, most of the major private projects started after 1965, when political conditions were more stable and the investment climate became more promising. Outstanding private projects include Hotel Malaysia by Alfred Wong Partnership (1968),78 the Singapore Airline (SLA) Headquarters by Architects Team 3 (1969),79 People's Park Complex by Design Partnership (1972),80 Futura by Timothy Seow and Partners (1976),81 and Golden Mile Complex by Design Partnership (1974).82 The last project received international recognition in Udo Kultermann's 1980 publication.83
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The spirit of the time also inspired many English-educated professionals and academics of the younger generation to become actively involved in contributing towards the building of the young nation. Alfred Wong and Lim Chong Keat were the presidents of Singapore Institute of Architects from 1964 to 1966 and 1966 to 1969 respectively. They generated much enthusiasm and support from the younger generation and succeeded in greatly raising the standard of professional practices. With Lim's passion for architectural education, and in his capacity as Chairman of the Commonwealth educational committee of the Royal Institute of British Architects, he inspired many of the younger generation and his ex-students to teach in the only School of Architecture in Singapore.84
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In 1965 an independent think-tank called the Singapore Planning and Urban Research Group (SPUR) was formed by young local architects and planners from both the public and private sectors to discuss and study the problems affecting the physical development of Singapore. It was a time when the call to serve the young nation was very real and appealing. SPUR attracted the young, idealistic and many of the brightest of the country. The membership of SPUR soon enlarged and embraced many from other disciplines, including local and foreign academics. The group's objectives were to study the problems, principles and practices of planning, and to develop, advance and promote the planning process and strategy85. Many participated in the numerous activities, which ranged from workshops, seminars, lectures, exhibitions, discussion meetings to writing articles and responses to the media. Two issues of the magazine entitled SPUR 65-67 and SPUR 68-71 were published. A huge amount of energy was expended in generating alternative strategies and visions independently of the government, making SPUR one of the forerunners of civil society. It was arguably the most effective and vocal NGO at the time. In its initial years, SPUR had a very positive and cordial relationship with the authorities. The government looked to its contribution, which was readily forthcoming. Tan Jake Hooi, the then Chief Planner in the Department of State and City Planning, was one of the initiators and active participants in SPUR's early years. However, SPUR's repeated expressions of egalitarianism and social justice, presentations of critical alternatives and calls for open dialogue and public participation generated increasing tension particularly with the civil service. Examples of critical alternatives included SPUR's proposals for a Mass Rapid Transit System86 and for the relocation of the new airport from Paya Lebar to Changi87. Both proposals have since been implemented.
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political theorist, and Patmanathan Selvadurai, a PAP Member of Parliament, relations between SPUR and the government steadily deteriorated. As indirect pressures on members began to increase, all members from the public sector resigned. This was followed by the academic members and, eventually, the younger architects under employment. Crippled by member resignations, SPUR faced its inevitable demise. In 1973 the remaining members quietly deregistered the society. Like the English-educated art community, SPUR was unsuccessful in contributing towards a creative environment and a broad based, vibrant Singaporean national identity. In the politically turbulent 1970s the government not only suppressed SPUR's zealous social activism but also forcefully curtailed the perceived political involvement of architectural students. Its actions drastically stunted the critical, creative and rebellious intellectual climate in the School of Architecture and in Singapore's architectural fraternity. In 2001 Robert Powell wrote, after a conversation with me, that the government was at the time on a "single-tracked developmental mode". SPUR was simply in the way, just as civil society, free press and critical intellectuals seemed to be in the way.88 The Developmental State (early 1970s-1995) After separation from Malaysia, the PAP made two vital pragmatic decisions. First, it retracted from earlier commitments to a "non-communist democratic-socialist state"89, and to adopt the principles of anti-colonialism and neutrality in the Cold War.90 Instead, Singapore opted to become one of America's Asian frontline states in the Cold War, together with South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Substantial American offshore procurements for the Vietnam War in the years 1965-1975 were an important economic lifeline for the economy during this critical period.91 Singapore quickly established a pro-business environment to attract foreign investments, particularly from American MNCs, and embarked on a massive construction of industrial infrastructure. Accessibility to the huge American market was a critical factor for the economic
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miracles of the four tiger economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Singapore's economy made tremendous progress with per capita income increasing from S$l ,600 in 1965 to S$ 14,900 in 1984.92 The GDP growth rate averaged 11% per annum in the period 1965 1995.93 Second, the government introduced extensive curbs on individual freedom, the press, labour unions and political debate. To quote from Singapore: A Developmental City State: "In the home, citizens are instructed on family size, the timing of household formation and childbirth, the language they ought to speak ... In the public arena, access to a free press is constrained by the controls on the circulation of foreign news publication and the government's control on local media."94 The Singapore government effectively introduced what Fredrick Deyo termed "bureaucraticauthoritarian-corporatist labour relations" through various strategies. Such "corporatist strategies have typically involved, inter alia, depoliticisation of organised labour, wage controls, replacement of collective bargaining by government dispute settlement procedures, drawing government sanctioned unions into officially recognised federation structures, deregistration of oppositional unions and strong assertion of the priority of national development goals over sectional economic interests."95 Chan Heng Chee analysed the resultant situation in this way: "With the systematic depoliticisation and the de-emphasis on competitive politics, the nature of the polity changes to what I have termed the administrative state." Chan expressed her concern that "the administrative state is developing into a sophisticated and complex structure and can only be kept functioning well and to the public interest if it is matched by an equally sophisticated and informed public. So let us not be afraid of openness."96 Since social and political stability was viewed as essential for economic growth, no effort was spared, no legislation or action was considered too harsh in curbing activities that could threaten this stability. This provided the rationale for repeated detentions and arrests, including the dramatic clampdown in the period 1976-1977 on several non-communist journalists and critical left-wing intellectuals. Ho Kwon Ping was one of those who were arrested during this time.97 Quah Sy Ren is of the opinion that "after the arrest of Kuo Pao Kun and other theatre practitioners in 1976, the
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originally vibrant Chinese theatre scene was greatly damaged and virtually plunged into oblivion."98 The government took, and has continued to take, severe pre-emptive measures against critics and political opponents, as well as censure social activities, particularly those dealing with class, race and religious issues, that are deemed "sensitive". Manuel Castells' theoretical definition of the developmental state aptly described Singapore's aspirations and national agenda. A state is developmental when "it establishes as its principle of legitimacy its ability to promote and sustain development, understanding by development the combination of high rates of economic growth and structural change in the economic system, both domestically and in its relationship to the international economy."99 In the developmental state, every sector of social life can be so administered as to instrumentally harness it to serve the singular economic goal. In the Singapore case, the developmental state went through two overlapping phases, the first of which was to marshal resources and national cohesion around survival and second was the assertion of its cultural and political identity.100 Castells was clearly impressed by the fact that "Singapore, against all odds, established itself as the showcase of the new developmental process, building a national identity on the basis of multinational investment attracted and protected by a developmental citystate."101 Another basic tenet of national identity created by the PAP government was multiracialism. Deliberate depoliticisation of racial relations successfully maintained racial harmony. However, it also resulted in the reduction of differences and the suppression of some components of ethnic, individual and collective identities. "The state has thus, over the years, addressed ethnic pluralism with a consistency that expresses its strong political will to forge social cohesion within the national framework and through nation-building processes."102 Since the early 1980s, fearing the impact of deculturalisation and the appeal of contemporary Western values on an increasingly industrialised, urbanised and globalised developmental society, the government embarked on political actions to strengthen local identity. Four neatly delineated, discursively produced racial categories: Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (CMIO) effectively formed the basis for government ethnic policies.103 From the mid-1980s, a set of
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controversial state-imposed ideology was inscribed as Asian Values and morally valorised against "Western" ideas of liberal individualism.104 In 1991 a White Paper on Shared Values105 was introduced which reformulated and combined different Asian traditions and values as the national ideology of Singapore. These actions have been criticised by many intellectuals, one of whom was Kuo Pao Kun who asserted that ethnic relations in Singapore have been very much a state-directed, top-down approach which impedes grassroots and cross-community initiatives and involvement.106 In 1972, then Foreign Minister of Singapore, S Rajaratnam first argued that Singapore should become a new kind of city—a Global City, notwithstanding Arnold Toynbee's pessimistic analysis of the viability of city-states like Singapore.107 Rajaratnam was of the opinion that Singapore would become an effective niche player in the rapidly expanding global economic system, with less dependency on its neighbouring countries.108 With the 1973 oil crisis and the abrupt end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the need to strengthen ties with the Western bloc, particularly with the United States, was increasingly perceived as a national necessity. The developmental state of Singapore urgently sought new strategies and a new international image. Accepting the indisputable dominance of New York, London and Tokyo, Singapore aspired to a secondary global city status by providing efficient supporting services to the global economies.109 The visual and spatial character of the city required drastic changes in order to comply with the imagery of a global, developmental city-state. The state undertook deliberate destruction of unprecedented speed and magnitude to modernise the urban centre. Slums, squatters and even cemeteries were demolished to provide land for new usages, particularly public housing. Robert Gamer argued in 1972 that Singapore's ruthless approach to urban renewal based on a "demolish and rebuild" concept disrupted traditional livelihoods, destroyed small retail establishments and marginal industries.'10 From the decimated traditional city and its memories rose a new modernist city with numerous high-rise buildings, reminiscent of the New York skyline. Massive public housing estates, which incorporated many common facilities, embodied the dimension of social responsibility and ethics associated
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with the Modern Movement.''' Notwithstanding the social benefits and environmental improvement for its occupants, public housing was veritably a part of a pragmatic economic agenda to "speed up the population's transformation into a disciplined industrial work force"."2 These public housing estates, built in simplistic and rigid modernist style and lacking in excitement, character and identity are fixed in repetitive, boring layouts and are found all over the island. The uninspiring architecture of Singapore's urban living space reflects its cultural rootlessness and still evolving identity, struggling between borrowed modernity"3 and Asian communitarianism. Sociologist Chua Beng Huat argues that, in Singapore, earlier concepts of Confucianism and collectivised Asian values have been reduced to a single dimension of communitarianism.'14 This form of politico-cultural ideology combined with a lack of community participation in planning and building decisions means that there are few opportunities for people to exteriorise their subjective experiences and cultural characteristics in the spaces they inhabit. Mainstream foreign corporate architects were preferred in the endeavour to make Singapore a modernist city in the visual imagery of American capitalism. A fine example of corporate modernism is OCBC Centre by J M Pei (1976)." 5 The overwhelmingly single-minded commitment of the government drowned most local protesting voices. However, the collective architectural impact of foreign architects has been greatly disappointing. As local architect Tay Kheng Soon remarked, "None of the major projects undertaken by foreign architects in Singapore have received any international acclaim. This is a curious situation given the tremendous scope of the building programme over the years of rapid development.""6
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As a result of the influx of foreign architects, the dynamic interplay between local creativity and changing contemporary conditions was effectively subdued, just as nascent experiments in localism and identity were prematurely curtailed. Local architects found themselves pressured into following the aesthetics of acceptable international styles and taking up supporting roles to foreign architects in order to stay commercially viable. Private developers supported by the media effectively influenced consumer tastes and desires. Together with government institutions, they often perpetuated homogeneous mainstream architecture which, though pleasing to the eye, was culturally and aesthetically unchallenging. A well-known saying in the architectural fraternity that a "nation gets the architecture it deserves" becomes a painful indictment against Singapore's dearth of architectural creativity, created by the inflexibilities of the developmental state. The architectural scene became unexciting and conventional, sustained and supported by local architects except for a segment of non-complying minority. During the two decades from 1975 to 1995, this culturally castrated and entrapped minority focused their creative intellectual energy on three related developments:
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Conservation and Adaptive Reuse The pace of indiscriminate demolition and destruction alarmed and saddened many citizens, particularly those academics and professionals in fields relating to the built environment. Significant buildings and charming environmental areas were lost, which prompted the publishing of several books on conservation. I wish to mention, in particular, three books by Lee Kip Lin, namely Telok Ayer Market (1983),"7 Emerald Hill (1984)118and The Singapore House (1989),119 as well as Singapore's Little India: Past, Present and Future 120 by Sharon Siddique and Nirmala Purushotam. There were also numerous articles,121 discussions and workshops.122 The highlight was the much publicised theoretical conservation project centred on the south bank of the Singapore River. Called Bu Ye Tian (1982) it was initiated by Goh Poh Seng and myself.123 The concept was subsequently adopted with some modifications and this visually significant site was saved from demolition and high-rise developments to become today's bustling Boat Quay. The people behind this project subscribed to the belief that in adaptive reuse, "retaining old structures provides continuity; allowing these structures to evolve new uses, supports change."124 Hence, the Boat Quay conservation project did not simply aim to preserve the visual images of the past but it also sought to incorporate vital present day/traditional activities.125 In 1984 the MIT-Harvard sponsored international adaptive reuse workshop126 was privately organised with substantial behind-the-scenes support from sympathetic civil servants, particularly Liu Thai Ker127. A delightful book, Pastel Portraits, which showcased Singapore's heritage buildings, was published. In his foreword, the then Second Deputy Prime Minister S Rajaratnam cautiously indicated official support for conservation. "Buildings demolished are historical records gone. While some must make way for progress, some, we hope, will remain to link us with our past."128
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In 1986 an NGO, Singapore Heritage Society, was registered. Its activities have, since then, continued to broaden public understanding of heritage and cultural identity in Singapore beyond its visual manifestation. The Society published Living Legacy™ to record the numerous conservation and adaptive reuse projects that had been implemented. Examples include Emerald Hill and Boat Quay.130 In subsequent years, requisite legislation and regulations were introduced by the authorities131 including the drawing up of the Conservation Plan in 1989.132 The achievement was gratifying and credit must be given to many individuals, particularly those working on the conservation agenda with the authorities. "Despite its late start, Singapore now has an established urban conservation programme. Its effective legislation, efficient enforcement and extensive documentation should provide some useful guidelines, as well as form the basis for sharing our experiences with others in the Asian region."133 While gentrification in traditional areas may be an unavoidable process, the presentation, particularly in numerous commemorative books, of the history of these areas should reflect different layers of the past and the collective memories of the people.134 Taking a slow pace in redefining the characteristics of the traditional Chinatown area after its gentrification was unappealing to the Singapore Tourism Board. In order to yield fast results, whatever that was still memorable, even if nostalgic, was destroyed in the themeparking of Chinatown.
Bu Ye Tian: Singapore River (1982) - William Lim Associates. Adaptive reuse of shophouses and redevelopment of the historical Boat Quay area by the Singapore River as a local cultural and recreational complex
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Regionalism and Tropicality The first issue of a quarterly international journal MIMAR was published in 1981135. It was sponsored by His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan. For over a decade, the publication performed an exceptionally significant function as it focused entirely on the architecture of developing countries, particularly in countries with large Muslim populations. The closure of MIMAR in 1992 was mourned by many in the developing economies. During the early 1980s, several workshops were held in Asia to promote discourse on architecture, identity and regionalism. Kenneth Frampton's theory of critical regionalism received much attention as it seemed particularly relevant to developing countries faced with the onslaught of Western media, commodification and globalisation.136 However, the concept of critical regionalism has since been challenged by many critics, particularly those who question its relevance for more advanced economies. "The concept of regionality depends on it being possible to correlate cultural codes with geographical regions ... In modern societies these regional differences are largely obliterated,"137 or, as I would add, hybridised. That the theory of critical regionalism is location bound and tends to nostalgia are its limitations. Reacting to this as well as to the homogenising impact of foreign corporate architecture, Singapore architects vigorously adopted, transformed and integrated traditions to reflect contemporary realities such as fast evolving cultures, values and lifestyles. The notion of contemporary vernacular was developed. It can be defined as a conscious commitment to uncover a particular tradition's unique responses to spatial arrangements, place and climate and thereafter exteriorise these established and symbolic identities into creative forms.138 Or as Heinz Paetzold clearly explained: "The concept of contemporary vernacular is neither nostalgia nor a return to regional practices as such." Rather, it "describes an architectural practice that attempts to rearticulate regional culture from the viewpoint of the existing world culture today."139 A book Contemporary Vernacular: Evoking Traditions in Asian Architecture was published in 1998.140 This was followed by a workshop in Beijing's Tsinghua University141 and a subsequent monograph.142
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The key protagonist of tropicality in Singapore is Tay Kheng Soon who wrote and theorised extensively on the subject. "The challenge to the development of the new tropical aesthetics is ... predicated on both an understanding and appreciation of the inherent characteristics of the tropics as the aesthetics of shade and shadow as well as a parallel process of deconstructing modern-Western hegemonic aesthetics and culture."143 Examples of his projects include Parkway Builders Centre (1985)144 and the Kampong Bugis Development Guide Plan (1989)145. However, the appropriate applications of tropicality are still being hotly contested today.l46 Furthermore, Abidin Kusno critically examined the implications of this architectural phenomenon from a broader postcolonial cultural perspective. He astutely pointed out the dangers of suppressing all other levels of differences "to give way to the distinctiveness of climate as culture".147
L to R: Parkway Builders Centre (1985) - Akitek Tenggara, Kampong Bugis Development Guide Plan (1989) - Akitek Tenggara - This was an urban planning study of the Kampong Bugis area which demonstrated Tay Kheng Soon's Tropical City Concept.
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Reaching Out For many decades after World War II, vigorous discourse on architecture and urbanism continued to take place in Western Europe, North America and Japan. In the underdeveloped local architectural scene, handicapped by postcolonial perspectives and inferior academic institutions, the calls for professionalism and design excellence went largely unheeded. Before the development of IT and email, the intellectual and professional isolation of those living in the developing world could not be easily compensated by overseas travel and occasional international conferences. It was under such circumstances that a group of idealistic young architects acted on the urgent need for a platform in Asia for regular discussions on design ideas and theories of urbanism. The Asian Planning and Architectural Collaboration (APAC) was formed in the late 1960s. It boasted such prominent members as: Tao Ho (Hong Kong), Charles Correa (India), Fumihiko Maki (Japan), Koichi Nagashima (Japan), Sumet Jumsai (Thailand) and myself. In 1980 a Japanese architectural magazine produced a special bilingual issue in recognition of the works of APAC members.148 At the same time, I was strongly convinced of the dire need for new design directions beyond the sterility and rigidity of modernism. This conviction was strengthened by a visit to Tokyo in the early 1970s where I witnessed many avantgarde projects in the post-Metabolist style. Many projects that I carried out during the next few years, including the Yeo Hiap Seng Factory (1981)149 and Unit 8 Apartments (1983)150 were experiments in breaking the rules of Modernism. Subsequently, design experiments based on fragmentation of elements were carried out with Mok Wei Wei after a joint visit to Frank Gehry in the early 1980s. One example was the Tampines North Community Centre (1989).'51 In the early 1990s another architect, Tang Guan Bee, continued with the design experimentation. Examples included Abelia at Ardmore Park (1992)152 and The Market Place (1994)153.
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L to R: Yeo Hiap Seng Factory (1981) - Design Partnership, Unit 8 Apartments (1983) -William Lim Associates, Tampines North Community Centre later renamed Pasir Ris South Community Center (1989) - William Lim Associates, Abelia at Ardmore Park (1992) - TANGGUANBEE Architects, The Market Place(1994) - TANGGUANBEE Architects
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support for the efforts of fostering international exchange and dialogue. In 1993 two architects, Giilsum BaydarNalbantodlu and Bobby Wong Chong Thai from the School of Architecture organised an international conference, "Architecture (Post)Modernity and Difference" to initiate the rethinking of "contemporary architectural and urban conditions in the postcolonial world" 154 . This was followed by "Theatres of Decolonisation: [Architecture] Agency [Urbanism]", held in Chandigarh, India in 1995. However, the direct impact of the conferences upon the academic community and the architectural profession in Singapore appeared minimal at that time. Nevertheless, the university continued to organise and participate in various international conferences. Developments in the artistic community mirrored the activities of the noncomplying minority in the field of architecture. Artists strove to maintain autonomy and present creative alternatives to government prescribed notions of identity, mindset and behaviour. From the late 1980s the government devoted greater resources to the arts through building arts venues, fostering arts education, as well as granting monetary support to selected arts groups. The government's instinctive reaction towards the emerging artistic community was to subject it under the dominion of politics and economics as it increasingly tried to harness the economic spin-off effect of arts and cultural activities by marketing Singapore as an Asian arts hub. Among all the arts, experimental theatre heralded by, among others, The Theatre Practice,155 The Necessary Stage,156 Theatreworks,157 as well as the more controversial The Third Stage158 rapidly emerged as the most effective means of reflecting society and its discontents. Other notable developments included the emergence of cutting age visual artists like Tang Da Wu159 and an independent arts centre, The Substation160. In 1984 Brother Joseph McNally single-handedly started a private arts-training institution, the LaSalle-SIA College for the Arts. Due to his self-sacrificing dedication, the school has endured to become the premier contemporary arts institution in Singapore.161
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In 1995 Rem Koolhaas wrote his famous piece, "Singapore Songlines: Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa": Almost all of Singapore is less than 30 years old; the city represents the ideological production of the past three decades in its pure form, uncontaminated by surviving contextual remnants. It is managed by a regime that has excluded accident and randomness: even its nature is entirely remade. It is pure intention: if there is chaos, it is authored chaos; if it is ugly, it is designed ugliness; if it is absurd, it is willed absurdity. Singapore represents a unique ecology of the contemporary}61 Contrary to what Rem Koolhaas suggests, tabula rasa in Singapore is not complete and the surviving remnants are culturally and spatially significant. Besides the Preservation of Monuments Board's shortlist of buildings under preservation,163 and over 5,600 conserved prewar shophouses scattered all over the island164, there are still numerous locations and sites of varied sizes with indefinable, evolving complexity, hybridity and territoriality, such as Geylang and Joo Chiat. I use the term "spaces of indeterminacy" to describe them.165 Geylang is a chaotic, rugged district teeming with traditional eateries, fruit sellers and other small businesses. Small budget hotels thrive amidst private and public residential estates. On the surface, Joo Chiat appears quieter and more gentrified. Establishments such as a wine cellar, an upmarket furniture shop as well as a disco have made their way into the traditional residential enclave of the Straits Chinese. In actual fact, Joo Chiat, with its numerous shophouses, some beautifully conserved, others dilapidated, has withstood rapid usage changes, and is characterised by mixed usage and fragmented spatial arrangements. In both Joo Chiat and Geylang, local residents, newly immigrant communities as well as prostitutes and the customers are equally visible on the rugged urbanscape. Spaces of indeterminacy are anchored in the postmodern; pluralistic, fuzzy and complex. These spaces are
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more than life; they are theatres with the potential to become effective instruments of contemporary intellectual, artistic, cultural and sociological discourses. Just as Fredric Jameson identified the convergence of fields such that "economics has come to overlap with culture"166, spaces of indeterminacy offer an opportunity to bridge spatial justice and cultural studies. They recall similar significant multidisciplinary work done in Leonie Sandercock's analysis of "memories, desires and spirits"167 and Edward Soja's "radical spatial justice" agenda.l68 In Singapore the creative activities of the non-complying minority and the energy generated in spaces of indeterminacy are essential catalytic substances towards the formation of a distinctive Singaporean culture and urban identity with its own peculiarities. They stand as firm attestations of the persistence of memories of spaces, of instances of people reclaiming the space they live in and of plural alternatives to Singapore's story of nation building that have all but been eradicated by tabula rasa. The Remaking of Singapore (1995-present) The Singapore Story is Lee Kuan Yew's personal interpretation of the history of a new nation.169 Lee has contributed immensely towards the making of modern Singapore and many are deeply impressed by his brilliant intellect and complete dedication towards the realisation of his dream and vision. Lee emphatically concluded in the epilogue to his book that "we stand a better chance of not failing if we abide by the basic principles that have helped us progress: social cohesion through sharing the benefits of progress, equal opportunities for all and meritocracy, with the best man or woman for the job, especially as leaders in government."170 However, the rapid development of IT and globalisation, together with the present pace of unprecedented changes in the values and lifestyles of the younger generation, necessitates the questioning everywhere of established norms of traditions and hierarchical, top-down modernity. It is thus imperative to accept differences and consider alternatives. Seeing as how culture has become integral to political life, Glenn
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Jordan and Chris Weedon argue in Cultural Politics: Class, Gender, Race and the Postmodern World that there is no singular truth. "Truths are discursive constructs which differ across histories and cultures, as well as between different interest groups within the same culture. Whoever has the power to define Truth in any society also has the power to define Others."171 Since the mid-1980s, both South Korea and Taiwan have seen the development of a strong democratic movement and the formation of an active, diverse and politically confrontational society. The developmental state model of authoritarian leadership with its legitimacy based on achieving rapid economic growth has to a large extent been substantially modified or demolished in these countries. Even in Hong Kong, NGOs' and grassroots' dissents have become increasingly more vocal and aggressive in the last ten years. Castells has convincingly argued that "the myth of social peace as a major component of the development process [of the four tiger economies] in East Asia [today] does not stand up to observation."172 Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan all began their development process with volatile social and political situations. Though segments of society were repressed, social movements surfaced again strongly and these countries were "able to keep growth and redistribution, together with democratic liberalisation, except in Singapore"173, where the firm grip of the government persists. According to Ross Worthington, the government effectively managed Singapore with the concept of a "core executive" and imposed Gramscian hegemony. Antonio Gramsci stipulated that a hegemonic group is one whose power is based not only on force, but also on justifications of its ideas in instruments of civil society, which are then negotiated to fit the subordinate classes' worldview.174 As a result, Singapore "has had one party rule and a semi-authoritarian regime for 40 years, but demonstrated long term sustained economic growth."175 Unlike the other three economies, the forging of the democratic process and active citizen participation in Singapore has been slow, notwithstanding some relaxation in control, since the early 1990s, on the activities of the NGOs. Simon Tay observed that the government's actions "do not point to any acceptance of the concept of a civil society opposed to the state. Nor do they suggest the role of civil society in enriching
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democracy."'76 Nevertheless, the Singapore economy continued to perform well and even managed to ride over the treacherous Asian financial crisis in 1997 with minimal apparent damages. Many countries, particularly Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia, plunged into political instability and serious economic crises. The Southeast Asian countries were all badly affected. After much pain and sacrifice, the badly affected countries have now made remarkable recovery. Furthermore, China's dynamic economy has become an important catalyst for countries in the East Asian region returning to the growth path. For Singapore, the poor economic conditions were further complicated and prolonged by the US recession, the collapse of the Wall Street tech bubble, the aftermath of September 11, and the impact of the SARS outbreak. When the protracted slump showed few signs of recovery, the PAP sprang into action. There gradually emerged an official sentiment that fundamental policy issues regarding Singapore society needed to be re-examined. It was also recognised that the consultation process needed to be broadened so as to garner a greater and more diverse pool of solutions for Singapore's problems. In 1999 Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong launched "Singapore 21", a vision of what Singaporeans want for the future of the nation.177 Two years of intensive discussions over the meanings of such intangibles as social cohesion, mutual responsibility and sense of belonging culminated in the Singapore 21 Report. The report states in earnest that: "We need to feel passionately that Singapore is where we identify with, where our roots are, where we feel is home."178 However, this attempt to tie together the identity of the nation with personal concepts of home and family can be a formidable task. This was the first of a series of attempts to strengthen community bonds in order that people stay committed to Singapore. Primarily motivated by economics, its purpose is to keep the republic relevant for the knowledge-based economy. On the economic front, the PAP prides itself as being quick to detect new trends and problems, and decisive in making imperative changes. Up to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Singapore has effectively responded to new and complex challenges in a proactive manner. However, global challenges and developments taking place in the region have proven to be even more intractable, requiring further efforts
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to remake Singapore. Many of the measures taken, such as the reduction of the employer's contribution to the employee's compulsory savings (or Central Provident Fund) as well as the increase in the Goods and Services Tax, are painful, particularly to the working population, and few countries could have introduced them without incurring serious social protests. The major restructuring of the banking and finance sectors within a highly compressed time period has since strengthened Singapore's position as a credible global financial centre. Recently, Lee Kuan Yew intervened directly in the complex challenges facing Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Changi 's airhub status. He stressed that it was essential for Singapore to protect and expand its connectivity and at stake was the entire Singapore economy. To quote Lee, "The government is prepared to lose its stakes in SIA but will do its all to keep the airhub status."179 To ensure the success of the airhub, the Singapore Tourism Board needs a major shake-up and a complete change of mindset. The profiles of tourists visiting Singapore are changing dramatically. They are now more likely to be young and middleclass Asians who are more willing to spend on food and shopping than expensive hotels.180 Many are also demanding a vibrant local cultural experience. Between the years 2002 and 2003, the government initiated two important studies in tandem: the Economic Review Committee Report181 and the Report of the Remaking Singapore Committee.182 The former indicated the economic challenges facing Singapore and made specific recommendations for major economic restructuring. It recognised that "Singapore cannot fall back on tried and tested strategies". It further stated that within the global context, "every country has to carve a niche for itself by excelling in some areas"183. The latter report sets forth two main objectives: to enhance national identity, cohesion and a sense of belonging, and to foster an environment conducive to creativity, knowledge, experimentalism and entrepreneurship. In spite of the government's vigorous efforts, national identity in Singapore has not been effectively internalised. With the Remaking Singapore exercise, this deep-seated anxiety over national identity once again surfaced. According to Stuart Hall:
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Identities are never unified and, in late modern times, increasingly fragmented and fractured, never singular but multiply constituted across different, often intersecting and antagonistic discourses, practices and positions ... subject to a radical historicisation and are constantly in the process of transformation ... They are more the product of marking of difference and exclusion than they are the sign of an identical, naturally constituted unity.184 Identity is always pluralistic, fluid and unstable. It is continuously constructed and reproduced by the collective imagination of the community. However, national identity formation in Singapore has tended to privilege official statism. Even though identity formulation has gone through different phases, adapting to time and circumstance, the fundamental understanding and approach towards identity is definitive. The state solely defines each stage of identity formation. For several decades, the global city has been a focal point for policy making in Singapore and this is again one of the pronounced goals of the Remaking Singapore exercise. In recent years, debates about network societies and global cities have come to the forefront of international theoretical discourse with prominent analyses by Manuel Castells and Saskia Sassen respectively. Singapore has welcomed the coming of the network societies and has already introduced many policies in this direction, within the context of the developmental state. Saskia Sassen stated in the epilogue of her revised Global CityXK that in the 1980s, the emergence of global cities could be detected "only dimly" and it was only in the 1990s that much of her formulation could be verified. She strongly asserted that the hierarchical dominance of leading global cities like New York, London and Tokyo had been eroded. "Key features of this rescaling entail an overriding of older categories for analysis and older hierarchies of scale."186 What is now emerging are cities possessing specialised global functions. Around each global function arises a global circuit of cities
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each effectively linked to the other though they may not necessarily be global cities. Examples include the financial trading centre in Singapore and the commodities centre in Kuala Lumpur. The global city represents a strategic space where there is a certain level of complexity in global city functions and where "global processes materialise in neutral territories and global dynamics run through national institutional arrangements."187 It is important to realise that present examples strongly indicate that it is more likely for the surrounding regions, rather than the city itself, to accommodate a large middle class and to gain substantial economic benefits. However, this will not apply to Singapore as the small city-state has to accommodate its entire population within its physical boundaries. Furthermore, a "focus on the global city will tend to bring to the fore the growing inequalities between highly provisioned and profoundly disadvantaged sectors and spaces of the city ... since part of the model posits precisely that new growth sectors are one factor promoting a trend towards growth of high and low income jobs."188 The government's ambition to develop Singapore into a city for the arts has received a renewed boost with the Remaking Singapore exercise. Together with the development of extensive infrastructure and substantial grants for the arts community, the government has actively promoted an image of openness and enlarged space for cultural and artistic expression. Regulations on a range of activities from gum chewing, bar top dancing, gay rights to performance arts have been relaxed in line with the government's promise to adopt a lighter touch in its regulatory approach. However, the initiative for changing and remaking Singapore remains a top-down and paternalistic exercise. Boundary markers in politics, mass media and censorship laws have remained. Furthermore, critics are concerned that the instrumentalist nature of government policies towards the arts has led to increased activities but also commodification and the "decline of artistic criticality, diversity and radicalism".l89
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Singapore. The government has repeatedly stressed the need to safeguard majority interests rather than adopt a more liberal attitude towards the media, public participation, the more vocal minority in the populace and the aspirations of the younger generation. There are many casualties of arts regulations and cultural policies in Singapore. A critically acclaimed film, 15, by local director Royston Tan, which explores harsh social problems and the plight of societal outcasts, faced viewing regulations as well as censorship190. Talaq, a play that deals with religion and ethnicity as well as the plight of women subjected to marital rape, was not granted a performance licence.191 Focas, a local journal dealing with contemporary arts and cultural discourse, faced implicit censorship when funding was abruptly withdrawn from a state agency.192 Dr Ruth Berenson, in a penetrating article on arts policy in Singapore, asserted that "the artist's struggle to remain an artist as well as a citizen can at times be conflictual."193 With arts development gaining momentum over the last decade, a wave of youthful, innovative and prolific writers, visual artists, musicians, theatre practitioners and movie makers has recently become prominent in the local, regional, and sometimes, international arts scene. An outstanding example is the international recognition for Ong Keng Sen's experimental, multicultural projects. m These developments provide for a vibrant local arts scene even if their artistic and aesthetic achievements are uneven and sometimes immature. I agree with Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that the present arts scene is a "far cry from being boring"195. The works of some artists interrogate the official version of the Singapore identity. Beginning from the films of Eric Khoo, one may discern a strong sense of subversion of official accounts of clean, harmonious and wealthy Singapore. These include Khoo's 12 Storeys'96, Royston Tan's 15m, as well as several short films by independent film makers. Wee Wan Ling's comments on local films shed light on the interaction between global forces and local cultural production:
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The localised Western-Hong Kong cinematic forms deployed to interrogate the local-global city we live in indicate an emerging double consciousness that may enable younger artists to think locally (in their coming to terms with an urban experience irrevocably reshaped by state interventionism) and to share a unique cultural nexus with the world without exchanging for a shallow universal currency.198 Similarly the literature of Alfian Sa'at and Daren Shiau199, like these local films, reveal the hidden, and sometimes dysfunctional and tragic side of marginalised Singaporeans. Alfian Sa'at's poem "Singapore, You Are Not My Country" strongly articulated his dissatisfaction with the way identity issues are being appropriated by state machinery.200 Local theatre groups like Wild Rice, helmed by internationally acclaimed director Ivan Heng, stage penetrating works with a strong emphasis on local political and social conditions201. Mandarin theatre company Drama Box for example staged The Vaginalogues,202 based on Eve Ensler's off-Broadway work. However, theirs was a totally different version, entirely re-written based on the experiences of local women and Chinese mythology. Some artists present critical alternative perspectives based on personal identities beyond what has been narrowly delineated by official sources. For example, the works of multidisciplinarian artists like Zai Kuning203 and Khairuddin Hori204 delve deep into their ethnic traditions and their search for the spiritual. Ultimately, all of these artists are shaped by and enriched by their urban, postmodern, as well as transcultural and transnational training and experiences. Through their art they negotiate the idea of a Singapore identity, which as a result becomes pluralistic and hybridised. At the same time, local artists constantly grapple with cultural and physical tabula rasa: to quote lecturer and poet Eddie Tay, "I am painfully aware that my poems are ... seeking to belong to Singapore yet not quite belonging."205
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the local arts scene as artists have become more adroit, experienced and sophisticated in circumventing blurring boundary markers. It seems unavoidable that the general climate of loosening up, even if now still symbolic, will continue to spread. However, artists are often engaged in an uphill struggle for funding, audience and local critical recognition, while continued state domination of cultural activities remains a crucial impeding factor for the local arts development. Even as "earlier proponents of statecreated passivity are now articulating a desire for 'messy' creativity, one that will be less conformist and that can fuel Singapore's ambition to be a hub of information technology"206, some like Tan Chong Kee are concerned that Singapore is moving towards a greater emphasis on commercial viability in arts production. Tan thus questions if artists "will be more successful in staking out spaces for critical engagement under global capitalism than under local authoritarianism"207. In order for the arts to truly flourish, it must be independent from political agenda. Kuo Pao Kun has pressed this point repeatedly, using Lu Xun's argument: "Lu Xun said that it is the nature of every political movement or party to hold on and perpetuate its rule; and it is in the nature of art to always pursue truth, even to the extent of incurring the hostility of the ruling powers."208 Owing to its single-minded commitment towards effective implementation of the developmental state, Singapore has since 1975 completely submitted to foreign dependency in architecture and urbanism. Its international architectural style in the image of New York's Wall Street illustrates Guy Debord's point that "what the spectacle expresses is the total practice of one particular economic and social formation", the "agenda" that is "also the historical moment by which we happen to be governed"209. For many creative local architects, the subsequent years were filled with wasted opportunities, incredibly devastating and demoralising. It was only from the mid 1990s, that the government belatedly recognised that it must develop and support a creative environment and a vibrant local art and architectural community in order to move towards a cosmopolitan Singapore.
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Nevertheless, two local architects, Tay Kheng Soon and myself, persevered to produce numerous non-mainstream and experimental projects and to dominate theoretical discourse for many decades. In 20021 handed my architectural practice to my partner Mok Wei Wei. Among my last major architectural projects were Marine Parade Community Centre (2000)210 and The Gallery Hotel (2001) with Tang Guan Bee211.1 continue to write and lecture on the culture of Asian cities in the context of postmodernity, glocality and social justice. Leonie Sandercock, in her commendation of my recent book Alternative Post(Modernity), identified me as one of Asia's foremost voices for a "radical postmodern urbanism"212. Tay has continued his architectural practice on a more modest scale. He spends more time teaching and has expanded his architectural design parameters from tropicality to include sustainability and ecology. He remains Singapore's most vocal public intellectual on architecture and the urban environment. According to Robert Powell, Tay recently stated it is "a smugness and lack of self-regard (of the Singapore government) that drives always towards a Western solution... How can a new architecture arise without faith in one's innate autonomous capability?"213 Other architects now in their 60s also deserve to be mentioned. Both Sonny Chan Sau Yan and Kerry Hill have continued with their serious practices, having survived those turbulent years. This is because most of their major projects are located in the Asian region beyond Singapore. Chan's recent projects include Number 32 Coronation Road West (2004). Hill's projects include the Singapore Cricket Association Pavilion (2000).214 Tang Guan Bee still works on his experimental projects. Examples include Urban Bridge Loft Housing and Mixed Commercial Complex, Hong Kong. While local creative architects in the private sector somewhat languished between 1975 and the mid-1990s, massive public improvement programmes became the dominant feature of Singapore's urban landscape. They were effectively implemented by numerous dedicated architects in the civil service. Liu Thai Ker was a key protagonist in Singapore's public housing and planning. He has often contended that Singapore now ranks as one of the best designed cities in the world.215 Today he is at the helm of RSP, a large private practice operating throughout Asia. He has held
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numerous statutory board positions over the years and is a trusted member of the inner circle of power. He continues to be the Chairman of the School of Design and Environment Advisory Committee which oversees and directs the policies of the National University of Singapore School of Architecture. Finally, he is also Chairman of the National Arts Council, which provides grants to as well as regulates and promotes the activities of the arts community. Recent adjustments to and relaxation of planning and building regulations, particularly those governing the design of condominium housing, have been made. To their credit, the younger local architects have, in response, generated new design solutions resulting often in additional financial benefits for the developers. However, during a presentation in a workshop, the late Professor Eric Lye, a famed critic and educationalist, critically commented: "This is no architecture. The projects all look alike—and are just clever facade manipulations."216 It was certainly a wake-up call for these architects. In recent years, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has adopted many new policies in response to the changing environment.217 Besides the Chairman, all board members, including Wong Mun Summ, a young architect from the private sector, were newly appointed in the year 2000. URA has organised many exhibitions to inform and obtain feedback from the public: the "Identity Plan: Keep Our Shared Memories" exhibition held between 2002 and 2003218 is significant as identity is now an officially recognised agenda. However, URA continues to rely on the Singapore Concept Plan (last revised in 2001 ),219 which is based on a pragmatic interpretation of early modernist planning theories. Cosmetic changes have been made to the city while the theoretical basis of planning and urbanism in Singapore remains untouched. The recent downtown expansion proposal in the Master Plan of 2003220 is a complete endorsement of the physical model plan of American-style late capitalism. It gives little consideration to the diverse impact of IT, network societies and the changing values, cultures and lifestyles of the younger generation. Its diagrammatic simplicity and rigidity stand in ironic contrast with official slogans of flexibility, creativity and of generating exciting cosmopolitan substances.
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By 1996 the Housing Development Board (HDB) had provided accommodation for 86% of Singaporeans, with 775,550 flat units.221 New Towns and estates are still being designed and built with highly regulated layout and internal plan arrangements. The lack of visual identity is a serious deficiency in the formulation of Singapore's national identity and cannot be easily overcome, even with extensive facade treatments. Home ownership, an exciting and appealing idea for older generations of Singaporeans can in fact become a financial burden and a restriction on job mobility for the young today. The effective maintenance of the clean, green and safe image of HDB housing may be less appealing than unplanned, unexpected spaces and chaotic messiness. Singles, the elderly and the handicapped may desire affordable housing within the larger community. Varied building heights and unregulated mixed usages interspersed with private housing and public facilities can establish distinct visual identity and encourage community bonding while reducing ethnic and income differences. By the end of the millennium, we can clearly see the emergence of a new generation of talented architects mainly in their 40s. With the urgency of remaking Singapore, conscious efforts have been made by the government to appoint some of them to serve on statutory boards and teach in the School of Architecture as well as to design many modest scale public projects. It is interesting to note that some major projects have recently been given to foreign architects based on their professional design ability rather than their corporate track records. Those awarded include Zaha Hadid: One-North Master Plan (2001),222 Will Alsop: Proposed Refurbishment and Partial Redevelopment of Clarke Quay (2002),223 Ken Yeang: The National Library of Singapore (2004),224 and Fumihiko Maki: Republic Polytechnic (2006).225 The near absence of serious design practice from older architects, other than those already mentioned earlier in the article, has facilitated the rapid rise and dominance of the younger generation. There are many talented architects in the younger generation. The following selection of architects and their works is not exhaustive. They are deliberately chosen to illustrate their varied design approaches and aspirations. They
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are: Aamer Taher: 42 Merryn Road (2001)226 and 20 Kheam Hock Road (2002).227 Ernesto Bedmar: Namly Road House (2002)228. Chan Soo Khian: Columbarium, Guangzhou (submission 2002).229 Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ: Church of St Mary of the Angels (2003 )230. Look Boon Gee: Alexandra Link (2007) and Bishan Community Library (2007).231 Mok Wei Wei: The Loft (2002) and The Arris Condominium (2004).232 Tan Hock Beng: United Medical Centre (2003)233 and House at Wiltshire Road (2004).234 Tan Kay Ngee: Burghley Drive, three houses (2004)235. Tan Kok Hiang: the Assyafah Mosque (2004)236. Teh Joo Heng: EISB Corporate HQ, Kuala Lumpur (2004) and 63 Emerald Hill (2004).237 This is a generation of young architects educated and skilled in sophisticated management and design skills. However, Bobby Wong highlighted that Singapore architecture, "dominated by a more mimetic structure and located in a geography far from the centres of cultural production", runs the danger of merely passively consuming the sign.238 A substantial number of local works freely appropriate aesthetic styles, fashionable practices, as well as icons both traditional and modern. Notwithstanding the recent commitment of politicians towards a knowledge-based economy and a creative environment, Tay Kheng Soon deplores the state of affairs where "old values are too embedded and success too smug. Architecture coasted along as though nothing changed"239. He further states that "the young architects are too timid. They have not even begun to take any significant initiatives in design... and they pattern their design attitudes after the models of the West, ignorant of the poetics of their own culture and locale."240 However, I submit that Tay's criticism is too harsh. Much creative energy can be seen in the projects outside the realm and imposition of commodification and bureaucratic rigidity. Examples include Mok Wei Wei's Morley Road House (1996)241 and Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ's Church of St Mary of the Angels (2003)242. The younger generation is now in the process of dramatically changing and challenging both the present limits in critical debate as well as the constraints in their conceptual designs and effective professional contribution to the community.
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However, what is glaringly missing in Singapore is an architectural culture firmly anchored in local peculiarities and specificity as well as in theoretical and academic discourse. The crucial role of academic training and discourse is highlighted by Bobby Wong in his assessment of the School ofArchitecture's studio sessions: "Studio allows one to experiment and explore the limits of architecture... I see these studio undertakings as attempts to maintain and perpetuate 'radicality' that was and is always inherent in the discipline of architecture."243 Two recent Singaporean graduates of leading overseas universities display such qualities in their work. Examples shown here include Christopher Chew's Edison School (2002) and Kevin Lim's Artificial Terrain (entry for a bridge design competition) (2004). Both professionals and policy makers need to be better informed and to actively support the development of a vibrant architectural culture in the context of a rapidly changing creative design environment and fast evolving new urban theories. The collective talents and energies of the committed must strive towards criteria that are beyond commercial success and mainstream recognition and they need to be proactively nurtured and supported. Cutting edge writing and creative analyses as well as research and investigative discourses, particularly about Singapore and the Asian region, are essential for achieving diversity, excellence, and critical connectivity between local and global, practice and theory, as well as pluralism and essentiality. Conclusion Attempts have been made in this essay to highlight events and historical circumstances that have been instrumental in moulding the idea of Singapore as well as the Singapore identity. The imperial agenda encroached on nearly all aspects of life in colonial Singapore and some of its influence can still be felt today. Eurocentric modernity was and still is an undeniable influence on both the political and spatial configuration in Singapore. The Singapore nation was born in a cusp of history where forces of colonialism, socialism, communism and capitalism clashed and coincided with
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momentous and sometimes explosive consequences. Chaotic as it may have been, this period ushered in a wave of creative energy, not least in the field of architecture. The arts and literature flourished just as a generation of charismatic and talented individuals took their place on the political stage. The system of governance that emerged harnessed for a time the great potential of this wave of creative energy, turning it into a formidable and united productive force.244 However, 1975 marked a turning point for Singapore, when it hitched its developmental future onto Americanled capitalism. The architectural and artistic communities were displaced to the periphery and critical discourse was suppressed. It is crucial to identify and analyse the problems and resistances that Rem Koolhaas neglected to address in his description of Singapore. What has been lost in the process of urban renewal and tabula rasa is irretrievable. However, at this point, recognising that even tabula rasa is not complete facilitates our move to the next step of discourse. Koolhaas dramatically presented Singapore to the Eurocentric West as "an apparent victim of an out-of-control process of modernisation"245 whose consequences the West has to live with but without any right to deplore. Koolhaas also characterised the development of China in a similar manner in his Mutations.2*6 I have challenged his analysis as a Western gaze caught in an image of a distorting mirror, which needs to be deflected for an alternative reading.247 Koolhaas' assertion that "at most, we are like dead parents deploring the mess our (non-Western) children have made of their inheritance"248 has led Wee Wan Ling to comment that Koolhaas ultimately only asserts that modernity and globalisation are still in the exclusive domain of the West.249 Singapore is not wholly homogeneous and hyperreal. According to Brenda Yeoh, "place" itself, not least in Singapore, "has a dual character, as a repository of elite or state power and as a site of individual and collective memory, struggle and resistance." As 1 have attempted to show with my study on spaces of indeterminacy, places "have a 'depth' which goes beyond the visible landscape: they contain layers of meaning derived from different biographies and histories."250 Furthermore, in the context of increasing homogenisation of culture and space within a world of globality
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and unprecedented changes, "belonging to place can therefore be understood as an aspect of territorialisation, and out of that belonging, a sense of identity may be forged."251 Neil Leach challenged the whole notion of identity as some fixed and stable condition: "Identities must be perceived in the plural, as multiple and often seemingly contradictory modes of personal expression."252 Thus, we cannot merely persist in the surface search for a national identity and belonging as perpetuated by the authorities; we cannot continue to subscribe blindly to each phase of remaking Singapore simply through branding. Singapore must urgently provide a much more dynamic and creative environment, encourage out-of-the-box thinking and artistic experimentation as well as accept critical, alternative intellectual discourse and provide spaces for public comments and participation. Currently, boundaries beyond formerly accepted norms are continuously being tested and expanded. However, the pace and limits of restructuring are undefined and have yet to be challenged by the public, particularly the younger generation. Local architects now have better opportunities to produce original innovative work, and to actively contribute towards Singapore's architectural manifestation and new directions in the evolving urban environment. Their intellectual energy must range beyond the restrictive boundaries of architecture and urbanism to include participating in the theoretical discourses of cultural studies, which have now recognised the essentiality of meaningful local inputs to achieve viable globalisation. Cultural theorists have also recognised, ahead of architects and planners, the interdependency of globality and its urban discontents, as well as the need to investigate the implications of grassroots globalisation and alternative postmodernity. This is in line with what Tay Kheng Soon termed as the "S2 design culture" of the new knowledge and innovation based economy where total effort is necessary and obsolete leadership is the impediment.253 We also need to listen carefully to voices from the younger generation. Let me quote a joint statement from Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ: "The future direction of Singapore architecture and urbanism in the coming years, like much in the future of Singapore, seems to hold both immense promise and a high likelihood of
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failing to reach that promise ... Allowing the island to become a design and research and publication hub for urban and architectural design in these fields will give it global relevance ... All that is lacking is vision and commitment."254 By examining and contextualising the life narratives and practices of the noncomplying minority, in terms of how these architects strategise their struggles for survival and maintain their intellectual vibrancy, we can be encouraged to visualise a viable alternative perspective of the development of architecture and urbanism in Singapore.255 This is in line with and draws inspiration from Leon van Schaik's analyses and theories. According to him, an open contestation between poles of creative forces within the city region would generate a "vigorous local architectural culture", giving rise to "a newly distinctive Singapore identity—removed from empty symbols of nostalgia—that would win the attention of the creative talent that the city now seeks desperately to attract, even if only by appealing to its own expatriates to return."255 It is only through committed entanglements and contestations across many difficult terrains that arenas will be generated in which to help shape and multiply meanings in the complexities of architecture and the urbanscape. The challenge is whether architecture and urbanism, as well as the arts, in Singapore can be redefined in this new millennium beyond the constricted perimeters of Western-centric modernism. The reality of tabula rasa must be acknowledged and the anxiety of such a recognition transcended in order to ensure the blossoming of a vibrant and creative local culture within the context of new, complex and evolving identities and dynamic cultural pluralism.
Architecture Art Identity in Singapore
William Lim Associates
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202 Notes 1 Yeo Wei Wei, "City as Theatre: Singapore, State of Distraction" in Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities and Global Processes, eds., Ryan Bishop, John Phillips and Yeo Wei Wei (New York: Routledge, 2003), 250. 2 See Rem Koolhaas, "Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis ... or Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa" in S, M, L, XL, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1995), 1008-1089. 3 See Yeo, "City as Theatre: Singapore, State of Distraction", 245-265. 4 Peter Schoppert, "Displacing Singapore" in Singapore: Views on the Urban Landscape, Lucas Jodogne (Belgium: Pandora, 1998), 98. 5 Lai Ah Eng, "Introduction: Beyond Rituals and Riots" in Beyond Rituals and Riots: Ethnic Pluralism and Social Cohesion in Singapore, ed., Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004), 1. 6 Presently, exhumation works are being carried out in Bidadari Cemetery along Upper Serangoon Road. Opened for burials in 1907 and closed in 1972, the cemetery is the burial place of many of Singapore's important historical figures. It is also a sanctuary for joggers and a nature-lover's haunt. SeeAlexa Olesen, "Singapore Clears Grave for Apartments" in AP Report (12 May 2002). See also Kevin Y LTan, ed., Spaces for the Dead: A Case from the Living (Singapore: Singapore Heritage Society, forthcoming). 7 Lau Siew Mei, Playing Madame Mao (New South Wales: Brandl and Schlesinger Pty Ltd, 2000), 197. 8 Jane Beamish and Jane Ferguson, A History of Singapore Architecture: The Making of a City (Singapore: Graham Brash Pte Ltd, 1985). See pages 27, 64, 82, 92. 9 Arthur Yap, "There is No Future for Nostalgia" in The Space for City Trees: Selected Poems (London: Skoob Books Ltd, 2000), 59. 10 Raymond Flower, Raffles: The Story of Singapore (Kuala Lumpur: Eastern University Press Sdn Bhd, 1984), 5-6. 11 Neil Leach, "Belonging" in AA Files 49 (2003):76. 12 Sanjay Krishnan, "What Makes Art Possible: Remembering Forum Theatre," in Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore Theatre (Singapore: Times Editions, 2004), 103-104. 13 Alfian Sa'at, email correspondence with author, 24 April 2004. 14 William Lim, "Ethical Urbanism", article to be published in 32: New York/Beijing 4 (Summer 2004). 15 Edward W Soja, "Writing the City Spatially" in City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 7.3 (November 2003): 271. 16 Ibid., 272. 17 Ibid., 275. 18 John N Miksicand Cheryl-Ann Low Mei Gek, eds., Early Singapore 1300-1819 (Singapore: Singapore History Museum, 2004). 19 See Constance M Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1819-1975 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977), 4-5. 20 See Emma Reisz, "City as Garden: Shared Space in the Urban Botanic Gardens of Singapore and Malaysia, 1786-2000" in Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities and Global Processes, eds., Ryan Bishop, John Phillips and Yeo Wei Wei (New York: Routledge, 2003), 123-150. 21 See Beamish and Ferguson, A History of Singapore Architecture, 47-65. 22 See Robert Powell, Singapore Architecture: A Short History (Hong Kong: Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd, 2004), 19.
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23 Ibid., 22-23. 24 Ibid., 24. 25 Ibid., 26. 26 Ibid., 33. 27 Ibid., 34. 28 Ibid., 48. 29 Brenda S A Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment in Colonial Singapore (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1996), 16. 30 Ibid., 67. 31 See Gretchen Liu, Pastel Portraits: Singapore's Architectural Heritage (Singapore: Singapore Coordinating Committee, 1984), 99-105.
32 Ibid., 39-46. 33 Ibid., 26-33. 34 See Powell, Singapore Architecture, 74-75. 35 See Beamish and Ferguson, A History of Singapore Architecture, 143. 36 One of the most traumatic event was the Sook Ching where numerous young Chinese men were indiscriminately shot as an exercise of intimidation and terror. Till today, this remains for many an unforgettable and for some an unforgivable event. "The estimate [by the locals] is that some 50,000 people were purged in this exercise alone." See Lee Geok Boi, Syonan Singapore Under the Japanese, 1942-1945 (Singapore: Singapore Heritage Society, 1992), 52. 37 Powell, Singapore Architecture, 85. 38 Ibid.,86. 39 Singapore Improvement Trust, Master Plan: Report of Survey (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1955). The 1958 Master Plan was actually completed and published in 1955 but it is referred to as the 1958 Master Plan in accordance with the year of its official adoption. 40 Charles Abrams, Susumi Kobe and Otto Koenigberger, "Growth and Urban Renewal in Singapore, Report prepared for the Government of Singapore", Report of the expert mission appointed under the United Nations Programme of Technical Assistance, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 1963. 41 SeeTurnbull, A History of Singapore, 247-248. 42 Ibid., 248-250. 43 Ibid., 250. 44 Ibid., 259. 45 Wong Ting Hong, Hegemonies Compared: State Formation and Chinese School Politics in Postwar Singapore and Hong Kong (New York: Routledge Falmer, 2002), 191. 46 Ibid., 191. 47 Singapore Malays felt increasing disappointment that the merger failed to bring about the same privileges accorded to Malays in the peninsula. One manifestation of communalist violence at that time was the Prophet Mohammed Birthday Riots of 1964. SeeTumbull,/\ History of Singapore, 291. 48 Singapore Department of Statistics, Economic and Social Statistics Singapore 1960-1982 (Singapore: Department of Statistics, 1983), 7.
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49 Ibid., 4. 50 Singapore Department of Statistics, Key Statistics: Latest Indicators (Singapore: Singapore Department of Statistics, 2003), . 51 Singapore Department of Statistics, Singapore 1965-1995 Statistical Highlights, A Review of 30 Years of Development (Singapore: Department of Statistics, 1996), 3. 52 Chan Heng Chee, Singapore: The Politics of Survival 1965-67 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1971), 48. 53 Kevin Tan, Introduction in Lee's Lieutenants: Singapore's Old Guard, eds., Lam Peng Er and Kevin Y L Tan (New South Wales: Allen and Unwin, 1999), xiii. 54 See James Minchin, Wo Man is an Island: A Portrait of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew (New South Wales: Allen and Unwin, 1986). 55 Extract from S Rajaratnam, National Pledge of Singapore (Singapore, 1966). 56 See Eugene Tan, "'We the Citizens of Singapore ...': Multiethnicity, its Evolution and its Aberrations" in Beyond Rituals and Riots: Ethnic Pluralism and Social Cohesion in Singapore, ed, Lai Ah Eng (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004), 65-97. 57 See Wong, Hegemonies Compared, 187-195. 58 See Turnbull, A History of Singapore, 322. 59 In 1978 the Nanyang University Council announced that it had accepted the Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's suggestion to merge the University of Singapore with Nanyang University to form the National University of Singapore. See Choi Kwai Keong and Kee Poo Kong, A Pictorial History of Nantah (Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre, 2000), 33. 60 The study of Chinese language (Mandarin) and Chinese culture in elite schools and universities would later on be redeemed and promoted within the framework of the government's cultural-political agenda. 61 Seet Khiam Keong, "The Write Stuff: The Development of Singapore Literature in English" in Laporan Negara, article archive, 2001, . 62 Ibid. Edwin Thumboo's poetry volumes include Gods Can Die (Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia), 1977), Ulysses by the Merlion (Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books, 1979) and A Third Map: New and Selected Poems (Singapore: UniPress, 1993). 63 See Robert Yeo, "Dots and a Line: Continuities and Discontinuities in Singaporean Theatre" in Singapore Book World23 (1993/1994): 35-38. 64Goh Poh Seng, Editorial, Tumasek 1 (January 1964):5. 65 Yeo, "Dots and a Line", 35. 66 Ibid., 36-37. 67 See Huang Meng Wen and Xu Nai Xiang, Xin Jia Po Hua Wen WenXue Shi Chu Gao (Xin Jia Po: Xin Jia Po Guo Li Da Xue Zhong Wen Xi, Ba Fang Wen Hua Qi Ye Gong Si, 2002). 68 See Yang Bi Shan, "Xin Jia PoXi Ju Shi Lun" (Masters thesis, National University of Singapore, 1992). 69 Sanjay Krishnan, "Between Two Worlds: An Interview with Kuo Pao Kun" in Nine Lives: Ten Years of Singapore Theatre, 1987-1997, ed., Krishnan Sanjay (Singapore: The Necessary Stage, 1997), 132. 70 See William S W Lim, "A Tale of the Unexpected—The Singapore Housing Experience" in Cities for People: Reflections of a Southeast Asian Architect (Singapore: Select Books Pte Ltd, 1990), 190-202. 71 The National Theatre was completed in 1963 to provide for multi-cultural performances as well as ballet and orchestral music. For twenty years until it was demolished in 1986, the theatre was the largest in Singapore with 3490 seats under the cantilevered roof, and provision for seating on the sloping lawn for an
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additional 10,000. Reports in the media pointed to structural problems whereas the building had to make way for the constructon of two underground tunnels. In 1983, private engineering consultants Ove Amp's report to the National Theatre Trust pointed to no major problems as regards to the steel structure itself, but recommended regular checks and maintenance. See also Bay Joo Hwa Phillip, Ang Choon Kiat and Peter Chen, eds., Contemporary Singapore Architecture (Singapore: Singapore Institute of Architects 1998), 38. 72 Robert Powell, Innovative Architecture of Singapore (Singapore: Select Books Pte Ltd, 1989), 20. 73 Powell, Innovative Architecture, 21. 74 Powell, Singapore Architecture, 90-91. 75 Ibid., 96. 76 Bay, Ang and Chen, eds., Contemporary Singapore Architecture, 64. 77 Ibid., 59. 78 Ibid., 39. 79 Ibid., 42. 80 Ibid., 43. 81 Ibid., 94. 82 Ibid., 63. 83 Udo Kultermann, Achitekten der Dritten Welt: Bauen zwischen Tradition und Neubeggin (Koln: DuMont Buchverlag, 1980), 149-156. See also Udo Kultermann, 30 Years After: The Future of the Past (Budapest: Epiteszet es Muveszet Keves Studio Galeria, 2002), 106-111. 84 See Robert Powell, Innovative Architecture, 21, 23. 85 See Singapore Planning and Research Group, SPUR 65-67 (1969):1-3. 86 See William Lim, "A Case for a Mass Rapid Transit System in Singapore," Equity and Urban Environment in the Third World (DP Consultant Service Pte Ltd, 1975), 107-117. This article was published in the Singapore Herald (24 December 1970). 87 See Singapore Planning and Research Group SPUR 68-71 (1971 ):11-12. 88 Robert Powell, "Inciting Rebellion" in No Limits: Articulating William Lim (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2002), 27. 89 People's Action Party, The Tasks Ahead: PAP'S Five Year Plans, 1959-1964 (Singapore: People's Action Party, 1959). 90 See Kwa Chong Guan, "Relating to the World: Images, Metaphors, and Analogies" in Singapore in the New Millennium: Challenges Facing the City State, ed., Derek Cunha (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), 108-132. 91 Park Keuho, "The Vietnam War and the 'Miracle of East Asia'" in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4.3 (December 2003): 372-397. 92 Singapore Department of Statistics, Singapore 1965-1995 Statistical Highlights, A Review of 30 Years of Development, 3. 93 Ibid. 94 Lily Kong, Martin Perry and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental City State (New York: Wiley, 1997), 6.
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95 Frederic C Deyo, "The Emergence of Bureaucratic Authoritarian Corporatism in Labour Relations" in Understanding Singapore Society, eds., Ong Jin Hui, Tong Chee Kiong and Tan Ern Ser (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1997), 353-362. 96 Chan, Singapore: The Politics of Survival, 306. 97 Francis Seow, The Media Enthralled: Singapore Revisited (Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc, 1998), 112-113. 98 Quah Sy Ren, "Form as Ideology: Representing the Multicultural in Singapore Theatre" in Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore Theatre (Singapore: Times Editions, 2004), 34. For an account of the events of 1976, see also William Peterson, Theatre and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Singapore (Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2001), 34-39. 99 Manuel Castells, The Rise ofthe Network Society, vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Societyand Culture (Oxford and Maiden: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 182. 100 Kong, Perry and Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental City State, 7. 101 Manuel Castells, End of Millennium, vol. 3 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford and Maiden: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 249. 102 Lai, "Introduction: Beyond Rituals and Riots", 7. 103 See Sharon Siddique, "Singaporean Identity" in Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, eds., Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), 563-577. 104 In an interview with Foreign Affairs, Lee Kuan Yew identified such Asian cultural characteristics as group orientation, family ties, emphasis on consensus, education and saving as having underscored political safety and economic development. Confucianism was also characterised as the underlay to these values. See Zakaria Fareed, "Culture is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew" in Foreign Affairs 73.2 (1994): 109-126. 105 The five Shared Values are: "Nation before community and society above self, family as the basic unit of society, regard and community support for the individual, consensus instead of contention and racial and religious harmony". See Singapore Parliament, White Paper on Shared Values (Singapore: Government of Singapore, 1991), 10. 106 See Kuo Pao Kun, "Contemplating an Open Culture: Transcending Multiracialism" in Singapore: Reengineering Success, eds., Arun Mahizhnan and Lee Tsao Yuan (Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies/ Oxford University Press, 1998), 50-61. 107 Arnold Toynbee, Cities on the Move (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 55. 108 See Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, "Singapore: Global City", address to the Singapore Press Club, 1972, in The Prophetic and the Political: Selected Speeches and Writings of S Rajaratnam (Singapore: Graham Brash, 1987). 109 See Kwa, "Relating to the World". 110 See Robert E Gamer, The Politics of Urban Development in Singapore (London: Cornell University Press, 1972). 111 These ethics were based on the Athens Charter that stemmed from the 4th Congress of the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in 1933. The charter, only published later in 1943, dealt with what was considered the four primary functions of the city: dwelling, recreation, work and transportation. 112 Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 319, 113 William S W Lim, "Modernity of the Other" in Alternatives in Transition (Singapore- Select Publishing PteLtd, 2001), 34-49.
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114 See Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London- Routledge 1995), 7, 31-35, 184-202. 115 Powell, Singapore Architecture, 93. 116 Tay Kheng Soon, "Architecture and National Identity" in Line Edge and Shade: the Search for a Design Language in Tropical Asia (Singapore: Page One Publishing Pte Ltd, 1997), 145-146. 117 Lee Kip Lin, TelokAyer Market: A Historical Account of the Market from the Founding of the Settlement of Singapore to the Present Time (Singapore: Archives & Oral History Department, 1983). 118 Lee Kip Lin, Emerald Hill—The Story of a Street in Words and Pictures (Singapore: National Museum 1984). 119 Lee Kip Lin, The Singapore House 1819-1942 (Singapore: Times Editions, 1988). 120 Sharon Siddique and Nirmala Purushotam, Singapore's Little India: Past, Present and Future (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1982). 121 See William Lim, "Contemporary Culture + Heritage = Localism" in Asian New Urbanism (Singapore: Select Books Pte Ltd, 1998), 82-91, and "Urban Conservation", 120-127, in the same publication. 122 Much support was received from individuals including the late Peter Keys, an Australian architect staying in Singapore and Pamelia Lee, an officer from the Singapore Tourism Board. 123 Carl G Larson, "Adaptive Reuse: Singapore River" in MIMAR Architecture in Development 12 (1984). 124 William Lim, "Conservation: An Instrument of Commodification or an Urban Instrument to preserve Memories" in Alternatives in Transition (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2001), 94. 125 Larson, "Adaptive Reuse: Singapore River". 126 The international seminar on Adaptive Reuse of Old Buildings was jointly organised by the Singapore Coordinating Committee and held in Singapore from 28 April 28 to 2 May 1984. 127 Liu Thai Ker was the Chief Executive Officer of Housing Development Board (HDB) between 1979 and 1989. 128 Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, "Foreword" in Pastel Portraits: Singapore's Architectural Heritage, Gretchen Liu (Singapore: Singapore Coordinating Committee, 1984), 4. 129 Robert Powell, Living Legacy: Singapore's Architectural Heritage Renewed (Singapore: Singapore Heritage Society, 1994). 130 See Robert Powell, "Emerald Hill" in Living Legacy, 30-47, and "Boat Quay", 48-63 in the same publication. 131 See Singapore Preservation of Monuments Board, Objectives, Principles and Standards for Preservation and Conservation (Singapore: Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority and Preservation of Monuments Board, 1993). 132 See Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority, "Our Built Heritage", . 133 Lim, "Urban Conservation", 127. 134 See Alvin Tan Peng Hong, "Two Imaginings: The Past in Present Singapore" in Our Place in Time: Exploring Heritage and Memory in Singapore, eds., Kwok Kian Woon ef al. (Singapore: Singapore Heritage Society, 1999), 111-128. 135 MIMAR Architecture in Development 1 (1981).
208 [ 136 Kenneth Frampton, "Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance" in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed., Hal Foster (Port Townsend, Washington: Bay Press, 1983), 16-28. 137 Alan Colquhoun, "The Concept of Regionalism," in Postcolonial Space(s), eds. Gulsum Baydar Nalbantodlu and Wong Chong Thai (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997), 22. 138 See William Lim, "Contemporary Vernacular" in Alternative (Post)modernity: An Asian Perspective (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2003), 127-135. 139 Heinz Paetzold, "Post-Functionalist Urbanism, the Postmodern and Singapore" in Beyond Description: Singapore Space Historicity, eds., Ryan Bishop, John Phillips and Yeo Wei Wei (London: Routledge, 2004), 160. 140 See William Lim and Tan Hock Beng, Contemporary Vernacular: Evoking Traditions in Asian Architecture (Singapore: Select Books Pte Ltd, 1998). 141 The workshop: "Contemporary Vernacular: Modernising Architectural Traditions" was jointly organised by AA Asia and the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, and was held from 27 to 30 September 1997. 142 Christopher Chew Chee Wai, ed., Contemporary Vernacular: Conceptions and Perceptions, AA Asia Monograph One (Singapore: AAAsia, 1998). 143 Tay Kheng Soon, "The Architectural Aesthetics of Tropicality" in Line Edge and Shade: the Search for a Design Language in Tropical Asia, Robert Powell and Akitek Tenggara (Singapore: Page One Publishing Pte Ltd, 1997), 45. 144 Powell and Akitek Tenggara, Line Edge and Shade, 62. 145 Ibid., 70. 146 See Tay Kheng Soon, "Neo-Tropicality or Neo Colonialism" in Singapore Architect 211 (2001 ):23. See also Chan Soo Khian and Tay Kheng Soon, "Who is Afraid of the Neo-Tropical? Asks Chan Soo Khian, Tay Kheng Soon Replies" in Singapore Architect 212 (2001):23-25. 147 Abidin Kusno, "Spectre of Comparisons" in Behind the Postcolonial: Architecture, Urban Space and Political Cultures in Indonesia (London: Routledge, 2000), 201. 148 Process: Architecture 20 (November 1980), Special Issue, Contemporary Asian Architecture: Works of APAC Members. 149 Ibid., 26-27. 150 Powell, Innovative Architecture of Singapore, 84-87. 151 Ibid., 36-39. 152 Robert Powell, Architecture of a Global City (Singapore: Archipelago Press, 2000), 72-73. 153 Ibid., 198-199. 154 Gulsum Baydar NalbantoSlu and Wong Chong Thai, "Introduction" in Postcolonial Space(s), eds., Gulsum Baydar Nalbanto6lu and Wong Chong Thai (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997), 12. 155 The Theatre Practice, Singapore's first bilingual theatre company was founded by Kuo Pao Kun in 1986. The company focuses on multicultural exploration and bilingual interpretations of classics. Its works express the intense struggle between tradition and modernity and continually assert local identity while providing ready access to influences of global culture. Kuo's seminal plays include Mama Looking for Her Cat, The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole and Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral. See . 156 The Necessary Stage was formed in 1987, and has since been under the artistic direction of Alvin Tan and Haresh Sharma. The company has consistently lived up to its mission of creating challenging indigenous
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and innovative theatre that touches the heart and mind, with plays like Lanterns Never Go Out, and its Theatre for Youth and Community programs, as well as its annual M1 Youth Connection Theatre Festival. It is also committed to developing new works, platforming new artists and reaching out to new audiences, while maintaining high standards of production. See . See also Tisa Ng and Tan Chong Kee, eds., Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore Theatre (Singapore: Times Editions, 2004). 157 TheatreWorks, established in 1985, is an international performance company based in Singapore. Its works reflect a concern with cultural negotiation and artistic exchanges with artists, through a network of traditional and contemporary artists from different disciplines; Recent projects include The Continuum Asia Project (2003) and The Global Soul (2003). It also initiated Arts Network Asia in September 1999, comprising a group of independent artists and arts activists primarily from Southeast Asia, that encourages and supports regional artistic collaboration as well as develops managerial and administrative skills in the creative arts of Asia. See: . 158 The Third Stage was an English language social and political theatre group, which had put up such politically critical plays as Corabella and Esperanza. In 1987, members of The Third Stage were arrested and detained under the Internal Security Act for an alleged Marxist conspiracy. Upon their release, the group tried to continue staging productions but later disbanded under the pressure and stigma of state detention. See Terence Chong, "Mediating the Liberalisation of Singapore Theatre: Towards a Bourdieusian Analysis" in Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore Theatre, eds., Tisa Ng and Tan Chong Kee (Singapore: Times Editions, 2004). 159 Performance artist Tang Da Wu is a Fukuoka cultural prize recipient known for his installation piece Tiger's Whip. A highly influential artist, he has mentored many generations of visual and performance artists. In 1987 Tang led a group of younger artists to establish The Artists' Village in one of the then few remaining rural areas in Singapore. "TAV was a dynamo in fostering alterity in Singapore as the artists lived, worked and exhibited together in a close community." See Kwok Kian Chow, "Tang Da Wu, The Artists' Village" in Channels and Confluences: A History of Singapore Art (Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 1996), 141-150. See also The Artists' Village website . 160 The Substation was founded in 1990 by Kuo Pao Kun. It is a non-profit arts centre with the mission to nurture and challenge Singapore artists, provide an open space for artistic experimentation, promote interaction between diverse artists and audiences, facilitate critical dialogue in the arts, and foster regional and international arts networks. See < http://www.substation.org >. 161 See Brother Vincent Corkery, Brother Joseph McNally fsc: A Brief Sketch (Ipoh: La Salle Centre, St Michael's Institution, nd.). 162 Koolhaas, "Singapore Songlines", 1011. 163 41 buildings are listed on the List of Monuments under the Preservation of Monuments Act as at 19 March 1999. See: . 164 Chan Yew Lih, "Change and Continuity of Historic Districts: Lessons from the Conservation of Shophouses in Singapore". Paper delivered at International Conference on Sustainable and Humane Cities, Manila, 2000. 165 William S W Lim, "Spaces of Indeterminacy" in Alternative (Post)modernity: An Asian Perspective (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2003), 11-18. 166 Michael Hardt and Kathi Weeks, eds., The Jameson Reader (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 10-11. 167 Leonie Sandercock, Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities (West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, 1998), 207-214. 168 See Edward W Soja, Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 407-415.
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169 See Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings and Times Editions, 1998) and Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to the First, The Singapore Story: 1965-2000 (Singapore: Times Media Pte Ltd, 2000). 170 Lee, From Third World to the First, 763. 171 Glenn Jordan and Chris Weedon, Cultural Politics: Class, Gender, Race and the Postmodern World (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 545. 172 Castells, End of Millennium, 266. 173 Ibid. 174 See Chantal Mouffe, "Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci" in Gramsci and Marxist Theory, ed., Chantal Mouffe (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 179-181. 175 Ross Worthington, Governance in Singapore (London: Routledge and Curzon, 2003), 247-249. 176 Simon Tay, "The Future of Civil Society: What Next?" in Singapore in the New Millennium: Challenges Facing the City State, ed., Derek Cunha (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), 80. 177 Singapore 21 Committee, Singapore 21: Together We Make the Difference (Singapore: Singapore 21 Committee, 1999), 13. The Singapore 21 Committee chaired by Rear-Admiral Teo Chee Hean was set up in 1997. 178 Ibid. 179 "SM: We'll Meet Competition on SIA and Changi Head-on" in The Straits Times (6 April 2004), 1. 180 See Singapore Tourism Board, Annual Report on Tourism Statistics (Singapore: Singapore Tourism Board, 2001). The report's analysis on visitor profiles showed a growing Southeast Asian and Chinese market. See pages 2-3 of report. The average age of visitors from the Asian region was between 35 and 36. The bulk of their expenditure (ranging between 37%-67%) was spent on shopping. See page 39 of report. 181 Singapore Economic Review Committee, New Challenges, Fresh Goals: Towards a Dynamic Global City (Singapore: Economic Review Committee, 2003). The Economic Review Committee chaired by Lee Hsien Loong was set up in 2001. 182 Singapore Remaking Singapore Committee, Changing Mindsets, Deepening Relationships (Singapore: Remaking Singapore Committee, 2003). The Remaking Singapore Committee chaired by Vivian Balakrishnan was set up in 2002. 183 New Challenges, Fresh Goals, 4. 184 Stuart Hall, "Who Needs 'Identity'?" in Identity: A Reader, eds., Paul du Gay, Jessica Evans and Peter Redman (London: Sage, 2000), 17. 185 Saskia Sassen, "Epilogue" in Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 2nd edition ("Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 345-363. 186 Sassen, "Epilogue", 345. 187 Ibid., 347. 188 Ibid., 353, 362. 189 Wee Wan Ling, "Creating High Culture in the Globalised 'Cultural Desert' of Singapore" in The Drama Review (TDR) ATA (Winter 2003):88. 190 15 or Shi Wu (2003) written and directed by Royston Tan has been selected for various film festivals around the world including the prestigious Venice Film Festival. See Bryan Walsh, "Street Survivors" in Time Asia 162 (September 2003), .
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191 Talaq, meaning divorce in Malay, was a play put up by the Tamil theatre company Agni Kootthu (Theatre of Fire) on marital rape and violence suffered by Indian Muslim women. After a successful Tamil debut in 1998, its application for a performance licence was denied when its producers decided to stage it in Malay and English in 1999. See Liew Khai Khiun, "Between Sensationalism and Information: Talaq and the Media" in FOCAS: Forum on Contemporary Art and Society 1.1 (January 2001). 192 The article at the centre of the controversy was: Lucy Davis, "State of Censorship: Singapore Post-CRC 3" in FOCAS: Forum on Contemporary Art and Society 5 (2004):295-319. 193 Ruth Berenson, "Renaissance or Regurgitation? Arts Policy in Singapore 1957-2003" in Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management 1.1 (December 2003):1-14. 194 Ong Keng Sen is the Artistic Director of TheatreWorks, see note 124. 195 Lee Hsien Loong, "Financial Centres Today and Tomorrow: A Singapore Perspective", luncheon address at International Monetary Conference, 4 June 2001, National Archives of Singapore, SpeechText Archival and Retrieval System, . 196 12 Storeys (Director: Eric Khoo, 1997). 197 See note 190. 198 Wee Wan Ling, "Beyond the 'Potemkin Metropolis': Creating and Filming the Homogenised Singapore Urban Environment" in Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 3.2 (Autumn/Winter 2001 ):210. 199 Daren Shiau, Heartland (Singapore: SNP Editions Ltd, 1999). In 1999 Shiau's debut novel Heartland won the Singapore Literature Prize Commendation and was voted one of the best fiction reads of the year by The Straits Times in 1999. In 2000 Shiau won the Tangerine Award for short fiction, and also published a collection of poems, Peninsula. 200 Alfian Sa'at, "Singapore, You Are Not My Country" in One Fierce Hour (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1998), 37—41. Alfian Sa'at is a bilingual writer who has won multiple awards. He has published two collections of poetry and a collection of short stories. Several of his plays have been staged locally. 201 Wild Rice is a professional theatre company founded by Ivan Heng in 2000. The company takes its inspiration from the multicultural societies that make up modern Asia, celebrating their diverse cultures and performance styles and bringing them together in creative collaborations that inspire, challenge and entertain. Notable performances include Animal Farm (2002, 2003, 2004) and Landmarks: Asian Boys Volume 2 (2004). See . 202 Drama Box, helmed by artistic director Kok Heng Leun was established in 1990 as a non-profit company. Since then, it has gained a respectable reputation for its acute sensitivity and perception in heightening social awareness and civil responsibility. The Mandarin production of The Vaginalogues or Yin Dao Du Bai, conceived, written and performed by Li Xie, was staged in 2000 and restaged in 2003. See < http:// www.dramabox.org >. 203 Zai Kuning is a multidisciplinary artist, and an active member of The Artists Village. His recent projects and exhibitions include Noalibi (2001) and A Tree in a Room (2004). See Chow Kim Nam, "Placing Zai: Seeing Kuning Through the Eyes of Chow Kim Nam" in Postmodern Singapore, ed., William S W Lim (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2002), 118-131. 204 Khairuddin Hori is a theatre director, performer, installation artist and painter, and Associate Artist of The Substation since 2002. His projects include Die Faustus Die! (2001) and 45 Armenian (2004), a solo exhibition evolved from Play Boy (2003), a six-month collaborative art project that he initiated and conceptualised with two Indonesian artists in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. See the artist's website . 205 Eddie Tay, "Writing Out of Place", Ethos Books, Writing Resources: Articles on Singapore Literature, .
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206 See Wee, "Beyond the 'Potemkin Metropolis': Creating and Filming the Homogenised Singapore Urban Environment", 211. 207 Tan Chong Kee, "Introduction" in Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore Theatre, eds., Tan Chong Kee and Tisa Ng (Singapore: Times Editions, 2004), xv. 208 Krishnan, "Between Two Worlds", 132-133. 209 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, 5th printing, trans., Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books, 1994), 15. 210 Powell, Singapore Architecture, 131. 211 Powell, Singapore Architecture, 129. 212 Leonie Sandercock, "Commendations" in Alternative (Post)Modernity: An Asian Perspective (Singapore: Select Publishing Pte Ltd, 2003), vi. 213 Robert Powell email correspondence with Tay Kheng Soon, quoted in "Three Singapore Master Architects 1959-2004" in Dialogue: Architecture + Design + Culture Magazine 78 (March 2004): 102-111. 214 See Robert Powell, Architecture Australia (May/June 2000):49-51. 215 Powell, "Three Singapore Master Architects 1959-2004", 102-111. 216 See Robert Powell, ed., AA Asia Monographs: Fragments of a Journey (No. 3) (Singapore: AA Asia, 2001), 77-84. Eric Lye's comments were made after a slide presentation by Singapore architects on 7 March 2000, during a group trip of AA Asia to Yatra, India. 217 See Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority Public Relations Section, Your Plans: URA Annual Report 2002/2003 (Singapore: Public Relations Section, Urban Redevelopment Authority, 2003). 218 The Identity Plan was written with the recognition that there needed to be greater emphasis on identity in the planning of Singapore. Four Clusters were identified: Rustic Coast, Urban Villages, Southern Ridges and Hillside Villages, and Old World Charm. Studies were done and strategies were drawn up with the aim of retaining and enhancing local identity and heritage in these areas. See Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority, The Identity Plan, 2002, . 219 The Concept Plan was first mooted in 1971. It is the long-term plan for Singapore's physical development for the next 40 to 50 years. The Concept Plan 2001 attempted to incorporate consultation with and feedback from the public. Its vision is to build a thriving world class city in the 21st century. See Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority, The Concept Plan 2001, . 220 The Master Plan is the statutory land use plan that guides Singapore's development in the medium term, over the next 10 to 15 years. It is reviewed once every five years, and translates the broad long-term strategies as set out in the Concept Plan into detailed implementable plans for Singapore. See Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority, Master Plan 2003, . 221 See Singapore Housing Development Board, Facts on Public Housing in Singapore (Singapore: Housing Development Board, 1997), 2. 222 See "Masterplan", . See also Space: Architecture + Design + Living 3 (2004): 76-79. Zaha Hadid has been chosen as the 2004 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize marking the first time a woman has been named for this prestigious 26 year-old architectural award. 223 For more information about this project, contact Alsop Architects at 3C River Valley Road #02-23, The Cannery, Singapore 179022. 224 See "The New National Library Building, Singapore", T R Hamzah and Yeang International,
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/www. trhamzahyeang.com/project/large-buildings/nlb01 .html>. 225 See "Republic Polytechnic—New Campus at Woodlands Avenue 9" in Dialogue: Architecture + Design + Culture Magazine 078 (March 2004):94-101. 226 See Loh Chwee Lye et al., eds., 20 Under 45: A Selection of Works by Under-45 SingaporeRegistered Architects (Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority, 2004), 106-107. 227 Ibid., 100-105. 228 Singapore Homes and Apartments Trends 19.5 (2003). 229 Powell, "SCDA Architects Singapore", 62. 230 See Space: Architecture + Design + Living 3 (2004): 70-74. 231 See Loh et al., eds., 20 Under 45, 85-87. 232 Powell, Singapore Architecture, 138. 233 See Esther Yee, "This Nursing Home Rocks" in The Straits Times Life! (Saturday, 5 April 2003), 10-11. See also Jason Hahn, "Nursing Home to the Core" in D + A Design and Architecture (Asia) 016 (2003):58-61. 234 See Loh ef al., eds., 20
Under45,122-123.
235 See Dialogue: Architecture+Design+Culture 074 (October 2003):30-31. 236 See Loh et al., eds., 20 Under 45,124-127. 237 For more information about these two projects, contact Teh Joo Heng Architects at 140 Robinson Road #05-09 Chow House, Singapore 068907, Tel: 63721110. 238 Bobby Wong Chong Thai, "Architecture in Singapore: A Sketch" in Contemporary Singapore Architecture, eds., Bay Joo Hwa Phillip, Ang Choon Kiat and Peter Chen (Singapore: Singapore Institute of Architects, 1998), 258. 239 Tay Kheng Soon, email correspondence with author, 31 March 2004. Reproduced in this publication. 240 Ibid. 241 See note 241. 242 See note 237. 243 Bobby Wong, email correspondence with author, 31 March 2004. Reproduced in this publication. 244 Kuo Pao Kun, "Knowledge, Structure and Play: A Side View of Civil Society in Singapore" in StateSociety Relations in Singapore, eds., Gillian Koh and Ooi Giok Ling (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 2000), 211-212. 245 Koolhaas, "Singapore Songlines", 1013. 246 Rem Koolhaas and Harvard Design School Project On the City, "Pearl River Delta" in Rem Koolhaas ef al., Mutations (ACTAR and Arc En Reve Centre d'Architecture, n.d.), 280-337. 247 See William Lim, "The Dynamics of East Asian New Urbanism" in Back From Utopia: The Challenge of the Modern Movement, eds, Hubert-Jan Henket and Hilde Heynan (Rotterdam: 101 Publishers, 2002), 198-205. 248 Koolhaas, "Singapore Songlines", 1013. 249 See Wee, "Beyond the 'Potemkin Metropolis': Creating and Filming the Homogenised Singapore Urban Environment", 200.
214 I 250 Brenda Yeoh, "Unravelling History in Place" in Contemporary Singapore Architecture, eds., Bay Joo Hwa Phillip, Ang Choon Kiat and Peter Chen (Singapore: Singapore Institute of Architects, 1998), 261. 251 Neil Leach, "Belonging" in AA Files 49 (2003): 80. 252 Ibid., 78. 253 Tay Kheng Soon, email correspondence with author. 254 Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ, email correspondence with author, 14 April 2004. Reproduced in this publication. 255 I agree with Eunice Seng's critical comments that, "rather than expanding the singular fissure and promoting only the exceptional, we should keep working at the other cracks. We do this by generating enthusiasm through constant discourse at every level. Only then can we allow the everyday, the last bastion of heterogeneity, to sensitise us and show through our artistic endeavours" (correspondence with author, 12 May 2004). However, a greater degree of openness is required in Singapore to increase effective citizenship participation. 256 Leon van Schaik, email correspondence with author, 1 April 2004. Reproduced in this publication. These ideas are further expanded in Mastering Architecture: Becoming an Innovative Practitioner (London: Wiley Academy, 2005).
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I 227
ln<"l«\/ Index
A AamerTaher 177, 178 Aasen, Clarence 73 Abidin Kusno 74, 161 adaptive reuse 158, 159 Aga Khan 64, 160 Ahmedabad 92 AlfianSa'at 136, 173 Alsop, Will 177 alternative globality 108 alternative postmodemity 94, 181 Ames, RogerT 8 Andreu, Paul 75 Anwar Ibrahim 10 Arjun Appadurai 71 Asian capitalism 4 Asian financial crisis 4, 168 Asian new urbanism 94 Asian Planning and Architectural Collaboration 162 Australia 74, 76, 88 B
Balfour, Alan 105, 124 Bangkok 20, 23, 32, 33 35 88 120 135 basic infrastructure 28 basic needs 4 13 18 29 115 Bates, Donald 74 Baviskar, Amita 26 Bawa Geoffrey 64 Bedmar, Ernesto 178 Beijing 26, 32, 117 160 Benjamin, Walter 100 Berenson, Ruth 172 Berman, Marshall 3 Bhopal 73 Bhutan 11 Boat Quay 139, 158, 159
Brasilia 120 Brewer, Frank 140 Brother Lothaire 138 Buddhism 10 Bugis Street 135
c
capitalist system 21 Castells, Manuel 5, 109, 154, 170 ChanHengChee 143, 153 C h a n Sau Yan
175
ChanSooKhian 178, 208 Chandigarh 74, 120, 164 Chang, Eileen 113 Chan 9 Yun9 H o 71 Chen Kaige 114 Chew > Christopher 179 China
8, 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26, 31, 32, 35, 64, 73, 75, 76,88, 98, 103, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111,112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 124, 127, 14 6> 168, 180 Chinatown 139, 159 Chinese Communist Party 113 Chinese modernity 113, 114, 115 Chinese postmodernism 115 Chiu, Jay 76 C h u a Ben 9 Huat 156 Chuang Hsueh-neng 76 cities as target 37 citizen Participation 111, 167 Clammer, John 68 Coleman, G D 138 collective memory 22, 180 collective voices of the poor 27 colonial intervention 92 colonialism 111, 145, 152, 179 colonisation 64 commodification 2 1 23 . > 115> 120 - 121> 1 6 °. 171< 1 7 8 commons 23, 29, 36 communism 179 Confucian 8, 14
228 Confucianism 8, 9 1 , 156 conservation 29, 36, 73, 95, 96, 101, 158, 159 contemporary vernacular 73, 74, 160 Correa, Charles 64, 73, 162 cosmopolis 5 critical regionalism 74, 160 cross-cultural 10 cultural determinism 14 cultural homogeneity 14 cultural identity 134, 141, 159 cultural justice 14, 15 Cultural Revolution 9, 114 cultural rights 14, 15, 19, 30 cultural traditionalism 14 r~. Dear, Michael 70 Debord, Guy 174 decolonisation 64, 141, 142 Delhi 26 democracy 7, 9, 15, 27, 63, 95, 168 democratic movement 167 Deng Xiaoping 108 desinicisation 143, 144 developing countries 15, 16, 17, 29, 119, 120, 160 developing economies 3, 18, 19, 21, 29, 33, 67, 71, 94, 108, 110, 160 development charge 26 developmental economics 31 developmental state 154, 155, 157, 167, 170, 174 Deyo, Fredrick 153 diversity 7, 68, 100, 134, 171, 179 dystopian 72, 106, 127 p Eco, Umberto 72 ecological sustainability 17, 18, 2 1 , 23, 29, 33 Eisenman, Peter 68 Emerald Hill 139, 158, 159, 178
environmental degradation 20 environmental justice 5 equality 14, 15, 17, 19, 95, 144 ethical neutrality 6 ethical urbanism 6, 2 1 , 36, 38 ethics 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 21, 33, 37, 68, 71, 72, 96, 139, 155 Eurocentric modernity 6, 7, 2 1 , 64, 179 p Frampton, Kenneth 69, 160 p ^ Gadre, Ravindra 76 Gamer, Robert 155 gap spaces 32, 35, 36 Gehry, Frank 162 Generic City 3 1 , 33 gentrification 96, 159 Geylang 24, 165 global capitalism 3, 4, 15, 16, 2 1 , 23, 36, 37, 72, 95, 113, 134, 174 global cities 5, 30, 109, 170 global city networks 5 global functions 20, 110, 170 globalisation 3, 6, 9, 13, 15, 16, 19, 27, 30, 3 1 , 67, 94, 109, 110, 111, 113, 116, 118, 160, 166, 180, 181 globality 4, 14, 17, 28, 7 1 , 94, 110, 180, 181 glocal 18, 19 glocalisation 116, 134 G o h C h o k T o n g 168 G o h P o h S e n g 145, 158 Gonzalez-Herraiz, Pilar 76 Graham, Steven 37 Gramsci, Antonio 167 Gramscian hegemony 167 grassroots globalisation 181 Graves, Michael 68 Gray, John 16
229 Gross National Happiness 11 Gwathmey, Charles 68 l_l Hall, David L 8, 147 Hall, Peter 68 Hall, Stuart 169 Halliday, Fred 4 Han Han 117 Hanoi 24, 73, 88, 91, 92, 94, 95, 98, 102 happiness 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21, 95 happiness scores 12 Harvey, David 5, 69, 109 Hassan Fathy 64 Hassell, Richard 76, 178, 181 HDI 13, 15, 18 Hedjuk, John 68 Hill, Kerry 175 HoChiMinh 94 HoKwonPing 153 Hong Kong 16, 17, 20, 26, 32, 33, 114, 118, 120, 121, 124, 153, 162, 167, 173 Hong Kong's Central 20, 33 Hou Hanru 5, 31, 33, 71, 76, 89, 116, 121, 124 Housing Development Board 177 HuJintao 15, 112 human rights 6, 7, 13, 14, 63, 108 humanity 8 hybrid modernities 10 hybridised cultural environment 11 | Identity Plan 176 imperialism 7, 109 income inequality 12, 112 income security 12, 13 India 12, 17, 18, 27, 31, 73, 76, 88, 137, 158, 162, 164 Indonesia 31, 168
Ingersoll, Richard 68 insurgent planning 30 international architectural style 174 International Monetary Fund 15, 16 Islam 10, 36, 37 • Jameson, Fredric 69, 115, 121, 166 Japan 7, 18, 64, 76, 88, 112, 162 Java 137 Jefferson, Thomas 11 Jencks, Charles 68 JiaZhangke 117 JooChiat 165 Jordan, Glenn 167 Junk Space 31 K
Khairuddin Hori 173 Khor, Martin 17 Kim Hun 76 Koerte, Arnold 100 Koichi Nagashima 162 Kolkata 27, 92 Koolhaas, Rem 3^ 75, 124, 133, 165, 180 Krishnan, Sanjay 136 Kuala Lumpur 88, 171 Kultermann, Udo 147 KuoPaoKun 146, 153, 155, 174 L LaiAhEng 134 iancl 25 Lau SiewMei 135 LeCorbusier 74, 120 Le Van Lan 101 Leach, Neil 181 Lee Hsien Loong 172 Lee Kip Lin 158 Lee Kuan Yew 166, 169 LeeOu-fan 113 Lefebvre, Henri 136 Leys, Simon 8
230 I Lim Chong Keat 147, 149 LimChorPee 145 Lim, Kevin 179 Ling, Frank 76 Liu Jiakun 76 Liu Thai Ker 158, 175 localisation 17, 116 localism 33, 157 Logan, William 94 Loh, Laurence 73 Look Boon Gee 178 Lou Ye 117 LuXun 113, 174 LuoXiaowei 122 Lye, Eric 176 ..
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Macpherson, Ronald 138 Maki, Fumihiko 162, 177 Malaya 141, 142 Malayan architecture 146 Malaysia 10, 16, 73, 74, 76, 100, 134, 143, 147, 152 Master Plan (1958) 141 Master Plan (2003) 176 May Fourth Movement 9 McGee, Terry 91 McNally, Joseph 164 McRitchie, James 138 megacity 103, 127 Meier, Richard 68 memories 22, 23, 92, 94, 121, 126, 134, 136, 155, 159, 166 memories of the common people and the marginalised 22 memory architecture 70 Meuron, Herzog 75 micro-urbanism 71 Modern Movement 64, 118, 156 modernisation 121 modernism 64, 68, 69, 70, 72, 74, 76, 103, 106, 108, 109, 119, 124, 140, 156, 162,
182 modernist buildings 140 modernist planning 3, 4, 6, 33, 35, 37, 67, 120, 124, 135, 176 modernity 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 30, 33, 64, 70, 107, 108, 109, 114, 156, 166, 180, 208 MokWeiWei 175, 178 moral code 9 Moses, Robert 20 multicultural 5, 11, 37, 134, 172 multiethnic 138, 143 multiple identities 14 Multiple Modernities 6 Mumbai 27, 92, 98, 120
N Nalbantoglu, Gulsum 64, 88 National Arts Council 176 national identity 134, 141, 142, 143, 144, 152, 154, 169, 170, 177, 181 New York 20, 25, 40, 68, 110, 155, 170, 174, 208 New York Five 68 Nezar Al Sayyad 116 Ng Keng Siang 141 NgYewKwang 12, 95 nongtang 122, 126 n
Obrist, Hans Ulrich 106 Ong Keng Sen 172 Orchard Road 20, 33 ° Paetzold, Heinz 73, 160, 208 p ear , R i v e r B a s i n 1 7 peculiarities 4_ 9_ 18_ 19_ 25_ 33_ 36_ 72_ 76
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232 I spatial justice 5, 28, 29, 33, 95, 124, 125, 126, 127, 139, 166 spatial polarisation 110, 124 Sri Lanka 13 Stiglitz, Joseph 16 SulakSivaraksa 10, 39 SumetJumsai 73, 162 -r tabula rasa 29, 31, 33, 37, 71, 105, 120, 133, 136, 145, 165, 166, 173, 180, 182 Taipei 22, 24 Taiwan 16, 76, 114, 152, 167 TanChongKee 174, 209 Tan Hock Beng 178 Tan Jake Hooi 151 TanKayNgee 178 Tan Kok Hiang 178 Tan, Royston 172 Tang Guan Bee 162, 175 TaoHo 162 Tay, Eddie 173, 211 Tay Kheng Soon 74, 156, 161, 175, 178, 181 Tay, Simon 167 Taylor, Charles 8 Teh Joo Heng 178 Thai peculiarities 32 Tnailand
16, 32, 64, 88, 152, 162, 168 themeparkism 6 9 . 9 6 Thompson, Kerstin 76 Thomson, George 152 Thumboo, Edwin 145 Tiananmen incident 9 Tok y° 88, 110, 118, 135, 155, 162, 170 Toynbee, Arnold 155 tradltlons
8, 9, 28, 30, 64, 92, 122, 134, 138, 145, 155, 160, 166, 173 tropical skyscraper 74
tropicality 74, 161, 175 U
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation 95, 122 urban explosion 6, 31 urban poor 27, 35, 97, 126 urban redevelopment 19, 94 Urban Redevelopment Authority 176 urban renewal 119, 135, 155, 180 urbanisations, 17, 18, 19, 20, 30, 124 urbicide 3, 20, 27, 29, 37 US late capitalism 115, 120 Utopia 106 Utopian 3, 72, 118, 120, 127, 147 utopianism 4, 139 Utzon, Jorn 74 V
van Schaik, Leon 5, 182 Venturi, Robert 68 Vietnam 13, 68, 88, 94, 95, 98, 100, 113, 152, 155
W Wang Lu 76 Wang Xiaoshuai 117 W a r d | F r a n k rjorrington 140 W e e W a n Ling 1 7 ^ 180 Weedon, Chris 167 Wei Hui 117 Western modernity 4, 6, 8, 32 W o n g i A | f r e d 147_ 1 4 9 WongMunSumm 76, 176, 178, 181 W o r , d B a n k 15_ -, 6_ -, 1 2 W o r | d T r a d e organisation 15 World Trade Organization 1 6 1 7 23 112 113 Worthington, Ross 167 WuBangguo112 W u Liangyong 73
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Y Yangtze River Delta 103, 127 Yap, Arthur 135 Yeang, Ken 74, 177 Yeo, Robert 145 YeoWeiWei 133, 208 Yeoh, Brenda 64, 88, 139, 180
Z ZahaHadid 177 Zai Kuning 173 Zhang Xudong 115 Zhang Yimou 114 ZhouEnlai 114 ZhuJianfei 32
235
Photographic Credits
Bangkok Kevin Lim Sui Kuan p 34 Hong Kong Koh Wan Ching p 34 Shanghai Chow Kim Nam p 34 Al Razek Villa Courtesy of Aga Khan Trust for Culture p 65 Casaroni House Courtesy of Aga Khan Trust for Culture p 65 Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya Courtesy of Charles Correa p 66 Vidhan Bhavan Courtesy of Aga Khan Trust for Culture p 66 Ena de Silva House David Greensett Robson p 67 Kandalama Hotel David Greensett Robson p 67 Federation Square Peter Clarke p 75 (Courtesy of Lab Architecture Studio) House at Lake Connewarre Patrick Bingham-Hall p 77 (Courtesy of Kerstin Thompson Architects) Drum House Trevor Mein p 77 (Courtesy of Kerstin Thompson Architects) Hebei Education Publishing House Building Courtesy of Atelier FCJZ p 78 Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum Courtesy of Jiakun Architect p 79
236 Suitcase House, Commune by the Great Wall, Beijing, China Courtesy of Edge Design Institute Ltd p 80 Barge House Courtesy of Ravi Gadre and Associates Architects and Interior Design p 81 Springtecture B Yoshiharu Matsumura p 82 (Courtesy of Shuhei Endo Architect Institute) Springtecture B Toshiharu Kitajima p 82(Courtesy of Shuhei Endo Architect Institute) Tierra House Courtesy of Architron Design p 83 Taipei West Side Rhapsody Masterplan Courtesy of Architron Design p 83 Gilstead Brooks Photo © Tim Griffith p 84 (Courtesy of WOHA Architects) ibidem Courtesy of Studio Asylum p 85 Mamdoljib (Spiral House) Courtesy of Minn Sohn Joo p 86 921 Earthquake Educational Park and Musem Courtesy of Jay Chiu p 86 The Ancient Quarter Tan Kah Heng p 93, p 99 Pid Dennis Hangchi p 105 Pic 2 Lu Hongbing p 107 Pic 3 Lu Hongbing p 122 Pic 4 Luo Xiaowei p 123 Pic 5 Luo Xiaowei p 123 Pic 6 Dennis Hangchi 125
I 237 Armenian Church Ng Kian Huan, Edmund p 138 Thian Hock Keng Temple Ng Kian Huan, Edmund p 138 Hajjah Fatimah Mosque Ng Kian Huan, Edmund p 138 At Andrew's Cathedral Ng Kian Huan, Edmund p 138 St Joseph's Institution Ng Kian Huan, Edmund p 138 Telok Ayer Market Ng Kian Huan, Edmund p 138 Kallang Airport Ng Kian Huan, Edmund p 140 Cathay Building Courtesy of Cathay Organisation Holdings Ltd p 140 Tiong Bahru Housing Estate Albert Lim K S p 140 Reprinted, by permission, from Powell, Living Legacy, 209 Asia Insurance Building Ng Kian Huan, Edmund p 140 National Theatre Courtesy of Alfred Wong Partnership p 148 National Trades Union Congress Courtesy of Lim Chong Keat p 148 Singapore Telephone Exchange Board Courtesy of William S W Lim p 148 Jurong Town Hall Courtesy of Kok Siew Hoong p 149 Public Utilities Board (PUB) Headquarters Building Courtesy of Ong Chin Bee p 149 Subordinate Law Courts Courtesy of Kumpulan Architects p 149
238 I Singapore Science Centre Courtesy of Raymond Woo and Associates Architects p 149 Church of St Henry Batu Pahat Courtesy of Alfred Wong Partnership p 150 Hotel Malaysia Courtesy of Alfred Wong Partnership p 150 Singapore Airlines (SIA) Building Courtesy of Kok Siew Hoong p 150 People's Park Complex Courtesy of Robert Powell p 150 Futura Courtesy of Timothy Seow and Partners p 150 Golden Mile Complex Courtesy of Robert Powell p 150 OCBC Centre AlbertLimKSp157 Reprinted, by permission, from Powell, Innovative Architecture of Singapore, 13 Bu Ye Tian: Singapore River Courtesy of William Lim Associates p 159 Parkway Builders Centre Albert Lim K S p 161 Reprinted, by permission, from Powell, Line Edge Shade,60 Kampong Bugis Development Guide Plan Albert Lim K S p 161 Yeo Hiap Seng Factory Courtesy of William Lim p 163 Unit 8 Apartments Albert Lim K S p 163 (Courtesy of William Lim Associates) Tampines North CC Albert Lim K S p 163 (Courtesy of William Lim Associates) Abelia at Ardmore Park Albert Lim K S p 163 (Courtesy of TANGGUANBEE Architects) The Market Place Albert Lim K S p 163 (Courtesy of TANGGUANBEE Architects)
239 Marine Parade Community Club Albert Lim K S p 183 (Courtesy of William Lm Associates) The Gallery Hotel Albert Lim K S p 183 (Courtesy of William Lim Associates) 32 Coronation Road West Courtesy of Chan Sau Yan Associates p 184 Singapore Cricket Association Pavilion Albert Lim K S p 185 (Courtesy of Kerry Hill Architects) Mixed Commercial Complex, Hong Kong Courtesy of TANGGUANBEE Architects p 186 Urban Bridge Loft Housing Courtesy of TANGGUANBEE Architects p 186 Masterplan for one-north Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Ltd and JTC Corporation p 187 Refurbishment and Partial Redevelopment of Clarke Quay Courtesy of Will Alsop Archtitects p 188 Republic Polytechnic Courtesy of Maki and Associates p 189 House at Merryn Road Albert Lim K S p 190 (Courtesy of Aamer Taher Design Studio) House at Kheam Hock Road Aamer Taher and Alan Tay p 190 (Courtesy of Aamer Taher Design Studio) Namly Road House Courtesy of Bedmar and Shi Pte Ltd p 191 Columbarium Courtesy of SCDA Architects p 192 Church of St Mary of the Angels Tim Griffith p 193 (Courtesy of WOHA Architects) Bishan Community Library Courtesy of Look Architects p 194 Alexandra Link Courtesy of Look Architects p 194 The Loft Albert Lim K S p 195 (Courtesy of W Architects)
240 I The Arris Condominium Albert Lim K S p 195 (Courtesy of W Architects) Bungalow at 11 Wiltshire Road C I & A Photography p 196 (Courtesy of Maps Design Studio) United Medicare Centre C I & A Photography p 196 (Courtesy of Maps Design Studio) Burghley Drive—Three Houses Courtesy of KAYNGEETAN Architects p 197 The Assyafah Mosque Albert Lim K S p 198 (Courtesy of Forum Architects) EISB Corporate HQ, Kuala Lumpur Courtesy of TEHJOOHENG Architects p 199 63 Emerald Hill Courtesy of TEHJOOHENG Architects p 199 Edison School Courtesy of Christopher Chew p 200 Artificial Terrain Courtesy of Kevin Lim Sui Kuan 201
