Modernism Around Us

Singapore’s modern built heritage is more ubiquitous than we realise, visible in all parts of the island from the city centre to the public housing estates.

- Dr. Chang Jiat Hwee

When we think of modernist buildings from Singapore’s recent past, we often single out the “heroic” examples, such as Golden Mile Complex, Jurong Town Hall, the former Singapore Conference Hall and Trade Union House, and the former Subordinate Court.

These are heroic because they were bold and visionary in conception. Their striking forms and delightful spaces reflect the architects’ ingenuity.

Some also attribute their significance to their zeitgeist, the fearless, can-do spirit of the nation-building era of Singapore during the 1960s and 1970s.

Indeed, many of these examples of heroic modernism have rightly been conserved by the authorities, or are being studied for conservation due to their architectural and social significance.

Heroic modernism on its own, however, does not fully capture the richness and diversity of modernist buildings in Singapore.

Singapore is one of the most modernist countries in the world. An overwhelmingly large proportion of its built environment was constructed after the 1960s, with the city centre primarily a result of urban renewal.

Around 80 percent of the population resides in outlying satellite new towns built around the same time.

Both of these were products of the “Ring Plan”, first proposed by the United Nations planning experts and later implemented in a series of Concept Plans.

Taking the whole island as a planning unit, these plans radically transformed the territory of the city-state and how Singaporeans live through what Rem Koolhaas characterised as the tabula rasa mode of development typical of modernism.