between my last visit and this visit to SG, i’d missed plenty: the rabid rise of real estate prices, the frenzy of “en bloc” apartment sales, the viral growth of new cafes, restaurants, bars and clubs, the feel-good atmosphere in the shopping malls, and the gradual consolidation of the ’singapore design’ brand. the city centre now feels like any of the most modern, most a la mode urban centres in the world. so for ease, let’s just call this new singapore ‘MSG’ for short. the express train of MSG seems furiously on track to become vibrant, cool and fun. there is no more excuse for foreign talent (or “foreign-based local talent”) not to move there to roost.

 

roosting or ‘home-ing’ in MSG, the new 21st-century-24/7-live-work-play-garden-city-by-the-bay singapore, however seems to be a problem. this time more acutely, i sensed that it feels more like a company town, a workers’ quarters, a themed tourist resort. it doesn’t have the feel of a real city. MSG just doesn’t seem natural. but perhaps we have to give it time.

 

before SG became MSG, it had been home to many of its older residents. but home to them is always a place in the past.

 

at the cricket club, a legacy of the old malayan world which he grew up in, i met up with tay kheng soon, SG’s foremost architect/thinker. we talked about his ideas for new models of development for selangor in malaysia, and hue in vietnam; developmental projects that would uplift the human spirit while at the same time avert further environmental devastation. on the way out, he met an old acquaintance, who asked what he was “fighting against” these days, to which he replied, “nothing! singapore is my hotel.”

 

i met an old friend, lai chee kien, who is now teaching architecture at the university and who has a true affection for and an incredibly rich knowledge about SG’s recent past. we met at the old tekka market, which he’d earlier suggested, to have a last look, a final view, since it was to be renovated the following day to turn into the now recognisable new ’singapore design’ brand. he recounted the wonderful story of ‘han rambutan orchard’, a private garden which existed from the 1930s to the 1960s along upper thomson road that was founded by its romantic owner as a place for sojourning scholars and poets to meet and nurture a shared precious culture in their new homeland. like the ‘rambutan orchard’ the familiar places in the city that was chee kien’s home, places he grew up with, have disappeared or are fast disappearing. his project consists of recording and assessing the significances of their passing. 

 

in the meantime, MSG has a whole new look to it, sprucing its impression to preferred visi/inves-tors from the rest of the world, it reclaimed land from the sea (and don’t call that tabula rasa!) to come up with a brand new idea of a 24/7 city called ‘gardens-by-the-bay’ where you can “exchange, explore, entertain”. 

got 5Cs, can 3Es. 

here you will find new office towers, super high-rise luxury apartments, glamourous hotels, a las-vegas styled casino, conference mice facilities, the ‘flyer’- world’s largest observation ferris wheel, a designer double-helix bridge, an international cruise terminal, more f&b, F1 races, and instead of ‘rambutan orchard’, you can have a world-class designer park complete with conservatories that — forget about the real tropics outside– make you feel like you’ve walked into an eternal spring. like ingredients of iconic global cities, MSG plans to have them all.

 

the dozens of new super expensive designer villas for the super rich at sentosa cove are the choice homes for the folks in MSG. designed by a who’s who list of mature design architects in singapore, there architectural gestures seem to naturally flow from one building to the next like the sea breeze the owners try to keep out from their air-conditioned insides. they represent the successful marketing strategy of the developers of sentosa in attracting serious money to flow into a gated community on a theme-park fantasy island. lovingly crafted to connote tastefulness and luxury, and super well-maintained by foreign maids, rather than homes, they look more like parked money waiting to be exchanged for more money. here is architecture as strategic embellishment, as brick and mortar investment scaled 1:1. 

 

the garden city theme that MSG has adopted and made sacrosanct now appears even in the insides of most designer houses. the inside and outside consistently adhere to the same theme and house owners live in a single seamless theme park. a new kind of absolute transparency. their furnishings seem to look new, temporary and unbearably light, as if they could be carted off to be replaced by the next house owner the moment the cheque crosses hands.

 

while their parents talk about the house as investment, young people growing up in such a homeless state, find the idea of home in shopping malls and within generic global urban culture. ironically they are most effortlessly at home in downtown shanghai, london, new york, tokyo, sydney, hong kong with familiar comforts offered by the culture of consumption of global brands and urban lifestyles. these are the new inhabitants which MSG promises to provide “seamless connection with the rest of the world.”

 

but perhaps it takes time.

 

perhaps it takes time to turn this generic idea of a city into a real home that offers something unique, something different from world-class examples. how to transform MSG from a big brand to a modest SG filled with spaces and places where one can begin to feel at home again never mind the uncertainty, the slowness and the many stops. as architects, we should think about making real places not metaphorically, not graphically, not in hip media-smart designer-speak or cool ad-speak, but spatially, directly, communicate again. we ought to articulate our own individual narratives of the city besides listening to the sweet droning monologue of MSG.

 

p.s. 

thanks jeremy, for weaving around geylang the other night, pointing out its particular subcultures.
thanks dinesh, for that loving tour of golden mile complex, the one that might just escape “en bloc.”
thanks ling hao, for the stories behind each house design that you laboured through.
thanks yong ter, for the visit to your amazing new work, which looks like you’ve put it 200% passion into it.