HDB flats, overhead bridges and multi-storey carparks: New book celebrates S’pore’s modernist architecture

SINGAPORE – After Kampung Admiralty was completed in 2017, the mixed-use development was hailed for its integration of homes for seniors with various public facilities, and as a model for future public housing.

But the “vertical kampung” is, in fact, similar in form to one of the first post-independence multi-use developments that the Housing Board introduced five decades ago, notes a new book that documents Singapore’s modern built environment.

Titled Everyday Modernism: Architecture & Society in Singapore, the book – co-authored by architectural historian Chang Jiat-Hwee and design writer Justin Zhuang – was launched on Tuesday. It includes more than 100 photographs by architectural photographer Darren Soh.

Comparing Kampung Admiralty to HDB’s 1968 Park Road development, a mixed-use project that integrated a three-storey commercial podium with a five-storey residential slab block, Mr Zhuang said: “The past comes back in different ways.”

“A lot of people see integrated developments as very innovative, very new, but they have a lineage that goes much further back,” said the 38-year-old, who added that the book helps readers to understand the everyday environment they live in.

Dr Chang, 49, an associate professor at National University of Singapore’s Department of Architecture, said the book was born from a realisation that modernism in Singapore is much more than the country’s iconic modern architecture – widely feted works of heroic architecture that include the now-demolished Pearl Bank Apartments and the National Theatre, as well as Jurong Town Hall, a national monument.

Rather, modernism in Singapore is present in all aspects of Singaporeans’ lives, said Dr Chang, citing schools, cinemas, libraries and even transport interchanges whose “form follow function” – a hallmark of modernist buildings, which are known for optimisation over ornamentation.

Mr Soh, 46, said modernism has had an overstated influence in Singapore’s architecture as the country’s nation-building years came in the middle of the global modern era, which spans roughly the 1930s to the 1980s.

The need to rapidly industrialise and build mass public housing also accelerated the adoption of modern building designs, said Dr Chang, as they could be easily replicated.

The Park Road project – known today as People’s Park – is a case in point. HDB built 15 other podium towers across Singapore’s central area up until the 1980s, including Rochor Centre and Bras Basah Complex.