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2017 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

3. Case Studies

verfasst von : Limin Hee

Erschienen in: Constructing Singapore Public Space

Verlag: Springer Singapore

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Abstract

This chapter presents three case studies that have been selected to take into account historical context, scale, programmatic type, formal characteristics and the social value of such spaces. The sites are Orchard Road, the most important shopping street and representational space of the cosmopolitan image of the city; Little India, the hub of Indian social and cultural life in Singapore; and public housing, where a whole new plethora of public spaces have been created. The section on Orchard Road proposes it as the quintessential public space of the city—where different groups are channeled into close proximity—the space of friction as well as the space of appearances. It discusses how notions of authenticity and nostalgia resonate through different scales of engagement. The Little India section provides an exposé of the fluid roles played by public space in relation to community and ethnicity, established and concealed practices in public space, and states of boundedness created through forms of control. The ideas of ‘front’ and ‘back’ activities in public space are framed within notions of gendered spaces, spaces for tourist consumption and spaces of subversion. The case study of public housing provides an analysis of spaces where social practices have been transferred or transformed, due to the nature or distribution of these spaces. These spaces sometimes take on new shapes, but often adapted easily to the new spaces in public housing.

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Fußnoten
1
Here denoting the planned histories, demolished environments and remembered places.
 
2
The term “heartland” is used synonymously with the HDB new towns, as an idiomatic term for the collective majority of the population. The term is often used to evoke antagonism between “heartlanders” and “cosmopolitans”, emphasizing the divide between the rooted communities in new towns and the mobile, highly educated elites who are citizens of the international community and are not confined to the housing estates.
 
3
Parts of this chapter have been published as “Singapore’s Orchard Road as conduit: Between nostalgia and authenticity” in Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 17, no. 1 (2005), pp. 51–63.
 
4
Universal CityWalk was designed by Jon Jerde in 1992.
 
5
Depatos is the Japanese term for departmental stores.
 
6
The Ku’damm was to a large extent destroyed in WWII, and many buildings were rebuilt. However, the framework of the street set up by Otto von Bismarck in 1875 is still discernable.
 
7
The different sectional profiles found on Orchard Road share adjacencies that are difficult to represent on an urban scale plan.
 
8
For example, the opening of Ion Orchard in 2013 which entailed the eradication of the open green space above the Orchard MRT station led to the displacement of Sunday enclaves of Filipina domestic workers.
 
9
Gambier was used for tanning and as a natural red dye, but it was also a component of betel nut chewing, a favorite pastime of field workers, back then.
 
10
The provision of walkways was completed in two phases—in 1976, under the Public Works Department’s “Walkway Program” and in 1989, under its “Ten Year Walkway Masterplan”. The second program involved the aesthetization of Orchard Road with the installation of decorative street lamps, railings, seats, “pocket parks” and embedded brass motifs of tropical fruits (the “orchard”).
 
11
Street closures for street parties continued on a monthly basis, but the practice fizzled out after a few years. The novelty of street parties had apparently worn out.
 
12
…and spent S$340 million, which is 15 % of the total shopping expenditure by visitors in Singapore, according to Minister Balakrishnan, in his speech at a press conference for “Sharing the Vision for Orchard Road’s Evolution”, March 2005.
 
13
This youth landscape was once also defined by the Heeren from the late 1990s to the late 2000s, especially with its anchor tenant, record store chain HMV.
 
14
Peranakan Place and Emerald Hill Projects were conserved by the URA and assigned new uses in 1984.
 
15
In 2005, URA launched a series of initiatives to “enhance and rejuvenate” Orchard Road. These involved the setting up of an Orchard Road Development Commission to review redevelopment proposals and relaxing various architectural and urban design-related guidelines, with the aim of making Orchard Road “a great street”. https://​www.​ura.​gov.​sg/​uol/​media-room/​news/​2005/​mar/​pr05-10.​aspx.
 
16
It is interesting to note that after the public exhibition and consultations with various public and private agencies regarding the proposals, some ideas were considered impractical and dropped.
 
17
From 2015 Census data published by Singapore Statistics.
 
18
This excerpt was taken from a website that is no longer active.
 
19
This excerpt was taken from a website that is no longer active.
 
20
…on its measures to stop domestic maids from loitering around the shopping center on Sundays.
 
21
For example, that the workers were displayed in employment agencies shop windows were against the practices of a civil society.
 
22
The Heeren was popular with youths in the late 1990s into the 2000s, with its retail mix of Japanese-styled street fashion stores and record store chain HMV. The shopping center gradually changed its retail profile, which led to the dissipation of its youthful clientele. This transformation of the Heeren was made complete in 2009, when HMV moved to 313@Somerset, signaling a shift in the geography of the Orchard Road youthscape.
 
23
From “Tommy”, a journalist surveying favorite look-out points on Orchard Road.
 
24
The terms “Heartlanders” and “Cosmopolitans” were coined by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in one of his early National Day Rally Speeches to describe the bifucation of Singapore society into two groups, one more home-oriented, the other more globally-oriented.
 
25
From the Internet blog of “Craig”, an American expatriate living and working in Singapore http://​www.​angelfire.​com/​ga2/​stepstoinsanity/​Journal/​page6.​htm.
 
26
This phrase was used by Orchard Gateway themselves, on their website, to describe the significance of Orchard Gateway’s design and location.
 
27
From Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan’s speech at the press conference on ‘Sharing the Vision for Orchard Road’s evolution’, 29th March 2005. In the speech, he also noted that ‘the Prime Minister had earlier announced that STB will spend $40 million to revamp Orchard Road infrastructure’ and that the ‘MOF has approved a suite of incentives and the URA has relaxed development rules and guidelines’.
 
28
For example, the Wisma Atria building sits on the site of the former Indonesian Embassy. The Ngee Ann City Complex as well as Wisma Atria sit on land owned by Ngee Ann Kongsi, a Chinese clan, which owned the parcel of land previously known as Tai Shan Ting, a Chinese burial ground. The cemetery was cleared in 1957 and leased to the present Meritus Mandarin, Cathay Cineleisure Orchard and the Indonesian government. See also http://​www.​ngeeann.​com.​sg/​webtop/​property.​phtml.
 
29
The Singapore Tourist Board (STB) and URA had worked together to showcase an exhibition, titled, “Make Orchard Road More Happening!” These plans were featured in the March/April 2001 issue of URA’s Skyline publication.
 
30
‘A Great Street’ was Orchard Road Business Association’s tagline for Orchard Road.
 
31
Those who wield power to change the shape of Orchard Road include the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the Singapore Tourist Board (STB), the Orchard Road Merchants’ Association, the Land Transport Authority (LTA), among other government, quasi-government and private interests groups. In order to help propel Orchard Road in its future development, the authorities are considering implementing the concept of a Business Precinct Management Corporation to provide a vehicle for stakeholders to take ownership for promoting their business precinct and to pursue projects that add value to the precinct as a whole.
 
32
According the URA’s Serangoon Planning Report 1995, “Serangoon Road was named after ‘the Rangong’, a bird of the stork species which used to flourish in the swamps around the Serangoon River in the old days”.
 
33
This plan was attributed to Lieutenant Phillip Jackson.
 
34
It is a policy of public housing to achieve an ethnic distribution that does not concentrate any ethnic group within any district, even at the scale of an apartment block.
 
35
For the history of Little India, I have consulted several sources, in particular the URA’s Historic District: Little India (1995) and Sharon Siddique and Nirmala PuruShotam’s (1990) Singapore’s Little IndiaPast, Present and Future for dates and information.
 
36
Other public housing developments include Rowell Court (1982) and Kerbau Road (late 1980s).
 
37
These are terraced 2, 3 or 4-storeyed townhouse-like units built contiguously in blocks, separated from each other by party-walls and bounded on the front by streets and on the back by backlanes or alleyways. Blocks may vary in length from 20 m to more than 100 m, depending on the location. The side adjacent to the street has a cut-in arcaded walkway, called the ‘five-foot way’, allowing a thorough passage within the block.
 
38
2013 Singapore Tourist Board (STB) statistics.
 
39
This number is an estimate from bus companies that ferry workers from their dormitories to the Serangoon Road. Source http://​www.​straitstimes.​com/​singapore/​little-india-home-away-from-home.
 
40
Statistics from Key Demographic Indicators 19702015, the Department of Statistics, Singapore.
 
41
R. Krack, Discover Singapore’s Little India, 2001, CPA media, http://​www.​cpamedia.​com/​20011204_​02. This website is no longer active.
 
42
This extract comes from a blog posting by G. Hughes, an expatriate worker in Singapore, 1998. See http://​glennh.​tripod.​com/​ROVWhat.​htm.
 
43
This comes from an excerpt from an interview with Satishkumar Katakam done in November 2015.
 
44
This phrase comes from a 2002 brochure by the Singapore Tourism Board, Little India: Ethnic Quarter.
 
45
This excerpt is from a blog posting by Angelina Hue, 23, Singaporean non-Indian, trainee tourist guide. The blog posting is no longer active.
 
46
This excerpt was from the blog of the Spoke, female Singaporean. The website is no longer active.
 
47
This excerpt is found on the 1995 World Sex Guide Website: Report on Singapore. http://​www.​worldsexguide.​org/​sp_​travel.​txt.​html.
 
48
This excerpt is taken from an internet posting by Dean, an Irish tourist to Singapore. The website is no longer active.
 
49
These are usually the foreign workers who throng Serangoon Road every Sunday evening.
 
51
T.C.S. Yeo’s study of Socioscapes in a Global City: Singapore’s Little India (1999) notes that 60 % of the workers hailed from Bangladesh.
 
52
While it is true that many workers arrive in company buses, many do take public transportation like buses and the MRT.
 
53
Many south Indian workers are Hindu vegetarians, while many of the Bengalis from Bangladesh are Muslims.
 
54
Excerpt taken from Utopia Asia (http://​www.​utopia-asia.​com/​tipssing.​htm), 22 July 1998.
 
55
From T.C.S. Yeo’s field interviews of foreign workers in Little India, ethnic Indian residents of Little India tend to be more sympathetic to the plight of these workers than non-Indian residents, whose lives are inconvenienced by the physical congestion caused by the crowding and the intangible fear of potential criminal activities.
 
56
This excerpt is taken from a speech by Lee Boon Yang, Minister for Manpower, at the launch of the Sunday Market, October 1999.
 
57
An article by Dinesh Naidu. “Sungei Road: a market on the margins” in Singapore Architect (1999) covered the phenomenon in detail.
 
58
From the Department of Statistics Singapore website on ‘Households and Housing Data’.
 
59
Public housing in Singapore is implemented as 5-year building programs, and as such, a decade is a good time frame for review as it covers two building programs, and goals and orientations become clearer as they are sustained within the consecutive programs.
 
60
This phrase is reflected in the current mission statement of the HDB.
 
61
Liu had definitively stated that the housing shortage was solved by 1978 and the phrase was not used again after that year.
 
62
These statistics are derived from the website “HDB Towns, Your Home”, accessible at http://​www.​hdb.​gov.​sg/​cs/​infoweb/​about-us/​history/​hdb-towns-your-home. In 2000, HDB welcomed its 800,000th homeowner in a symbolic key hand-over ceremony celebrating the organization’s 40th anniversary.
 
63
This is the term used in the current corporate vision of the HDB.
 
64
Excerpt from the speech by the Minister for National Development, Mah Bow Tan, at the groundbreaking ceremony for the first 40-storey apartment block at Toa Payoh in Jun 2001.
 
65
This is the case, except in academic circles.
 
66
The Singapore Improvement Trust was the municipal body set up by the British colonial government in 1927 to “provide for the Improvement of the Town and Island of Singapore” (Fraser 1948).
 
67
Tiong Bahru Estate was built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) between 1936 and 1941, with later additions in 1948–1954.
 
68
The high-rises were blocks that rose up to 10 storeys.
 
69
The HDB was set up in 1960, after Singapore’s self-rule, to oversee the task of housing the growing population.
 
70
Net residential density was high and ranged from 800 to 1000 pp/ha (Tan et al. 1985, pp. 56–112).
 
71
This was dramatically underscored when the then Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew visited the site of the fire of May 1961 at the squatter settlement of Bukit Ho Swee and promised that blocks of flats would rise form the devastated area with the first units ready for occupation within nine months. Exactly after nine months, five blocks of flats had been built to re-house 800 families.
 
72
A case in point would be to compare the density of Milton Keynes at 28.1 persons per ha with that of Toa Payoh New Town—which was the first new town with a target population, at a density of 1146 persons per ha.
 
73
The proposal of the CIAM at its 4th Congress in 1933 produced “The Athens Charter”, a document which remained controversial in its commitment to the planning of functional cities, high-rise housing, zoning and green belts.
 
74
This is detailed by Tony Tan, Chief Architect of the HDB in his public lecture at the Department of Architecture in September 1999.
 
75
The area of each neighborhood was about 40 ha.
 
76
Interviews involving about 600 residents of public housing in several new towns were carried out by myself, as Principal Investigator, and my research team, in the research project, “Design, use and social significance of public space in public housing”, at the National University of Singapore. The project was completed in 2003.
 
77
The Toa Payoh dragon playground was designed by Mr. Khor Ean Ghee, a Singaporean watercolourist and interior designer.
 
79
Burnt paper offerings in the form of material properties and “Hell” currency are rooted in Chinese beliefs in which earthly provisions from the pious could help make the after-life in Hades much more tolerable.
 
80
The Town Councils impose a nominal fee of between S$30 and S$60 for the use of electricity, rent of the space and water charges. The use of open spaces is also charged. All these activities require a permit to be obtained prior to the staging of the activity.
 
81
Reports of prostitutes from China soliciting in ‘heartland’ coffeeshops were rampant in 2004.
 
82
These anecdotal comments are collected as part of a research in which I was the principal investigator, Design, use and social significance of public space in public housing. The study was focused more on the precinct space than other types of new town spaces.
 
83
Surveillance cameras have been installed by the HDB where cases of urinating in lifts are recurrent.
 
84
Le parkour is adapted from the French word parcours which means ‘by path’. The practice caught on in Singapore after French director, Luc Besson’s film, Yamakasi—Les samouraï des temps modernes (2001) became a cult film for urban youth. The film depicted a group of disenfranchised youths from housing estates in France, perhaps stirring a chord of empathy from the highly confined lives of Singapore adolescents.
 
Metadaten
Titel
Case Studies
verfasst von
Limin Hee
Copyright-Jahr
2017
Verlag
Springer Singapore
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2387-3_3