Nature of the Experiment

In its nation-building years, Singapore undertook a series of projects that saw it come to terms with itself and its place in the world. Its rapid development and favor of economic progress might be seen as prompts for projects that attempted to reconstruct some of the culture and heritage that had been neglected and were quickly being lost. Also viewed as contributors to our tourist industry, and hence viable investments, such cultural initiatives included the Geylang Serai Malay Village, Singapore Handicraft Centre, and might have also included a folk village of attap huts along the Singapore River. The decisive failure of such synthetic spaces may have informed the recent approach to cultural heritage, seen with the Malay, Indian, and Chinese Heritage Centres where the index takes precedence over the spectacle.

Another pair of national projects characterise Singapore's attempt to keep pace with global developments and was seen in Jurong with the Science Centre Singapore, and the duo schools, the German-Singapore Institute and French-Singapore Institute. Part of Singapore's strategy to promote science and technology to all age groups, both were impactful during their tenures, but much like the technology they were intended to broadcast, grew obsolete over time. The German-Singapore Institute and French-Singapore Institutes ceased operations after 10 years, while the Science Centre will move to a new home in 2020.

Those years also saw the development of town planning blueprints that would eventually be adopted across Singapore; part of which included the integration of public facilities within housing estates. Yan Kit Swimming Pool at Tanjong Pagar, for instance, was a successful recreational facility that embodied the government's intention of an improved environment and personal well-being that accompanied urban renewal. In the following years, such pools would be built at many other estates, the most iconic ones including Buona Vista Swimming Complex and Bedok Swimming Complex.

While Tanjong Pagar had its own Community Centre, it was at Tampines North some years later where we began to see these civic facilities taking on not only much more focused social agendas, but also increased architectural attention. The evolved Community Centres such as William Lim's Tampines North would go on to spawn other recognisable developments such as Marine Parade CC and Henderson CC. Suggesting that these town planning models were a process which required some degree of testing, Mr Lee Kuan Yew intimated: "perhaps we have learned how to improve on this."