Demolishing the City of the Future

It’s interesting that these buildings represent such a confluence of contrasting ideas which support and at times compete with each other.

On the one hand it was an opportunity to break from a colonial past but that lent to a kind of authoritarian architectural regime (locals -Malay people, were pushed out and away and a rural way of life was left on life support mostly on small islands). But at the same time they had their own Asian vision of a future and architecture and executed pretty well. I mean, for these blocks of flats, the apartments ranged from about 1400sf to 3300sf. This isn’t sardine cans.

But now these buildings are old and quaint and regular Singaporeans like _the new_. So these old building are a bit undesirable and often get sold for redevelopment into new modern “global” architecture. Some are sought out by people on the periphery, which is a bit ironic as these started out as being dwellings for a rising middle class.

Amusingly, "Stalin era" is a selling point for apartments in Riga.

Aside from Kampong Glam, Chinatown and Little India, Singapore feels largely devoid of any "sense of of history." I don't mean this as a slight(it's a fantastic place), just an observation. There's a "sameness" of it all that can feel almost unsettling at times. Hong Kong is similar in this respect - a place that looms large in history and yet any semblance of the past has largely been erased from the cityscape.

Where have you been in Hong Kong? There is all kinds of history. Downtown Hong Kong island has a number of colonial buildings. There is the original courthouse or something in a plaza around Central. The old clock tower is at Admiralty. The Star Ferry has been around for decades. There are multiple active temples around the city. Tai-O village on Lantau still has wooden junks. If you wander around Victoria Peak there is Victoria Peak Gardens, which has a colonial building or two. The 100 miles of hiking trails in the county park system are there because a governor in the 60s or 70s reserved large areas from building. The city still has bilingual signs in English and Cantonese, which I can assure you is not the case in both Mainland China and Taiwan. They drive on the left side of the road--a very non-Mainland thing. There are double-decker buses all over, also very British. Even things like the ubiquitous public notices for comment on pre-construction sites is a very Western idea. The historic Jockey Club has it's name on a dorm in every university campus (and, of course, the famous race-track is still racing horses). Even the names of places are their British names, sometimes even in the Chinese version ("Admiralty" is "Golden Clock", since the clock was the key feature, since you'd set your chronometer by it). Beijing, for example, renamed much of it's pre-1949 names to something more revolutionary. Then there's the "socks" milk tea, a strong milk tea that is a localized version of colonial British tea + milk (much better than the original, I might add). There's even a HK culture museum. (There's a HK history museum as well, but it's been a little edited to support the Mainland ideology.)

But perhaps nothing says "history" quite like that most every day item: money. Back in the 1800s, banks issued money. Nowadays the State issues money, but HK notes are still issued by three banks (albeit with strict supervision of the State), which have their names on them. Personally, I find the ones from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Company to be the most attractive. The coins bear more than a passing resemblance to British coinage, too.

I think Hong Kong is a great example of history being integrated into the culture.

Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. The Star Ferry is a great time piece, agreed. However I don't consider Victoria Peak, hiking trails, buses wrapped in advertisements or bilingual signage to be examples that project a sense of history. Yes there is still the odd colonial building but they are pretty exceptional.