40 TPAG | Mar 2012 from Architect’S Vision to ‘Vertical Slum’
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SPACE 40 TPAG | Mar 2012 From Architect’s Vision to ‘Vertical Slum’ By Gladys Teoh. Photography by Philipp Aldrup 41 SPACE uring a snowy Christmas in To- Dkyo, I chanced upon the world’s first exhibition on the Metabolist Movement at the Mori Art Museum. Metabolism was one of the most im- portant architectural, artistic and phil- osophical movements of the twentieth century and it redefined architecture as “how people use and interact with the space around them”. Using both utopian and humanist concepts of urban living, the Metabolists were, in part, a response to rapidly exploding population in Japan in the late twenti- eth century. City plans were based on “megastructures” that were expand- able and mobile; they consisted of smaller, detachable sections within a larger, more permanent structure. But with the exception of the iconic Nakagin Tower by Kisho Kurokawa, which surfaced as the first “inter- changeable capsule” building in the world, Metabolist architecture hardly materialised at all in Japan. The move- ment morphed into companies con- cerned with mass housing and prefab- ricated steel and concrete systems. Outside Japan, however, its influence spread as far as Hawaii, the USA, Peru, and Macedonia. In Singapore, the movement spawned a group of architects who produced wonderful collections of buildings in the 1970s such as the 42 TPAG | Mar 2012 ture” the Golden Mile Complex is a Once hailed as an exemplary shadow of its former glory. Metabolist “megastructure” the Over the years, fires and vio- Golden Mile Complex is a shadow lent incidents have ruined the im- age of the Golden Mile. Younger of its former glory. generations, unappreciative of the architectural discourse of the build- ing call it an “eyesore”. Nominated People’s Park Complex, the Gold- Member of Parliament Ivan Png en Mile Complex, and Pearl Bank called it a “vertical slum”, critical of Apartments. These buildings were the way some residents put up zinc architectural trailblazers in their own sheets and patched boards over right, but are faced with the threat their balconies. Many locals have of demolition. Some have already bemoaned the opening of Thai dis- been bulldozed to make way for cos in the complex and others have more profitable developments. opined that the toilets were among the dirtiest in the island state. Prop- SHADOWS OF A GOLDEN AGE erty owners of the Beach Road icon The Golden Mile Complex was de- which now appears decrepit and signed by William Lim, Gan Eng rundown are eager for its demolition, Oon and Tay Kheng Soon of Design having failed twice to get a collec- Partnership (now known as DP Ar- tive agreement to sell the property chitects) and completed in 1973. which is sitting on prime real estate. Envisioned as a mixed development The New Paper ran an article head- high-rise, the 16-storey building was lined “Man caught in gloryhole sex one of the first in the region to inte- act” in June 2010, about a 30-year- grate over 410 shops, 68 residen- old man who was caught engaging tial units and 226 offices into one in a sex act with another man in a building. The stepped-back terrace toilet cubicle on the second level of design enhanced natural ventilation the complex. and reduced noise from surround- ing areas and the planning focus RAISING The ‘tabULA RASA’ was on housing horizontal commu- Singapore has not one, but several nities vertically. Once hailed as an of these iconic buildings. Yet these exemplary Metabolist “megastruc- are largely unappreciated and are 43 SPACE These buildings were built according to ideals of pursuing dynamic growth, but are under pressure on the pretext of pursuing exactly that. victims of material en-bloc sale at- Years of Tabula Rasa”, published tempts. These buildings were built in 1995. The essay was a scath- according to ideals of pursuing ing critique of Singapore’s brutal dynamic growth, yet are now pres- approach towards urban renewal. sured to be taken down on the pre- post-1965, in which entire “villages” text of pursing exactly that. Is this had been ruthlessly eradicated in irony at its best or are we really inept the name of economic survival, to at balancing history with economic be replaced by a soulless, manu- progress? I was subsequently re- factured skyline that was dominated lieved to read that enough Singa- by an endless landscape of identical poreans, when polled by the Straits concrete housing blocks. In its de- Times, wished to see the conserva- termination to rebuild the city in the tion of Golden Mile Complex. How- shortest time possible from a sleepy ever, is this enough to block fierce backwater island into a world-class sale attempts of the site, given the city, the nation was literally uproot- way that property prices are at a ed, and its residents herded into sustained high in a land-scarce concrete boxed flat units. country? Are these select voices enough to compel the authorities COMprEssION AND to warrant a conservation status on CONSUMERS the building? The dystopic reality of a “Potemkin After all, Singapore was pro- metropolis” where the city appears pelled onto the stage of interna- elaborate and impressive but lacks tional architectural discourse with real substance seems to hold true Rem Koolhaas’s provocative essay for Singapore, as it did many years “Singapore Songlines: Portrait of ago. I spoke to Philipp Aldrup, a a Potemkin Metropolis…or Thirty photographer based in Singapore, 44 TPAG | Mar 2012 Photos: www.philipp-aldrup.com or www.behance.net/uebersee Photos: www.philipp-aldrup.com on his views. Philipp’s work con- everything linked together by el- templates the co-existence of old evated train systems and highways. and new, and explores how city- Megastructures such as shopping scapes change their meanings and malls have different services in one functions as ways of life are altered building, from offices to retail and by modern imperatives. “Singapore, food to indoor sports venues. Aldrup in my opinion, is largely following a disagreed: “I think that Singapore, at very different concept of growth – a least for many of the new develop- growth of economics,” he observes. ments, doesn’t really embody the “Less and less spaces are left un- ideals of metabolism. On the sur- designed or rather open for resi- face, of course every city flows like dents to alter, extend, and change. streams and currents. But if growth One is faced with completed de- means aggressively erasing his- velopments that don’t allow further tory on one side and creating new experiments of use. One is reduced generic, non-local, non-culturally to being a consumer, be it for living, connected architecture on the other, working, entertainment.” then the city is slowly losing its func- Some hold the perception that tion as a home for people. I think Singapore really is a metabolised that’s happening at the moment, not city with multiple “city centres” in only in Singapore of course, but here different neighbourhoods, and with it is so apparent and compressed.” 45.