A Fine Romance the Shapers of Singapore’S Cityscape and Its National Brand Tell Hong Xinyi What It Takes to Design a Loveable City
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A FINE ROMANCE The shapers of Singapore’s cityscape and its national brand tell Hong Xinyi what it takes to design a loveable city ome say that every story is a love story—even, it seems, the modern its Design 2025 report: “Singapore will extend beyond a liveable city and become a loveable Singapore story, whose opening chapters began with a dose of tough love. city.” In this new chapter of the Singapore story, design will help power an innovation-driven In 1967, the government announced its intention to transform the newly economy, and strengthen the national identity by creating better spaces and services. independent nation into a Garden City. Before this garden could start to grow, About seven years after the rise of the glittering Marina Bay waterfront, Singapore’s the slate had to be wiped clean, quite literally. Singapore’s transformation began cityscape stands at yet another inflection point. Plans for a Greater Southern Waterfront, a with an extensive campaign to educate the public about the evils of littering. The littering Mandai eco-tourism hub, and an ambitious Jewel complex at Changi Airport are afoot, and fines first announced back then have since become a standard joke in the Singapore lexicon public engagement with protecting the unique markers of local heritage is growing everyday. (A Fine City, as the T-shirts for tourists proclaim). But this fundamental belief in the virtues So, one year and counting into Design 2025’s loveable city project, we check in with the of a clean and green city is no laughing matter—the development of Singapore’s vaunted shapers of this city, to find out how they think design can mould a city closer to our hearts. infrastructure is rooted in this commitment to creating a city that works. In today’s parlance, To start with, we asked them what places in Singapore they considered most loveable. That Singapore is a highly liveable city, one that routinely makes the top-tiers of numerous global deceptively twee word actually packs a potent punch if you really take it seriously. To be surveys ranking places where you can safely build a stable life. loveable is to be cherished, and for something to be treasured, it has to tap into deep reservoirs Increasingly, however, liveability is becoming more of a baseline among the world’s most of emotion—not something commonly associated with this resolutely pragmatic island. Some vibrant cities, rather than a unique selling point. So the way forward for Singapore seeks to say that every love story is a ghost story, always shaped by the memories of what came before. tug at the heartstrings as well as the purse strings. In 2016, the Design Masterplan Committee, So perhaps it is fitting that our story begins on a rain-misted morning in one of Singapore’s established by the Ministry of Communications and Information, announced a new vision in IMAGE: 123RF oldest campuses. MAN WITH A VISION Shirt, sweater, pants, PAST IS PROLOGUE tie, pocket square and “Whatever you do today, you have to take a photo of the lake.” That is one of the first things TOP OF shoes, all by Boss Liu Thai Ker tells us when we meet him at his alma mater Chung Cheng High School (Main) THE LAKE on an overcast morning for this photo shoot. Yes, the school’s Goodman Road campus has Liu Thai Ker braved some a lovely lake, and it gives the grounds quite the air of scenic serenity. Of course we want to muddy puddles take a picture of him by the lake. But we peer out at the gentle drizzle, and say without much to enjoy a scenic confidence that hopefully the rain will let up soon. “Well, I think it looks quite nice like this,” lakeside view of Liu says in his understated way. “So I hope it doesn’t stop raining.” his alma mater One doesn’t usually expect this kind of puckish playfulness from public figures of his stature. More than two decades after he left government to join RSP Architects Planners & Engineers, Liu is still widely remembered and deeply respected for his contributions in shaping Singapore. His stint at the Housing & Development Board (HDB)—first as architect-planner, then as CEO—spanned two critical nation-building decades starting from 1969 that saw the completion of two dozen new towns and over half a million public housing units. As chief planner and CEO of the Urban Redevelopment Authority from 1989 to 1992, he spearheaded the major revision of the Singapore Concept Plan and consolidated conservation policies and practices. His influence also extends beyond these shores—as RSP’s senior director, he has led master planning and urban design efforts in over 30 cities around the world. The foundations for this illustrious career were laid right school, and Liu also learned painting from here in Chung Cheng. “The education I received here had a an older student, Lim Tze Peng, who became major impact on my life,” he says. Many of his teachers were renowned for his Chinese ink paintings. “I’m university professors who had left China when the Chinese grateful for what I’ve received here, and Communist Party came to power in 1949. “Can you imagine that a place like this that can help younger the depth of understanding they had about Chinese culture? Singaporeans understand Chinese culture still I was so lucky to be taught by them. In class, they were able exists,” says Liu. to really help us read much deeper into the meaning of the At one point in his youth, he even texts we studied.” considered becoming an artist, but was His education in Chung Cheng has taught him the persuaded by his mother to take up a importance of strong language skills and how that could profession that could help lift the family out help foster a deeper understanding of different cultures. of poverty. Singapore’s urban landscape in These tenets have served him well, especially during his years its nascent years of independence thus came abroad while studying architecture in Australia’s University of to be shaped by a technocrat whose world New South Wales, then city planning at Yale University, and view was steeped in the arts and humanities. also throughout his career. “Good language skills and cultural “People sometimes ask me why I did not understanding help to build trust, and in business, mutual follow my father’s career as a painter. I always trust is very important.” say that I’m a painter. It’s just that my father’s His lifelong love for the arts is also closely tied to his canvas was a few square metres, while my years in Chung Cheng. In Liu’s day, there were small huts, canvas is a few thousand square kilometres,” which the students nicknamed Mongolian yurts, around the Liu muses. “When you do city planning, lake. “After class, some of us would play sports around the you need to worry about functionality and lake, others would go into the yurts to paint,” he reminisces. liveability; but you also need to treat the city His father, pioneer Nanyang artist Liu Kang, taught at the like a piece of art. It requires a humanist’s heart, a scientist’s head, and an artist’s eye.” When he was planning new towns, he took into account studies that showed people “NaTURE IS THE SOUL would not feel strong emotional ties to neighbourhoods that were too big. Through corridors with six to eight units was introduced to each Cities Summit Mayors Forum in May, Liu OF THE CITY. HERITAGE continuous research and inquiry, that led to floor in a housing block because studies showed that was the made the news when he said he wished he residential areas known as precincts, which optimal number for fostering stronger neighbourly ties. had protected a small part of Singapore’s BUILDINGS arE THE were 2 to 4ha and housed up to a thousand “I also wanted every town centre to be a civic centre, in squatter areas. “I’ve been regretting that for MEMORIES OF THE CITY. residents. “That was the right size for people addition to being a commercial centre,” he says. That meant a long time,” he says when we ask him what to feel that they belonged to a community. designing communal spaces such as plazas and making room prompted the thought. “When I first became FOR PEOPLE TO FEEL In other words, we did not design the for coffee shops. “Look at the cafes in Paris. They have been chief planner, with help from my colleagues, space purely to accommodate things, we there for hundreds of years because they are a way of life, a we presented a comprehensive proposal to the THIS IS A SPECIAL designed them as places to create community civic activity. I decided coffee shops were our way of life. We Ministry of National Development on what relations.” Each precinct had congregation need a certain number of shopping malls, but these should not buildings we must preserve and what the PLACE, WE NEED BOTH” spaces where residents could get to know replace the coffee shops, eating houses and hawker centres.” proper process of conservation should be. But one another—playgrounds, sports fields, void Conservation is also an important part of his legacy, and I guess I was too preoccupied with that, and I decks. In the 1980s, the idea of segmented an issue he still feels strongly about. Speaking at the World overlooked the need to preserve other things.