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Author Tay Kheng
Soon |
2001 The #210 issue of Singapore Architect disturbed me a
lot. Particularly the report on the Year 2001- Neo-Tropicality, The Tropical
Workshop Series at the Department of Architecture, School of Design and
Environment, NUS led by Chan Soo Kian. I was disturbed because of the
unconscious underlying formalistics in the way the exercise was framed for
the students. To understand my being disturbed, I have to go back to
1959 when our school of architecture first started. The issue then was
tropicality. It still is. This is how elusive the subject is. The difference
is that then, we were in the throes of decolonisation. The issue of
tropicality in architecture design was therefore part of the context of
freeing oneself from the political and taste-dictates of our masters. Today,
it seems that tropicality is more of a fashion statement. Times of course have changed although tropicality itself
has not. And there is now a new-world order, "Internationalism" is
now called "Globalisation" and there is little resistance to the
hegemony of taste, of the rich, the powerful and the highly publicised, i.e.,
from the West and from Japan. In my time, Internationalism began at home. To
be internationalist is to be ourselves first. With my background, I am
therefore disturbed how easily, even eagerly, today's young and sometimes
not-so-young architects emulate, no, are so easily "inspired" by
the master designs of their self-elected mentors. They see no irony in it. In
my eyes it is Neo-Colonialism! It is slavish! Why should we volunteer to be
publicists, ciphers, agents and amplifiers for others? Nothing wrong with
learning from others, but neglecting one's own agenda is serious neglect. And
claiming "Neo-Tropicality", as new territory; is it not a
falsification, covering old grounds with new turf? Please do not mistake my tone. I do not doubt the
sincerity, the dedication to excellence, the sensitivity and the skill in
making convincing sensuality out of the materiality of form and space. It is
the seeming unconsciousness of the dictates of design language that I am
concerned about. When Soo Kian and others less explicit, extol the virtues of
interlocking rectilinear cubic, forms define the "task" for students
as contained in a 3m cube, it is no wonder that they respond with variable
planes and 'hinged skins'. This confirms that the subliminal message
contained in the cube was transmitted and received. Are those involved aware
that they have perhaps unwittingly legitimised the primacy of the cube and
the surface plane as the language
of form and space applied to the problem of tropical aesthetics
notwithstanding the physics of tropical design? Is the claim to newness
deliberate or deluded arrogance in not acknowledging the 'Neo-Plastic'
origins in the exercises of the 1920s in Europe by Theo Van Doesburg, Georges
Vantongerloo, Malevich, Gerrit Rietveld, Piet Mondrian et al, conscious? If
it is not conscious, it should become so because, it will then bring some
honesty and maybe modesty to those 'servants' who emulate their masters to
become their own man so to speak. Recycling their ideas and calling it
"neo-tropicality" does not disguise the derivative origins of the
'new' designs nor is legitimacy gained simply by allying to the righteous
quest - tropicality. The limitations of emulation should be recognised for
what it is; studious efforts at learning, no more. Having got it off my chest, I have to say that the 'new'
work is skilful and I prefer it to the kind of "karaoke or obiang
architecture", legitimated by 'post modernism' that has so contaminated
our architectural space. In principle there is no difference. Both are
slavishly derivative. And so, my regret is that the 'new' style defers and
deflects the quest. The quest for a contemporary architectural aesthetic of
tropicality in our own terms and none other. Making beautiful buildings by
celebrating cubes and planes is definitely not the approach to the
development of a new language. It is a cop out. Worse if it misleads students
and promotes consumption of the 'exotic' in the way wallpaper does. |
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