Performative Placemaking in Singapore’s Unbuilt Architectures

Placemaking is a defining characteristic of post-colonial Singapore’s urban built environment and political project. Defined by the state as a “Global City” and a “City in a Garden” to win over journalists, financiers, and diplomats, this foreign focused placemaking has led to contestations from local citizens and architects. My research uncovers the unbuilt architectural projects which were proposed as bottom-up alternatives. These unbuilt places reimagined a post-colonial city-state with the needs of users put first in making meaning. I argue that in being unbuilt, these architectural designs were performative acts of placemaking. Their architects attempted to construct a notion of a vernacular tropical city for Southeast Asia in Singapore. Through specific examples of sites, such as Bras Basah Park and the old National Library building, I examine how these alternative proposals also gave meaning to sites which were destroyed in the state’s rush to urban development. My study also provides an example of how unbuilt architectures can be used as a methodology of understanding constructions of place in South and Southeast Asia.