~---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

The word shop house is a literal translati on of the Chinese term dian wu (tiam chu in Hokkien). or 'shop' and 'house'. It is, however, not just a designation of the common uses of the building in the past, but atso refers to a particular architectural typology-typically a two- to three­storey terraced bui lding with a narrow frontage and great depth. As an architectural typology, the shophouse can be found in many Southeast Asian and southern Chinese cities. Although many of these cities have longer histories than Singapore and some scholars have traced the origin of the shophouse typology to southern China, Jon Lim argues that the shophouse with the familiar verandah at the ground storey, or five-foot-way, has its roots in Stamford Raffles ' instructions to the Town Building Committee on 4 November 1822, in which he decreed that "[aJIl houses constructed of brick or tiles have a uniform type of front each having a verandah of a certain depth, open to all sides as a continuous and open passage on each side of the street."1 This specific form 01 shophouse, which Urn calls Mshophouse Rafflesia", then became not only common in Singapore but also spread to other parts of Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia.

The shophouse is thus an urban vernacular of Singapore and Malaysia that has an almost 200-year history. Today shophouses are conserved and adapted as swanky restaurants and bars, chic

retail spaces, upmarket residences, bout ique hotels, and other exclusive commercial developments. 2 ln an economically dynamic global city like Singapore, where change is one of the few constants and many buildings were, and still are, demolished and redeveloped en bloc after a few short decades of existence, the shophouse's longevity is rather exceptional. Its longevity can be, and indeed has, been attributed to various reasons. Among them are: the shophouse is an adaptable building type and is sufficiently flexible to be reconfigured to accommodate different types of uses: the design of the shophouse, with its features like the five­foot-way and courtyard, is well suited to the hot and humid tropical climate, providing shade from the tropical sun and facilitating cross ventilation for passive cooling: far-sighted state po licies and careful planning have enabled the conservation of the shophouse to be economically viable.

All these reasons are valid to various degrees. I would, however, like to propose another point of view. In his book Architecture Depends, Jeremy Till argues that some buildings enjoy longevity primarily because of the social endowment of value on these buildings. Drawing from anthropologist Mary Douglas's inSight that "waste is not an internal quality of an object" but merely a "matter out of place", Till foregrounds how waste is the by-product of any social classificatory system. Rubbish is anything that does not fit into a social ordering

Chang Jiat Hwee (Ph.D. UC Berkeley) is an assistant professor of Architecture at the National University 01 Singapore, where he teaches design studio and history, and theory of sustainable architecture. He is a regular contributor to various design ~nes and his academic research has been vvid'e!y published internationally. He is currently working on a book titled A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonialism, EcOlogy and Technology (Routledge), He is the co-editor of Non West Modemist Past (201 1) and a special issue of Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (2011), as we!1 as the author of two monographs on contemporary architecture in Singapore.

1 The exposed party wall of a shophouse showing the material remnant of a demolished shophouse (source: author's photograph, c irca late 1990s) 2 Age value at the rear courtyard of Tun Tan Cheng Lock Centre, Melaka. The Centre Is a part of the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore. Its conservat ion was carried out by a team from the department, including, notably, Cheah Kok Ming.

Buildings demolished are history records gone. While some must make way for progress, some, we hope, will remain to link us with our past.

FUTURARC 93

COMMENTARY

- - PLA N XX - -

, • 0 , .. .. , , • • , , , .. '0 0'

Ifl"i-'-fJ~ ~t .; -.. . " '. · .. --r . T "

.. .. . ~ . "

IH I 0'

M

" , Jd: J-L Q .. 'd, 0 , . . .. .. .. .. " .. "

;;;J-ld· " .. .. .... .... .. .. .. · .. .. .... .. .. , .. . • • .. . . "

.. 0 .. , • .. . .. .. .. . "

.~ .. ~ 't .. " . .. . " " .. . " I~

... .... to » .. .. .. "T"

.. »

• i --r.~ :1

» '1. . .. k I ... ~ ~ ." . , :!l, .. _ .. i ... ~ .. .. .. .. , , - .. . . .. .. "W! l " .. .. .. .. "

" .. , -. , . .. ... , ... , -. . . .... .. " .. .. , ..... » ,. .. .. ,., .. ,. .. : """ .. .... " 0'

t ,

0"_ .... , .. I. -.... .. ~ I ..... ~ .. !' "'."

- , J .... 0 ..... " . .. .. . ~ . ' . .'

u p p iii: R c ~ I '" .. . . . .

4

The current trend of retrofitting is ill-conceived as the memory and identity of entire neighbourhoods are wiped out and tarted up.

3 British sanitary inspectors in one of the dark and overcrowded shophouses (source: W. J. Simpson, The Sanitary Conditions of Singapore, 1907) 4 The proposed improvement of introducing back lanes into the back to back shophouses at Upper Chin Chew Street, Upper Nankin Street and Upper Macao Street (source: W. J. Simpson, The Sanitary Conditions of Singapore, 1907).

94 FUTURARC

system and is deemed inappropriate, redundant and to be discarded. Conversely, anything that enjoys longevity needs to be constantly endowed as socially valuable and thus preserved. Douglas's insight that all objects have socially malleable meanings and values, and their consignment to waste is not dependent on their intrinsic physical properties is applicable to any material artefact, including buildings, except a building cannot be discarded once it is deemed as rubbish and has to be demolished instead. '

Durable and waste, longevity and brevity, are not so much diametrically opposed conditions but different states in a continuous spectrum. Although most architects assume architecture to be about permanence and durability, Till proposes that "all architecture is waste in transir because all buildings have limited lifespans and it is a matter of time before they are deemed obsolete and demolished. Some buildings might, however, escape the fate of demolition for a sufficiently long time to enjoy longevity. To explain these phenomena, Till uses anthropologist Michael Thompson's "rubbish theory". Thompson 's theory suggests that all objects can be assigned to one of two overt categories-"transient" or "durable". "Objects in the transient category decrease in va lue over time and have finite lifespans. Objects in the durable category increase in value over time and have (ideally) infinite lifespans,~ notes Thompson.4 These two categories are insufficient to describe all objects, so Thompson adds a th ird category-"rubbish", which is the state that the transient object arrives at when its value

decreases till it is worthless. Thompson postulates that objects can move from transient to rubb ish category and from rubbish to durable category, but no other movement is possible. Both Thompson and Till use the Georgian terrace house in London as an example to illustrate their claim. I think the history of the shophouse in Singapore is equally illuminating of the rubbish theory.

FROM TRANSIENT TO RUBBISH TO DURABLE

After Raffles' 1822 decree, the shop house was widely erected in Singapore and, by the mid,19'" century, it was already the most prevalent building type in the central area of Singapore. The building of new shophouses continued alleast until the mid-201h century and, in Thompson 's terms, many shop houses continued to enter into the transient category to be used for residential and commercial purposes even as the shop house was beginning to be perceived as rubb ish. The success of Singapore as a colonial port city in the 19th to mid-20tll century led to an influx of immigrants. However, the quantity of housing did not keep up with the increase in population, and by the early 20th century, many shophouses in the town area were overcrowded. These shophouses were often subdivided into small dark windowless cub icles to accommodate as many people as possible.

The British colonial authorities in the early 20tll

century were concerned with the outbreak of plagues and how they might cripple the colonial economy, which actually happened to a few British

If we are to learn from the past, we have to respect what is left from the past, including the imperfection, incompleteness, the filth, grime, and dirt.

the

Indian cities. Driven by a veritable sanitary fervour and informed by theories of tropical medicine, these authorities saw a correlation, if not causality, between the built environment and the health of the inhabitants. In a landmark sanitary report produced in 1907 by Professor William Simpson, the overcrowded, dark and inadequately ventilated shophouse was identified as one of the main causes for Singapore 's high mortality and morbidity rates at that timeS (image 3). If the diagnosis of the problem was about the lack of "air" and "light", the prescribed solution was to bring more light and air into the shophouses. On that basis, Simpson made a few recommendations, including the enlargement of the light wells and courtyards of shophouses, and the introduction of back lanes to break up the back to back shophouses (image 4).

Simpson's report is significant because it is the first to render the shophouse typology as a problem, specifically as a slum to be demolished and/or improved. It also became the basis for subsequent colonial reports on the intractable housing problem-from the 1918 Housing Commission 's Report to the 1947 Housing Committee Report.' Although Simpson's report eventually led to the formation of Singapore Improvement Trust in 1927 to address the housing inadequacy, the

colonial government 's lack of political will and the attendant unwillingness to commit political and economic resources meant that the housing problem continued to be insufficiently dealt with until the 1940s. Instead of addressing the root of the housing problem i.e., inadequate housing provision, many colonial architects and planners chose to blame the shophouse, relegating it to the status of rubbish in Thompson 's scheme of th ings, as is evident in the following opinion expressed by a town planner in 1929, "It is hoped that in time to come the shophouse fetish may be destroyed, and that buil ding owners, and even building authorities may cease to think of building schemes only in terms of shophouses, and Singapore may cease to be a city of mean streets , and, with a few notable exceptions, mean buildings ... Ml

The colonial consignment of the shophouse to the status of rubbish was further consolidated in the post-independence era. Under the post ­independence government's urban renewal and public housing programmes, the shophouses were primarily regarded as "slums" to be demolish as they were occupying a "large piece of strategic and valuable land right in the centre of the city ... and constituting a hindrance to progress and growth."' In the developmental

discourse of the post-independence government, the shop house was the backward and insanitary slum that contrasted against their vision of a modern central business district with gleaming podium-tower blocks (image 17). Despite the UN experts ' recommendation against "the wholesale demolition of large quarters" as it might bring about "social upheaval" and their acknowledgement that "the value and attraction of many of the existing shophouses and the way of living, working and trading that produced this type of particularly Singaporean type of architecture", large shophouse districts were acquired, cleared, reparcelled, and sold to developers by the post­independence state through its Land Acquisition Act and Government Land Sales Programme.9

By the early 1980s, after many shophouses had been demolished, the confluence of a few different factors led to the revaluation of the shophouse. One of the factors was the report of the Tourism Task Force, which was formed to examine the decline in tourist arrivals in the early 1980s. According to the Task Force, one of reasons for the decline was Singapore's loss of "Oriental mystique and charm ... best symbolised in old buildings, trad itional activit ies and bustling roadside activities" ,1 0 The Task Force thus recommended that Singapore's old buildings, especially whole districts of shophouses, be conserved as they would provide sufficient ~ crit i cal mass" of attractions. Another factor was grassroots advocacy for conservation, among whom included architects such as Peter Keys, Lee Kip Lin and, most notably, William Lim. Lim, especially, was influenced by the architectural postmodernism movement that emerged in response to the failings of modern architecture from the 19708. 11 Among the eclectic theories and ideologies that made up postmodernism were those concerned with contextualism and symbolism, ostensibly rectifying modernism's tabula rasa approach to urban design and its alienating abstract architecturallanguage.12

Architectural postmodernism also indirectly contributed to the conservation sen timents of these architects. One of the outcomes of this grassroots advocacy was the 1984 publication of Pastel Portraits, a pictorial book that documents and celebrates the shophouse as Singapore's architectural heritage. In the Deputy Prime Minister S. Rajaratnam's foreword to the book, he writes that "[tJhe hIStory of a city is recorded not only in books, but also in its buildings." Buildings like the shophouses Ware more than util itarian objects. They also are a record of our ancestors ' aspirations and achievements. In Singapore , many of the old buildings embody the visual confluence of our multi -varied ethnic roots. While the majority need some face lift, they never cease to del ight our eyes and enhance the sense of time and place unique to our own city ... Buildings demolished are history records gone. While some must make way for progress, some, we hope, will remain to link us with our past. "1 3

Rajaratnam's endorsement of the shophouse marked a shift in the oHicial policy towards the shophouse. Following his endorsement, the Urban Redevelopment Authority completed its first conservation programme of Tanjong Pagar shophouses in 1987 and the first conservation master plan that included diHerent shophouse districts was announced in 1989. Within a short span of less than 20 years, the shophouse has been re-endowed with new socia l values and transformed from its rubbish status of a "hindrance to progress" and "slums" to be demolished to what Thompson calls a durable status-an embodiment of a city's history and a heritage to be conserved (image 16 & image 25).

FROM NEWNESS TO AGE VALUE The history of the shophouse does not end With

it attaining durable status Le., its conservation in the mid-1 980s. Questions were and would continue to be asked about how the shophouse should be conserved aesthetically, socially, culturally, and economically. There is obviously no easy answer to these questions. In the last section 01 this article, let us briefly examine an emerging aesthetic tendency and the sociocultural implications.

The early conserved shophouses tended to be restored in a rather colourful manner, perhaps adhering to what URA calls the "traditional paint schemes" of pastel hues with strong colours to accentuate decorative details. The lavishly coloured shop houses might be attempts at faithfully reproducing the "traditional paint schemes" but they were also arguably shaped by the postmodernist aesthetic sens ib ility of the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast to the austere and monochromatic exterior of most modernist buildings, these conserved shophouses presented ornate and colourtul exteriors that conjured a sense of festivity and conviviality associated with many postmodern themed environments in North America and Europe. These visually stimulating environments were intended by the architects to en liven the urban environment~especially the streets that were neglected by modernist urban planning-and revi talise threatened traditions. But as many conservation efforts were undertaken by private capital driven by the need to generate profit, these spectacularly themed environments also served commercial interests by encouraging consumption. As a consequence, many cri tics saw and continue to see these conservation efforts as part of a heritage industry that commodified history and memory. Such a perception is only reinforced when conservation is often bound up with gentrification i.e., the displacement of the original community by local and expatriate 'creative classes' and cultural tourists. Questions of authenticity, what is being conserved and for whom were naturally posed by these critics. For a few Singaporean architects, who might be powerless in affecting the socia-economic processes, these questions became entangled with aesthetic and art historical considerations. For instance, Richard Ho lamented, "The current

COMMENTARY

- -

16 The shophouses along Nankin Street undergoing conservation, circa late 1990s 17 The Golden Shoe, part of the central business district in Singapore, as envisioned by the Planning Department in 1964. Note how the shophouses on the lett of the podium-tower blocks are represented as fuzzy indistinguishable mess in contrast to the straight clean lines and geometric forms of the podium-tower blocks (source: Planning Department's Annual Report, 1964)

FUTURARC 99

I

trend of retrofitt ing is ill-conceived as the memory and identity of entire neighbourhoods are wiped out and tarted up ... It's like send ing your grandmother for a complete facelift! And when you try to make the old look new, you wipe away the history forever, and no amount of money can replace il."14

Ho was perhaps lamenting the absence of what Austrian art historian Alois Riegl called "age value" in the newly conserved buildings. For Riegl, "Age value is revealed in imperfection, a lack of completeness, a tendency to dissolve shape and colour, characteristics that are in complete contrast with those of modern i.e. , newly created works. "" Riegl suggested that "[sjigns of decay (premature ageing) in new works disturb us just as much as signs of new production (conspicuous restorations) in old works." 16 Age value is significant because nature and human beings leave behind traces on physical artefacts over time, and these traces represent, in John Ruskin's words, the "deep sense of voiceful ness" accumulated in old buildings. 17 If we are to learn from the past, we have to respect what is left from the past, including the impertection, the incompleteness, the filth, grime, and dirt. In other words, rather than looking cheerily colourful and new, the durable shophouse should appear more like "rubbish".

A new generation of architects appear to have attempted to incorporate Riegl 's "age value" into thei r conservation projects. On top of the carefully restored architectural details, and meticulously cleaned and plastered surfaces, architects like Cheah Kok Ming, Chang Yang Ter, Randy Chan and Ng Sek San have also sought to strateg ically reveal the patina of age, the imperfections of weathering, and the accumulated material traces of the past-including the alterations and modifications-of these old shophouses, and juxtaposed them with their own additions and insertions. By doing so, these architects brought us "face to face with the destructive potential of time and the inevitability of time"le and, more importantly, compelled us to engage with the previous transient and rubbish statuses of these shophouses, raising our awareness of the social endowment of value in these buildings (image 2).

I ·

1 Cited in Jon Sun Hock Lim, ' The 'ShophOuse Rafflesia' : An Outline of Its Malaysian Pedigree and Its Subsequent Diffusion in Asia," Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 66, 00. 1 (1993); 49.

2 T. C. Chang and Peggy Teo, "The Shophouse Hotel: Vernacular Heritage in a Creative City," Urban Studies 46, no. 2 (2009); lily Kong, Conserving the Past, Creating the Future: Urban Heritage in Singapore (Singapore: Urban Redevelopmerlt Authority,2011).

l Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2(09), 67-76.

l IDid .• 71. S See Jiat-Hwee Chang, " Tropicalizing' Planning: Sanitation,

Housing and Technologies of Improvement in Colonial Singapore, 1907-42,' in Imperial Contagions: Medicine and Culture of Planning in ASia, 1880-1949, ed. Robert Peckham and David Promfret (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012).

I W. J. Simpson, The Sanitary Conditions of Singapore (londoo: Water1ow, 1907); PRO C02731470, Singapore Housing Commission Report 1918; Report of the Housing Committee Singapore, 1947, (Sir"lgapore: Govemmenl Printing Office, 1947).

I Oscar Wilson, 'Foreword," Journal of the Singapore Society of Architects Incorporated 1 , no. 1 (1929): 1.

e Alan Choe, "Urban Renewal," ed. Jin-Bee Ooi and Hai Oing Chiang (Singapore: University of Singapore, 1969), 164.

• Cited in Kong, Conserving the Past, Creating the Future, 26. 10 Cited in Lily Kong and Brenda S. A. Yeoh, ' Urban Conservation

in Singapore: A Survey of State Policies and Popular Attitudes, ' Urban Studies 31 , no. 2 (1994): 251.

l lUm notes that "by mid-seventies, I became convinced that with a few exceptions, Modem architecture was neither understood by the common people whom it claimed to serve ... Modem Architecture is critically sick and alienated from the society _ .. It was in this conteKl that I began to examine the so·called 'Post-Modem' movement.' in "My Personal Philosophy and Wor'K. "William S. W.Um, Cities for the People: Reflections of a Southeast Asian Architect (Singapore: Select Books, 1990), 8.

12 For corltextualism, see Sandy Isenstadl, 'Contested Contexts," in Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strategies, ed. Carol J. Burns and Andrea Kahn (London: Routledge, 2005).

13 5. Rajaratnam, "Foreward" in Pastel Portraits, ed. Gretchen Liu (Singapore: Singapore Coordinating Committee, 1984),

11 Cited in Sai Siang Tan, ' Let Grandma Look Pretty, ' The Straits Times, 17 July 1998

15 Alois Riegl, "The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Essence and Its Development,' in Historical and Phifosophicallssues in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, ed. Nicholas Stanley Price, M. Kirby Jr. Talley, and Alessandra Melucco Vaccaro (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 1996(1903)), 73.

16 Ibid .. 73. 11 Cited in M. Kirby Jr. Talley, "Introduction to Part I, ' ibid. (1996),

9. 18Ti ll, Architecture Depends, 75.

25 A row of shophouses in Geylang undergoing conservation, circa late 19905. The interior was hollowed out while the fagade was carefully "restored", (source: author's photograph)

Bibliography '<;

• Chang, Jiat-Hwee. ' 'Tropicalizing' Planning: Sanitation, Housing and Technologies of Improvement in Colonial Singapore, 1907-42." In Imperial Contagions. Medicine and Culture of Planning in Asia, 1880-1949, edited by Robert Peckham and David Promfret. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012.

• Chang , T. C. , and Peggy Teo. "The Shophouse Hotel: Vernacular Heritage in a Creative City." Urban Studies 46, no. 2 (2009): 341-67.

• Choe, Alan. "Urban Renewal. " edited by Jin-Bee Ooi and Hai Ding Chiang. Singapore: University of Singapore, 1969.

• Isenstadt, Sandy. 'Contested Contexts. " In Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strategies, edited by Carol J. Burns and Andrea Kahn, 157-83. London: Routledge, 2005.

• Kong, Lily. Conserving the Past, Creating the Future: Urban Heritage in Singapore. Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority, 2011.

• Kong, Lily, and Brenda S. A. Yeoh. ' Urban Conservation in Singapore: A Survey of State Policies and Popular Attitudes: Urban Studies 31 , no. 2 (1994): 247-65.

• Lim, Jon Sun Hock. "The 'Shophouse Rafflesia': An Outline of Its Malaysian Pedigree and Its Subsequent Diffusion in Asia. " Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society66, no. 1 (1993): 47-66.

• Lim, Wi lliam S. W. Cities for the People: Reflections of a Southeast Asian Architect. Singapore: Select Books, 1990.

• PRO C0273/470. Singapore Housing Commission Report 1918. Report of the Housing Committee Singapore, 1947. Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1947.

• Riegl , Alois. "The Modern Cu lt of Monuments: Its Essence and Its Development." In Historical and Philosophical Issues in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, edited by Nicholas Stanley Price, M. Kirby Jr. Talley and Alessandra Melucco Vaccaro, 69-83. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 1996(1903).

• Simpson, W. J .. The Sanitary Conditions of Singapore. London: Waterlow, 1907.

• Talley, M. Kirby Jr .. ' Introduction to Part I. " In Historical and Philosophical Issues in the Conservation of Cultural Herilage, edited by Nicholas Stanley Price, M. Kirby Jr. Talley and Alessandra Melucco Vaccaro, 2-41. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 1996.

• Tan, Sai Siang. "Let Grandma Look Pretty." The Straits Times, 17 July 199B.

• Till, Jeremy. Architecture Depends. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.

• Wilson, Oscar. "Foreword. " Journal of the Singapore Society of Architects Incorporated 1, no. 1 (1929): 1.

FUTURARC 10 1