Book: UNIT. a glimpse into Singapore’s 1970s - ‘80s private apartments
Docomomo Singapore is pleased to announce the upcoming book "UNIT: a glimpse into Singapore's 1970s - 80s private apartments", self published by Samatha Chia and Finbarr Fallon. Details about the book and its authors below.
About the book
The 224-page book seeks to answer the question of what it means to be 'at home' in private high-rises built in immediate post-independence Singapore. It comprises photographs and in-depth interviews with residents of ten apartments from ten developments built from 1970s to 1980s: Peach Garden, Golden Mile Complex, People’s Park Complex, Pandan Valley, Hillcrest Arcadia, Bedok Court, Palisades, Mandarin Gardens, The Colonnade, and Pepys Hill Condominium.
These apartments embody an era of transition. Singapore, a fledgling nation grappling with land scarcity, was seeking to shift its population away from landed and low-rise living into high-density housing. Private housing developments faced a significantly more acute challenge than public housing developments.Generally seeking to attract the middle and upper classes, they needed to address why more affluent homeowners would want to trade the exclusivity of living in landed property to living in proximity with strangers.
For many of us living in Singapore today, the apartment is perhaps the architectural typology that we are most familiar with. But the architects designing these private residential apartments in the 1970s and ‘80s had to grapple with questions that were new to the industry at the time. What should an attractive, high-rise, high-density development look like? How should its design respond to our local context, be it our climate or culture? And perhaps more esoterically, how would they reflect Singapore’s ambitions as a modern nation and chart the path for generations of high-rise residences to come?
These private apartments represent a key, but often overlooked feature of Singapore’s development history, and whilst many of these buildings have been photographed from the outside, we rarely get a glimpse of what the interiors, and living in them, is actually like. Having spent so much time at home during the recent COVID-19 pandemic has only reinforced how much our apartment interiors set the stage for our everyday lives.
Through interviews held between end-2020 to 2022 with the residents of these apartments, the book offers a glimpse into the stories that play out behind the building facades, and documents how these spaces continue to function as the home today, some forty to fifty years after they were built.
Information
Pre-order now at https://finbarrfallon.com/unit/
Available end-July 2022
224 pages, softcover, 176mm (width) x 250mm (height)
Featuring: Peach Garden, Golden Mile Complex, People’s Park Complex, Pandan Valley, Hillcrest Arcadia, Bedok Court, Palisades, Mandarin Gardens, The Colonnade, and Pepys Hill Condominium
An accompanying photography exhibition will be held at Gillman Barracks between 23-31 July (details to be confirmed).
About the authors
Samantha Chia is an urban planner with a background in architecture, and a keen interest in writing and documenting the untold narratives that shape the history and urban fabric of Singapore.
She graduated cum laude from the Delft University of Technology (Msc Arch) with a thesis paper on Landscapes without Meaning - The fickleness of memory and the obsession with the image and design project titled Ritual & Memory - Resisting the changing landscapes of Singapore which was shortlisted for the school’s ArchiPrix exhibition. The project looked at re-establishing the relevance of the Ying Fo Fui Kun’s cemetery at Commonwealth in a rapidly changing Singapore by reclaiming its purpose as a burial landscape. Her other interests include public policy and governance for which she won the United Nations 32nd Eisaku Sato Essay Contest (2017) - Award of Brilliance.
Contact: sam@spacetimestudio.com
Finbarr Fallon is an architectural photographer and artist based between Singapore and London. He was educated at the Bartlett School of Architecture (BSc, MArch Architecture), obtaining the Bartlett School of Architecture Medal, and a RIBA Silver nomination for his thesis work.
His works have been exhibited internationally, with recent showings at the ArtScience Museum, National Museum of Singapore, The Singapore Art Museum and Bargehouse London. Finbarr’s documentary photography work has won awards including the Blueprint Architecture Photography Awards (Atrium People’s Choice), Landscape Photographer of the Year (Finalist) and Infrastructure Photographer of the Year (Finalist).
Contact: finfallon@gmail.com; finbarr@spacetimestudio.com
Website: www.finbarrfallon.com
Instagram: @fin.barr
All photography by Finbarr Fallon.
Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in the book are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of Docomomo Singapore.
