JIAT-HWEE CHANG

National University of Singapore

Deviating Discourse
Tay Kheng Soon and the Architecture
of Postcolonial Development in
Tropical Asia

In this short review of Singaporean architect Tay hero and creative genius.1 Instead, I seek to lineage with all the Bourdieuian symbolic capital he
Kheng Soon’s work, I will not adopt a ‘‘life-and- understand Tay’s work in relation to his milieu, not is inheriting, but to highlight the socio-political
work’’ narrative that celebrates the architect as a to establish his work in a particular architectural dimensions of postcolonial development
in Southeast Asia and how this has shaped
1. Plan of the Tropical House at King Albert Park. (Courtesy of Tay Kheng Soon.)
Tay’s work.

A Postcolonial Architect
Tay was among the first students to enroll in the
Diploma of Architecture course at the Singapore
Polytechnic in 1958. He graduated five years later
in the pioneer batch of locally educated architects,
joining a select group of local architects educated
overseas in a professional scene that was still
dominated by British expatriates. The socio-political
conditions of this period shaped this generation of
architects and their work, particularly in Tay’s case,
in significant ways. The architecture course at
Singapore Polytechnic was established as part of
the expansion of tertiary and technical education in
the British Empire in the 1950s. After decades of
neglect, in which tertiary and technical education
were deemed irrelevant to the colonial economy,
and were underfunded, the British imperial
government decided to invest in tertiary and
technical education as part of a larger colonial
development and welfare program initiated in the
1940s to address the social problems that were
fueling anti-colonial movements throughout the
British colonies.2 For the first time, architecture
schools were established outside Britain, the British
Dominions, and British India, in colonies such as
Kenya, Nigeria, Hong Kong, and Singapore during
the 1950s.3
Contrary to the hopes of the British
administrators, the program did little to quell the
anti-colonial protests or to halt the march toward
independence. If anything, it only hastened the
process of decolonization. Thus, the emergence of
locally trained professional architects in Singapore
coincided with decolonization and a rising
consciousness of their role in the building of a
post-colonial nation. In Singapore’s case, the 1950s
and 1960s witnessed the difficult birth of an

153 CHANG Journal of Architectural Education,

pp. 153–158 ª 2010 ACSA
 London.6 For Tay and Lim, independence meant
not a reactionary rejection of Eurocentric modernity
or a retreat into parochial nationalism through, for
2. Elevation of the Tropical House showing the architectural language of line, edge and shade. (Courtesy of Tay Kheng Soon.) example, the triumphalist assertion of the
supremacy of one’s national traditions and cultures.
‘‘unnatural’’ nation, from self-government in 1959, on after the end of formal colonization through,
Instead, they saw the relevance and the liberating
to merger with Malaysia in 1963, and finally for example, what Partha Chatterjee called
dimensions of modernity, selectively embracing it
separation and independence in 1965.4 ‘‘epistemic conquest’’ or through other forms of
while they also asked how they, as citizens of a
Being a part of the tumultuous transition from Eurocentric cultural hegemony.5 Thus, attaining
newly independent nation, could contribute to the
colony to nation meant that these pioneering genuine independence meant not just becoming a
constant transformation of modernity, gaining
architects had first-hand experience of the sovereign political entity and embarking on
recognition as equal members of the cosmopolitan
inequalities of exploitative colonial rule and strove economic modernization and development. It also
culture. Their embrace did not mean wholesale
to be free from it. However, they also realized that meant demonstrating social and cultural
acceptance; it was a partial embrace mixed with
colonial dominance did not stop with the formal independence, as Tay’s teacher Lim Chong Keat
critical interrogation, one that was, and perhaps
end of colonial rule and the beginning of pointed out in the paper he read at the 1963
still is, fraught with tensions and even
independence. As postcolonial scholars have Commonwealth architectural conference organized
contradictions.
pointed out, many colonial power relations lingered by the Royal Institute of British Architects in
3. The Tropical House. (Courtesy of Tay Kheng Soon.) 4. ITE College Central, Bishan Campus, previously Bishan Institute of Technical Education. (Photograph by author.)

Deviating Discourse 154

 emphasis on volume, plane, and light in the
modernist architecture of the temperate zone.7
At first glance, the design appears to adhere to
the climatic design principles of modern tropical
architecture first advocated in the mid-twentieth
century by protagonists such as Maxwell Fry, Le
Corbusier, and Otto Koenigsberger. In fact, tropical
architecture was what Fry described as the ‘‘dialect
of internationalism’’ prescribed for the tropical
colonies ⁄ countries of the British
Empire ⁄ Commonwealth, including Singapore.8 At
that time, tropical architecture was seen as an
extension of modernist architecture in the
temperate metropole, no more than an
‘‘acclimatization’’ of the modern techno-scientific
5. Sketch showing the bio-mimetic strategy of planning the city to achieve the micro-climatic conditions of a tropical rainforest. (Courtesy of Tay rationality and design principle to the technical
Kheng Soon.) problems of building in the tropics. It was even
suggested that tropical architecture was primarily
Architectural Aesthetics and Postcolonial The Tropical House was designed in response to designed by British or British-trained architects.9
Politics the tropical climate, emphasizing the need to Like many others in architecture school in the
The best illustration of Tay’s selective embrace of provide shade from the tropical sun through deep tropics at that time, Tay was taught to design in the
Eurocentric modernity is his design for the overhangs, louvers, and zones of transitional idiom of tropical architecture when he was at
Tropical House at King Albert Park (Figures 1–3). spaces. It was also designed to facilitate natural Singapore Polytechnic.10
Completed in 1994, the house is considered a ventilation for cooling through the use of porous There are, however, a few key differences
culmination of Tay’s long quest for an walls and screens, the elevation of parts of the between Tay’s proposal and the mid-twentieth
architectural aesthetics of the tropics, following building on pilotis and the deployment of the century discourse of modern tropical architecture.
decades of experimentation with different formal one-room thick principle in planning the spaces. By the 1980s and 1990s, the theory and practice of
languages in his previous work, including public Tay called this the architectural language of ‘‘line, modern tropical architecture had become largely
buildings such as schools and hospitals (Figure 4). edge, and shade,’’ one which contrasts with the invisible with the ubiquity of air-conditioned
6. Kampong Bugis Development Guide Plan, model. (Courtesy of Tay Kheng Soon.)

155 CHANG
 in effect transferred the surplus value of crops
produced by solar infusion in a northwards
flow of commodities in exchange for cheap
manufactured goods at prices preferential to
the North and disadvantageous to the South.
Colonial economy was, in effect, a systemic
appropriation of solar energy, which acted as a
pump in service of the northern economies
during their industrial revolution.14

Tay’s combination of a Wallersteinian world

system perspective on unequal exchange between
the metropole and the colonies, an eco-social
perspective on ecological exploitation in capitalist
production, and a postcolonial perspective on
the continual efficacies of colonial power relations
today radically reconstructed modern tropical
architecture.15 Instead of a technical discourse
about passive cooling and thermal comfort, Tay
re-imagined it as an emancipatory aesthetics that
could redress the postcolonial asymmetrical power
relations and purportedly free the postcolonial
7. Kampong Bugis Development Guide Plan, section. (Courtesy of Tay Kheng Soon.) subject ‘‘from the political and taste-dictates of
buildings. The passive cooling strategies of tropical designing in the tropics was inextricably linked to [his] masters.’’16
architecture, devised to address resource scarcity in socio-economic structural problems that have
the colonies and the developing countries during colonial origins. He was acutely aware of how Urbanization and Ecological Development
the mid-twentieth century, appeared less Western cultural hegemony shaped architectural in the Tropics
economically relevant in many parts of the tropics, aesthetics, and he claimed that ‘‘tropical design Tay’s tropical architectural aesthetics stand apart
especially Singapore and Malaysia, with the continues to be compromised by the ghost of from mid-twentieth century discourse for another
availability of cheap energy and low-cost Northern box esthetics.’’12 According to Tay, the important reason—they were conceived in
mechanical cooling equipment. Yet, it was precisely root cause of the problem was a socio-economic conjunction with a rethinking of urban planning in
at this moment that Tay, along with others such as one. He observed that because tropical economies the tropics. In 1989, Tay published Mega-Cities in
Ken Yeang, sought to resuscitate it.11 What Tay did were so thoroughly linked to those of the the Tropics, a manifesto for urban design in the
was not simply a case of reviving an obsolete developed world, they did not have ‘‘the confidence tropics. The next year, he led a team that
discourse. to chart new grounds and new approaches.’’13 implemented his ideas in the ‘‘Kampong Bugis
While mid-century modern tropical architecture Elsewhere, Tay also argued that the economic Development Guide Plan’’ (KBDGP), a proposal for
was depoliticized and technical, privileging climatic dominance of the West had deep historic roots, a test site in the central region of Singapore
determinants of built form over more complex going back to the eco-social inequalities of the (Figures 5–7).17 Perhaps influenced by the generally
socio-cultural factors that would have foregrounded colonial economy in the nineteenth and twentieth acknowledged failure of planned modernist cities in
the political nature of design problems in the centuries: the tropics, such as Chandigarh and Brasilia, where
tropics, Tay’s architectural esthetics of the tropics the climatically responsive architecture of individual
was one that re-politicized the anodyne discourse. Looked at from an ecological perspective, building was not matched by a similar climatically
Tay emphasized that the esthetic problem of colonialism’s exploitation of tropical resources sensitive approach to the planning of open spaces

Deviating Discourse 156

and urban infrastructures, Tay noted that site that rendered white men unhealthy and even agency did not adopt his ideas. But today, with
proponents of modern tropical architecture did not degenerate, modern tropical architecture sustainable development becoming more
address the problems posed by the tropical climate constructed the environment negatively as a hot widespread and Singapore adopting an ecological
at the urban scale. He argued that addressing the and humid climatic zone that would create modernization paradigm, the government has
tropical climate at the building level alone was discomfort and reduce efficiency of work.18 Modern belatedly implemented policies, including promoting
inadequate as it could not remedy the problems of tropical architecture was expected primarily to greenery on high-rises and photovoltaic cells on
excessive heat, noise, and dust generated by an ameliorate heat and humidity and provide for the buildings, that are similar to what Tay proposed two
urban environment inappropriately planned thermal comfort of its inhabitants. In contrast, Tay decades ago.21
according to the northern temperate model. Tay asked how cities could use heat and humidity Tay’s proposals for tropical urbanism and
attributed the demise of tropical architecture and productively, turning sun and rain into ‘‘positive and tropical architecture were not simply ecological
the widespread use of air-conditioning partially to poetic elements in design.’’19 Tay tried to replicate visions of cities and buildings in the tropics.
this failure to conceive an urban planning model for the microclimatic conditions of a tropical rainforest They were, and are, ideas that challenge the
the tropics. canopy in his tropical city proposals. Tay based this economic dominance and cultural hegemony of
Tay proposed a compact, high-density, and bio-mimetic move to deal with tropical heat at the the West and serve to propel Singapore’s socio-
multi-tiered city in which multiple usages, such as level of the planned urban environment on the economic continued development. Twenty years
residential, commercial, and educational, were findings of a Malaysian researcher who discovered ago Tay observed that: ‘‘Singapore will never be
combined. Tay argued that multi-use and that the temperature difference between the a first-class city if it cannot initiate basic and
compactness would optimize the round-the-clock tropical rainforest and the urban center around fundamental ideas on what it is and what it can
utilization of urban infrastructure, minimize travel Kallang Valley was as much as 8C. The difference become. Singapore will always remain in my
distances, discourage the use of cars, and promote was attributed to the urban heat island effect, on mind a second-class, provincial town with global
walking. It would also keep vehicular traffic at the the one hand, and the cooling provided by the pretensions if it is not able to focus on the
periphery and allow the spaces between buildings to transpiration and shade of the trees in the specifics and poetics of place.’’22 Abidin Kusno
be used for public commons to encourage social rainforest, on the other hand. The KBDGP proposed saw Tay’s proposal as a form of ‘‘climatic
interactions. Many of Tay’s ideas anticipate what is a combination of ‘‘high-level shading,’’ large essentialism [that] might as well be read,
popularly regarded today as sustainable urbanism. shading devices installed between buildings and on economically, as a cultural restructuring of late
For example, in KBDGP, he proposed that existing their roofs, and dense vertical and horizontal capitalist development.’’23 And my own initial
brownfield sites of disused industrial spaces in the landscaping that simulated the canopy of a tropical interpretations understood Tay’s work as a form
central area be re-urbanized at a density that is rainforest and replicated the cool and shady of what Partha Chatterjee called ‘‘derivative
even higher than that of the standard Singapore’s microclimatic conditions. Some of these shading discourse’’ because, however emancipatory his
high-rise public housing. In addition to the benefits devices also served as rainwater collectors and solar intentions, Tay based his postcolonial tropical
above, this density would also relieve land-use energy generators using photovoltaic cells. In the architectural aesthetics on the reductive and
pressure, protecting Singapore’s few remaining KBDGP, sun is not solar radiation to be shielded determinist climatic category constructed by
natural and agricultural landscapes from new town from and rain is not wastewater to be disposed of colonialism.24 Now, however, it is possible to see
development. These natural areas and their efficiently. Rather they are embraced as ecological this work in a new light and, as I have
attendant biodiversity would thus be preserved resources to be utilized as fully as possible. Tay also demonstrated here, Tay’s reconception of tropical
through the intensification of development in emphasized the ‘‘poetics and rhapsodic architecture differs in important ways from its
existing urbanized areas. dimensions’’ of urban ecology and explored how to colonial modern antecedent. Far from being a
In these proposals, Tay also demonstrated a design a tropical city ‘‘that captivates, and that derivative discourse, Tay’s construction of tropical
much broader understanding of the tropical enhances attachment and love for the place despite architecture and urbanism constitutes a deviating
environment than was evident in the middle of the the density in the cities.’’20 discourse that expands and contests the
twentieth century. Influenced by colonial medical Unfortunately, Tay’s sustainable urbanism was (post)colonial conception of modern tropical
discourse, which viewed the tropics as a pestilential ahead of its time and Singapore’s state planning buildings and cities.

157 CHANG
Notes International Context for Southeast Asian Architecture,’’ in Robert the built environment from the world system perspective, see Anthony
1. C. Greig Crysler, Writing Spaces: Discourses of Architecture, Powell, ed., Architecture and Identity: Proceedings of the Regional D. King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy: Cultural and
Urbanism, and the Built Environment, 1960–2000 (New York: Seminar (Singapore: Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Concept Media, Spatial Foundations of the World Urban System (London: Routledge,
Routledge, 2003). See also Magali Sarfatti Larson, Behind the 1983), pp. 25–29. See also Mark Crinson, ‘‘Singapore’s Moment: Critical 1990). On the eco-social, see Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism
Postmodern Façade: Architectural Change in Late Twentieth-Century Regionalism, Its Colonial Roots and Profound Aftermaths,’’ The Journal (1970) (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2004).
America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). of Architecture 13, no. 5 (2008): 585–605. 16. Tay Kheng Soon, ‘‘Neo-Tropicality or Neo-Colonialism?,’’ Singapore
2. Michael A. Havinden and David Meredith, Colonialism and 7. Tay Kheng Soon, ‘‘The Architectural Aesthetics of Tropicality,’’ in Architect 211 (2001): 21.
Development: Britain and Its Tropical Colonies, 1850–1960 (London: Robert Powell and Kheng Soon Tay, eds., Line, Edge & Shade : The 17. Singapore Institute of Architects, Kampong Bugis Development
Routledge, 1993). Search for a Design Language in Tropical Asia : Tay Kheng Soon & Guide Plan (Singapore: Singapore Institute of Architects, 1990); Tay
3. Jiat-Hwee Chang, ‘‘Building a (Post)Colonial Technoscientific Akitek Tenggara (Singapore: Page One Publisher, 1997), pp. 40–45. Kheng Soon, Mega-Cities in the Tropics: Towards an Architectural
Network: Tropical Architecture, Building Science and the Power- 8. Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, Tropical Architecture in the Dry and Agenda for the Future (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
Knowlege of Decolonization,’’ in Duanfang Lu, ed., Third World Humid Zones (London: Batsford, 1964). See also Chang, ‘‘Building a 1989).
Modernism: Architecture, Development and Identity (London: (Post)Colonial Technoscientific Network.’’ 18. David Arnold, The Problem of Nature: Environment, Culture and
Routledge, forthcoming); RIBAA, Board of Architectural Education: 9. Editors, ‘‘Editorial: Commonwealth 2,’’ Architectural Review 127 European Expansion (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 141–68.
Minutes of Officers of the Board (January 1952 to April 1960). (1960): 4; Julius Posener, ‘‘Malaya,’’ Architectural Review 128 (1960): 19. Tay Kheng Soon, ‘‘The Intelligent Tropical City,’’ in Robert Powell
4. It was ‘‘unnatural’’ because it is a city without a hinterland and it was 60. and Tay Kheng Soon, eds., Line, Edge & Shade : The Search for a
deemed too small to be viable as an independent nation-state. 10. Tay Kheng Soon, ‘‘Sun Control in Local Buildings,’’ Dimension: Design Language in Tropical Asia: Tay Kheng Soon & Akitek Tenggara
5. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Journal of the Singapore Polytechnic Architectural Society (1962): 43–45. (Singapore: Page One Publisher, 1997(1988)), p. 139.
Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001 11. Ken Yeang, Tropical Urban Regionalism: Building in a South-East 20. Tay, Mega-Cities in the Tropics, p. 13.
[1986]). See also Jane M. Jacobs, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and Asian City (Singapore: Concept Media, 1987). 21. For ecological modernization, see John Barry, ‘‘Ecological
the City (London: Routledge, 1996); Abidin Kusno, Behind the 12. Tay, ‘‘The Architectural Aesthetics of Tropicality,’’ 42. Modernisation,’’ in John S. Dryzek and David Schlosberg, eds., Debating
Postcolonial: Architecture, Urban Space, and Political Cultures in 13. Ibid., 43. the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader (Oxford: Oxford University
Indonesia (New York: Routledge, 2000). 14. Tay Kheng Soon, ‘‘Rethinking the City in the Tropics: The Tropical Press, 2005), pp. 303–21.
6. Part of the paper was published as Lim Chong Keat, ‘‘Architecture in City Concept,’’ in Alexander Tzonis, Bruno Stagno, and Liane Lefaivre, 22. Tay, Mega-Cities in the Tropics, p. 15.
Newly Emerging Nations: A Challenge to Education and Practice,’’ The eds., Tropical Architecture: Critical Regionalism in the Age of 23. Kusno, Behind the Postcolonial, p. 201.
Builder, 6 Sept. 1963. For the complete paper, see RIBAA, Globalization (Chichester, UK: Wiley Academic, 2001), p. 268. 24. Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World.
Commonwealth Conference Committee Papers, Box 1. Lim was to 15. See Immanuel M. Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An
reiterate a similar position two decades later, see Lim Chong Keat, ‘‘The Introduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). For an analysis of

Deviating Discourse 158