MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Abstract

The recent debate on the development of a civil society in Singapore, which has been very much repressed during the nation building years, has brought into question the ideological determinacy of nationhood and national identity. Ever since it has gained independence from colonial rule, the government has been actively involved in harnessing this common identity, so much so, it has become a code for a political project that essentially fabricates and constructs this cultural image of a nation where the "nation" as represented by its people has become absent. Architecture has served as a tool for the formulation of such an identity. The public housing schemes implemented by the government ( which at present houses 87% of the population) is one example of the successful attempts to project this ideological imposition. And in recent years the proposal of the Museum precinct and the development of several national buildings such as the Singapore Arts Centre has effectively attempted to address the issue of concretizing a national identity. This has left the people with many uncertainties in the apparent disparities between the determinacy of state interest and the inconsistencies and diversity of our society and its cultural values in the contemporary life-world. Therefore, this thesis is an attempt to examine how the architecture of such national profiles (namely our museum architecture) can mediate between the definitive and ambivalent notions of cultural signification. An architectural strategy that speaks of a tension between the nation represented as a discursive address and fragmented entity and the nations represented as a pre-determined and centered entity.