NOSTALGIA : A CASE STUDY OF NOSTALGIC CAFES IN CONTEMPORARY SINGAPORE AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF NOSTALGIA ON THE URBAN TRANSFORMATION OF SINGAPORE

Abstract

“Remember the Good Old Days” reads a special feature headline on the TODAY newspaper on the 49th National Day of Singapore. Nostalgia runs high in Singapore as the country celebrates its 49th year of independence since 1965, culminating in the Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong’s use of lyrics from popular 1970s Xinyao song in its 2014 National Day Rally by, Liang Wern Fook. In the recent years, Singapore is experiencing an intense bout of nostalgia in numerous disciplines. Nostalgic themes dominate the art installations in the 2013 Singapore Biennale and government campaigns such as the Pioneer Generation Package as Singapore prepares itself for the SG50 moment in 2015. Most apparent in the translation of nostalgia into space is the emergence of a new wave of nostalgic cafes.

This development is set against the rapidly changing landscape of Singapore which has seen several heritage landscapes placed under imminent demolition, prompting massive grassroots movements such as Save Bukit Brown and the Save Old School campaigns. The popularity of such contemporary heritage movements foreshadowed the rather quiet subdued reaction towards the demolition of the National Theatre in the 1970s and the even the National Library in the 1990s. Nonetheless, these long-gone landmarks were revived repeated in contemporary imagery and maintains a persistent motif within the consciousness of the people today. The awareness and hence relative association with these former landmarks regardless of generation is a significant trait of contemporary nostalgia and evident in the conceptualization of the nostalgic cafes. Nostalgia itself begun as a medical term in the 19th century but eventually developed into a subject of multidisciplinary nature that spanned from geographical to the psychological. Defined as the sentimentality of the past with a wistful desire, the phenomenon has been studied extensively by in the psychological field by Trigg (2006) or as a social response framed by the studies of Lefebvre (1991). Chua (1994), Boym (2007,2008) and Wilson (2005). Understanding the multi-faceted nature of nostalgia provided alternative perspectives to comprehend the development of nostalgia in Singapore at large and studied in detailed through the case studies of the nostalgic cafes.

Together with the study of the contextual background of nostalgia in contemporary Singapore as well as the case studies of the nostalgic cafes. It became evident that there are variants of nostalgia that has developed in Singapore over the years. Contemporary nostalgia unlike the nostalgia in the 1980s-1990s is becoming increasingly participatory and advocating in nature as a platform of expression rather than a passive reminder of the past. In effect, it is exerting its influence in Singapore’s urban transformation in the near future in a ground-up manner. Furthermore, the various brands of nostalgia developing and realized in the urban landscape in Singapore are reflective of the social conflict within spaces that have their origins in the early development of Singapore prompting a re-look into the implications on the urban landscape that attributed to the deeper workings of nostalgia which is more than just a simplistic yearning for the past.