LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE OF TROPICAL MODERNISM IN SINGAPORE: REPRESENTATION OF TROPICALITY DURING THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

Tropical landscape design trends have evolved over the years and influenced many tropical regions in the world in the aspect of built architecture with garden designs. Tropical gardens started out as European mental imageries of the ‘Garden of Eden’, a paradise filled with tropical exotics which were notably portrayed through early English paintings. Nonetheless, European botanists invented the tropical glasshouse house where it exhibits the development of pleasure gardens and it is also where the birth of tropical garden styles evolved. Tropical pleasure garden styles involving purely decorative planting influenced the tropical regions such as the West Indies, Southern Pacific, Hawaii and Southeast Asia notably in the twentieth century which is also during the turn of the modernist movement.

This dissertation explores the modern tropical garden styles that have influenced Singapore’s gardens during the twentieth century when tropical modern garden influences were roving in the tropics during that period. This is gap in the literature which was not documented due to Singapore’s procedure of frequent building demolition and the lack of archives which resulted in loss of information. There is also worldwide renewed interest in the history of the twentieth century which has not completely been written yet in comparison with the earlier periods which are better documented in various aspects.

This dissertation analyses the notion of tropical planting styles that have evolved over the tropics during the twentieth century and how some local traditions are integrated with these external influences. The research further examines design feature elements illustrated by Made Wijaya on modern tropical garden designs from the early to the late twentieth century through various case studies. Thereafter, utilizing the accumulation of data to compare with local case studies in Singapore built within the same period to evaluate if external influences do play a part in Singapore tropical gardens.