CONSUMING ARCHITECTURE : AN ANALYSIS OF THE PINNACLE AT DUXTON

Abstract

The Pinnacle@Duxton, a high-rise and high-density residential project located at the Central Area of the city of Singapore, is the first local public housing project whereby an international architectural competition was held for it in 2001. The architectural competition had generated much interest both locally and internationally and the eventual launch of Duxton Plain Public Housing in Singapore in 2004 was a highly anticipated event covered by an unprecedented amount of mass media attention. Poised to be at the forefront of high-rise and high-density city living in the 21st century, the Pinnacle@Duxton is a symbol of a new generation of public housing for the more affluent and cosmopolitan generation who increasingly reject the Fordist mass-produced public housing in search of a more differentiated and upper-end private housing. This post-Fordist consumer behavior indicates a change in the consumption of architecture in Singapore and the Pinnacle@Duxton is postulated as the result of radical changes in housing policies in name of pragmatism taken by the Singapore government to ‘deliver the goods’ to its people. Images of the Pinnacle@Duxton were propagated rampantly even before the construction of the tower blocks begun. These images of the Pinnacle@Duxton appear to be more significant than the physical manifestation of it. Using linguistic theories such as semiotics and communication theories to read this phenomenon, the paper moves into consumerism as a culture in relation to mass media in the context of the public housing market in Singapore. Probing the assumptions held about consumption, the paper looks into how the Pinnacle@Duxton can be consumed in the consumer society of Singapore.