ORCHESTRATION: THE ADOPTION OF THEATRICAL STAGING IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW LANDSCAPES AND PERCEPTIONS OF SINGAPORE

Abstract

Similar to how a theatrical set elicits specific emotions through the manifestation of montage, orchestration on an urban scale has now become the device for urban planning in Singapore’s landscape primarily as a means of creating an alluring city image for tourists. Whilst the montage found precedence in the combinative process of selecting and removing distinct elements to create a desired image, urban planning in Singapore has taken it a step further by constructing selective elements tabula rasa, analogous to creating a set.

This dissertation argues that recent urban planning in Singapore was designed solely using this premise with the goal of growing tourism in Singapore. The concepts of ‘montage’ and ‘staging a spectacle’ in relation to ‘city imaging’ and ‘tourism-driven planning’ will be investigated with reference to two recent large-scale developments in Singapore – the Integrated Resorts (IRs) consisting of the Marina South development (MSD) and Resorts World Sentosa (RWS).

Specifically, this investigation is broken down into three components: Firstly, I will discuss how and why the process of city imaging - a technique that originated from the montage – was adopted as a tool in designing symbols of urban cities; secondly, I will demonstrate how this reading has materialized in Singapore’s two IRs as total landscapes consumed by tourism with the involvement of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB); and thirdly I will evaluate the ramifications of this approach through local surveys that illustrate how although staging has created a space of exclusion amongst locals, unpredicted activity still occurs, allowing locals to participate in their own ways.