NON-RATIONAL SYMBOLS AND THEIR IMPLICATION ON TERRITORY IN THE HDB: THE CASE OF THE FRONT DOOR

Abstract

This dissertation is interested in the study of Singapore’s Public Housing, particularly the entranceway as it relates to culture and life as it is really lived. The concern here is not with grand designs that serve the elite but with, a study that embodies the majority of the human habitat in Singapore. It has been observed that dwellers seem to have extended their personal spaces beyond the interior of their homes to the common corridor. Displays of potted plants, shoe racks, laundry stands, bicycles and religious altars along the public corridor is definitely not an uncommon or rare sight. Boundaries between public and private spaces are continually crossed and redrawn; yet the entrance space, for most architects, is purely utilitarian. Public corridors act as the carrier for the quotidian, connecting city life back to its reality. Within the public corridors are thresholds that separate the profane world from the home that is the centre of life. Modernity has abolished cultural and religious expressions of architecture. Despite this, there is a prevalence of religious symbols on doors along the HDB corridor, suggesting that the entranceway carries a special significance, one that is not purely functional. Within this multiracial society, HDB residents are inclined to accept the use of religious symbols even when placed along the public corridor. This paper proposes that residents appear to hold a territorial claim on the corridor, and this claim is justified. Studying the sacredness of the threshold is an ideal start to understand how this justifies the extension of the private territory. Also, the aim is to expose the different layers of the pseudo-public corridor.