A CLOSER READING OF TAY KHENG SOON �S RUBANISATION

Abstract

This paper stems from an interest in the concept of Rubanisation based on my four months’ worth of experience in studio conducted by Mr. Tay Kheng Soon. Based on a theoretical framework that adopts urban/rural dichotomy as the rhetorical device, Rubanisation sees the necessity to exorcise the “western” spirit of urbanism, in order to pose itself not only as an alternative to centralized capitalist city, but also an antithesis to the corporate capitalism and its consumptive nature. Influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Jeffersonian ideal and Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, the Rubanised Settlement boasts of a decentralized model that embraces autonomy, social and environmental justice. However, through conducting of critical evaluation from different fields of knowledge such as social science, history, philosophy and economy, one is able to define the essence of Rubanisation as urbanization, that its Rubanised Settlement is no different from a city.