SPACE REPRODUCED, PUBLICNESS RECONSTRUCTED: CHANGING NATURE OF PUBLICNESS IN RAFFLES PLACE FROM PRE- TO POST- INDEPENDENCE PERIOD

Abstract

We encounter public spaces everyday - as soon as we step out of the door of a private domain. However, has it crossed our minds: what publicness really means in public spaces today? An analysis of publicness and its evolution is set in the context of Singapore’s Central Business District, Raffles Place Square, being an exemplary case whereby state interventions have been significant in achieving economic prosperity since pre-independence times. The users of the public space are seen to appropriate the central square in different ways. Investigating the idea of publicness has involved these two groups of planners and users of the public space in how the two of them interact and negotiate their different intentions and interests. As a public space is formed and defined by its physical appearance, activities on-site and meanings, the research looks at the transformation of the physical landscape of Raffles Place Square through the 3-phase state aspirations and its resultant impact on the activities and meanings of the place. This top-down approach by the state defines publicness first through the production of space. Subsequently activities that came into the space were inspired by the physical form of the place. In another direction, existing functions on-site, external public practices and other non-physical factors have influenced the use of public space through social construction of space. This public-defined publicness has the potential to, in turn, reconfigure the physical landscape and influence state ideology and planning strategies of urban design. After all, publicness in a public space is a fluid concept that finds its definition in the moment as it is formed by the continuous interactions and negotiation of the public and private interests. In the end, the paper aims to contribute to a larger discourse of publicness by showing how functions are inspired by form – contrast to the popular understanding of form follows function. At the same time, how function is also inspired by the persona of the place. These, altogether, are part of the reconstruction of publicness in a nationally-reproduced public space.