NEO-TROPICAL HOUSES : THE FICTITIOUS CREATION OF THE DESIRE FOR DESIRES

Abstract

The ‘Neo-Tropical House’ has been widely perceived as today’s emblematic representation of Tropical Architecture, a language often regarded and perceived as the regionalist’s discourse on progressive architecture pertaining to current conditions in Southeast Asia. Due to the burgeoning media coverage focusing on the architecture of the ‘Neo-Tropical House’, these houses are becoming one of the most sought after model of housing in Singapore and the Southeast Asia region. It has received much attention among the academics, professionals and the general populace despite its exclusiveness, and its mythical and fictitious presence. This dissertation argues that the discussion and representation of the ‘Neo-Tropical House’ is no longer purely an architectural discourse. Cleverly impersonating itself as part of the architectural debates and discussions, the exposition of these houses are in fact only 3 concerned with the fulfilment of desires inherent in society. These desires produce fixations on ideologies, which in turn produce the myth of tropical architecture, signified through the ‘Neo-Tropical House’. Therefore, the significance of the ‘Neo-Tropical House’ is no longer its physical attributes related to architecture. The concept of the ‘Neo-Tropical House’ is a construct of these desires, and it exists only as a mental image of the reader of its representation. Hence, the ‘Neo-Tropical House’ is a simulacrum, a myth; it is no longer real. This dissertation will expose the desiring machines present in the representation and perception of the ‘Neo-Tropical House’ images, and attempts to understand how these desiring machines produce the mythology of the ‘Neo-Tropical House’. We will also study the products of these desiring machines through the works of local architectural practice WOHA and Bedmar & Shi, and the monographs of SCDA, to help us understand the significance of such desires and their origins and implications.