CONTESTING THE GARDEN: DISSECTING THE HUMAN RELATION TO NATURE IN SINGAPORE THROUGH THE RAIL CORRIDOR PROJECT

Abstract

The Garden City ideal has been central to Singapore’s narrative of nation-building. As this paper seeks to contend, this Garden City is merely metaphorical, as its intentions and mode of implementation differ vastly from the model first put forth by Ebenezer Howard. This state-imposed meaning of the Garden City would come to influence how the individual and community perceive the spaces of nature designed and set aside for them. The discussion of the Singaporean Garden is grounded on the theoretical framework of the “three natures” elucidated by John Hunt which studies the motivations behind human interventions in the natural environment. Select gardens and garden discourses over time are examined to trace the evolving meaning of the garden. The human relation to nature in Singapore is explored by scrutinizing of the Rail Corridor project. This project is significant because of the emergence of the “nature of the fourth kind”, as theorized by Ingo Kowarik, which has reclaimed the perimeters of the railway line. The wide spectrum of stakeholders involved is a microcosm of Singaporean society, reflecting the myriad of desired relationships between man and nature in our Garden. As a result of the rigor with which the Garden City ideal was pursued, nature in the Singaporean Garden is clearly divided into the manicured and the unmanaged. Just as how manicured nature carry state-defined meanings, the unmanaged bear meanings and roles particular to Singapore. This dissertation posits that as the relationship between man and nature in Singapore continues to evolve, the unmanaged, as spaces which have yet been subjected to state-imposed meaning, are the sites where the individual and community contest the top-down imagination of the Singaporean Garden, and where other desired relationships with nature are brought to the surface.