UNVEILING THE UNDERBELLY

Abstract

In Singapore, national narratives are powerful tools. Not only are they used as anchors to unite a diverse populace with different lived experiences and memories, they also function as an instrument to legitimise and underpin the hegemony of those who craft them. Through multiple layers of mythmaking, national narratives have grown into monolithic fortress - erasing the granularities of personal narratives and trapping the populace into a narrow perspective on the past, present and even into the future. Communities who live with discordant and deviant narratives from the common Singaporean have been pushed out and hidden from our spaces and view. Using the site of York Hill as a microcosm of Singapore, this thesis seeks to understand how architecture can help respect and expand the diversity of our narratives.