THE PORTRAYAL OF HISTORY IN COMMUNITY PARKS OF SINGAPORE

Abstract

In recent decades, one of the strategies adopted for creating an ‘identity’ are community parks. They are designed with specific themes to give their community an identifiable, unique and diverse landscape. It is the hypothesised that the elements in these community parks portray history by retaining and/or reconstructing landscape elements and cultural features. A research was conducted on 35 parks, investigating elements used through historical maps, planning reports, authority websites, books, past magazines, site visits, time frame and the responses of the internet community. The research finds that parks do portray history, for more than simply conceptual and aesthetical reasons. It is a source for creating a diversity of parks, making each park unique and engaging the public. More importantly, it creates place identity and educates the public of their and Singapore’s past. Started out as a simple cleaning and greening of the urban environment, parks has evolved into means for providing physical and physiological connection to their past. This node induces relations between people, identities and material settings. Although most of Singapore’s physical history has been erased for the development of the nation, efforts are still being put into our community parks today to reconstruct and even retain it. Relating to the internet community’s perception, research has shown discrepancies between hierarchical features of community parks. The research has found that water-based and an integrated built and natural design has received more recognition. This opens possibilities for our community parks to evolve to changing needs and desires of today.