architectural;

Singapore’s proto-metabolist movement, the south-east’s non-western avant-garde movement for urban renewal.

the architectural song-lines of our reverse alchemy synthesizes a new norm for modernization in the south-east of asia. the country’s apotheosis of urban renewal is unique and avoids the contamination of ingredients in the melting pot, keeping them separate, but allowing the manipulation of identities for a more ‘modern’ culture.

characterized by:

- coexistence & conflict of amazingly heterogeneous institutions & individuals

- unprecedented rapid & extensive transformation n the physical structure of the society

- rapid communications methods

- technological progress & its impact upon regional cultures

we are modernization in its purest form, lobotomized, adopting the mechanics & rationalistic program. a semiotic state, conscious of, inspired by, demographic pressure. if there is chaos, it is authored, if it is absurd, it is willed absurdity. our urban society is a dynamic field of interrelated forces; a set of mutually independent variables in a rapidly expanding infinite series. this equilibrium will change in character as time passes and not remain rediscovered at small scale.

western civilization must recognize the thinkers at the periphery if we’re heading towards the same goal of ultimate globalization.

‘ our cities are fluid & mobile. it is difficult to conceive of some of them as places, in the real sense of that word. how can an entity with no discernible beginning or end be a place? it is certainly more apt to think of a particular part of a city as a place. if it were possible to articulate each of the parts of the city more adequately, to give qualities of edge and node to now formless agglomerates, we would have begun to make our large urban complexes at least understandable, if not ‘image-able’. ‘ - fumihiko maki

(entitled: the only moment we were alone. photo credits: usaid umar/@ieatthefish)