To Draw an Idea Exhibition
The exhibition “To Draw An Idea: Retracing the Designs of William Lim Associates – W Architects” opened last week and is currently on display at the Singapore City Gallery, Atrium, until 8 June 2024.
Curated by Ronald Lim, a founding member of Docomomo Singapore, the beautifully designed and meticulously assembled exhibition features over 500 archival artefacts from the architectural firms William Lim Associates and W Architects. The former was founded by the late pioneer architect William S. W. Lim. When Lim retired in 2003, the firm was renamed W Architects and Mok Wei Wei took the helm. The exhibition is based on the archival materials donated by Mok, who is also Docomomo Singapore’s advisor, to the Singapore Architecture Collection.
In addition to being one of the designers behind some of Singapore’s most iconic modernist and postmodernist buildings, Lim was also an early advocate for heritage conservation. Together with local playwright Dr Goh Poh Seng and a group of prominent individuals, Lim put together the seminal 1983 Bu Ye Tian (不夜天) proposal for conserving shophouses in Singapore. The proposal was instrumental in changing the public perception of shophouses and influencing what proves to be a far-sighted policy to conserve them in the mid-1980s.
While the opening of the exhibition and the establishment of the Singapore Architecture Collection mark important milestones in the documentation and celebration of Singapore’s modernist architectural heritage, the demolition of Marine Parade Community Building designed by William Lim Associates earlier this year shows that more could be done to truly recognise the importance of the nation’s modernist legacy. People’s Park Complex, another architecturally and urbanistically significant building designed by William Lim and his collaborators when he was with Design Partnership, was put on collective sale again earlier this year. It would be a major and irreversible setback for our understanding of Singapore’s architectural heritage and the formation of a unique Singaporean identity if the complex is sold and demolished for another new generic development. It would be especially ironic if this happens to the work of William Lim in a year that his firm’s drawings and documents are celebrated as a part the “first comprehensive contribution from an architecture firm to the Singapore Architecture Collection” by the staging of the major exhibition. It is still not too late for the authorities to gazette the People’s Park Complex for conservation before any collective sale is completed just as they did with the Golden Mile Complex two years ago.
Acting in time would prevent another case like that of the unfortunate Pearl Bank Apartments, which was demolished and redeveloped because it was not gazetted for conservation in time, before its collective sales. Acting in time is necessary to fully protect the nation’s legacy and the contributions of its citizens, especially those visionaries who were ahead of their time.
Learn more about the event at https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/to-draw-an-idea-exhibition-programmes-2820449
Photo from AUDE Facebook page.
