Ng Keng Siang
Ng Keng Siang (1908–1967) was the most prominent of Singapore’s first generation of locally born, university educated architects. He ran an extremely successful practice, and had a career spanning pre- and post-war periods. Ng secured major residential, commercial, and civic commissions from the local business community, which saw in him an alternative to expatriate architects. By competently executing these high-profile projects, he deepened the credibility of local architects vis-à-vis Europeans, in the eyes of the public, clients, authorities, and a younger generation of architects. His most famous works were Asia Insurance Building, then Southeast Asia’s tallest structure, and the Nanyang University, the first overseas Chinese university. In recognition of his stature, Ng was elected founding president of the Society of Malayan Architects. In 1958, he launched a new career as hotelier of the Biltmore Hotel, before passing away less than a decade later from liver cancer.
Ng Siang Keng with his son, Calvin, with his guests at the Biltmore Hotel opening. Source: Singapore Press Holdings.
Born in 1908 in Singapore, Ng was the second son of Ng Siak Khuan, the Teochew proprietor of Poh Kong Chye jewellers. After attending the elite Anglo-Chinese School, where he nurtured a penchant for drawing, he chose to work as an architectural apprentice with S. Y. Wong & Co., rather than joining the family business. With the support of his father, and savings from his own work at Chinatown night markets, he studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, which provided an education steeped in the classical tradition. Ng excelled at Bartlett, where he won the Alfred Bossom and Arthur Davis medals in 1935. After graduating, he also pursued post-graduate studies at Columbia University in New York. On his return to Singapore in 1938, he joined the premier architectural firm, Swan & Maclaren, alongside other newly returned Singaporeans such as Robert Kan and Koh Cheng Yam. Ng registered with the Board of Architects in Singapore in 1939 and went on to become the first Singapore member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Soon after registering, Ng launched his own firm. In just a few years he had the biggest one-man local firm in town.
Ng was ambitious and had a strong entrepreneurial streak. Rather than remaining within the confines of an established European practice, he leveraged his academic and professional credentials to strike out boldly on his own, cultivate his own clientele, and actively pursue projects. His commercial success derived in part from his sociable personality. Architectural historian Seow Eu Jin, a personal acquaintance, described him as “tolerant in most matters (with) an amiable toothy smile”. More strategically, he “entertained lavishly, maintained wide social and professional contacts… by the early 1950s he could count amongst his clients the high and mighty of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce” (Chow).
Ng’s designs were eclectic. His pre-war projects were mainly individual houses for affluent members of the Chinese community, as well as shophouses and speculative housing for property developers. Many of these bore vernacular English elements, and could be described as fairly traditional. In this period, he steadily built up his credibility with the business community and was rewarded with higher profile jobs after World War II. His Ngee Ann Building in Orchard Road was among the first high rise private apartment blocks in Malaya. The project was noteworthy for promoting the idea that flats could be desirable homes for the middle and even upper-middle classes. Indeed, some of Singapore’s most prominent architects, such as Lim Chong Keat and William Lim, lived and worked there. In contrast to the stylistically modernist Ngee Ann Building, other projects, such as Framroz Aerated Water Factory or the Anglo-Chinese School clock tower, contained aesthetic flourishes that harked back to the prewar art deco trend. Even more at variance were Ng’s civic projects for the Chinese community, including the Teochew Association, and the Nanyang University, which were essentially modern buildings, capped with Chinese roofs and related ornaments. These projects pointed to Ng’s pragmatic and non-dogmatic approach to design.
Photograph of the first council of the Society of Malayan Architects. Ng Keng Siang (seated, second from right) was its president. The others are (Seated, left to right): K. C. Chung, E. J. Seow, Kee Yeap; (Standing, left to right): Robert M. K. Yim, Wong Foo Nam, Ang Kheng Leng and Ho Kok Hoe. Source: Journal of the Society of Malayan Architects, Vol. 1, No. 1, Dec. 1958.
Ng’s stylistic diversity led some to consider that, notwithstanding his successful career, “he never attained the ranks of the ‘mainstream modernists’. He was an architect in transition, caught somewhere between the modified Classicism of the earlier part of the 20th century and the Modern Movement” (Edwards and Keys). In the post-war period, when younger architects were pushing for more modern and progressive design, Ng’s reticence towards modern architecture seemed conservative. Nonetheless Ng’s firm was a prolific practice that was responsible for the design of many important public buildings. When he passed away, The Straits Times hailed him for producing some of the most imposing landmarks of Singapore.
Ng spent much of his time meeting and negotiating with clients, lawyers, and building authorities, thus leaving much of the firm’s design work to his draughtsmen. This may help to explain his firm’s diversity in architectural expression. It also signals another important aspect of his career — as a local architect who often contested the colonial building authorities over regulatory matters. Indeed, Ng was most proud of the Asia Insurance Building, in large part because of the regulatory battles he fought and won against the colonial authorities. This included securing permission for the building to rise above the Cathay Building, which was hitherto the island’s highest structure. Alfred Wong, a leading architect from a younger generation, later eulogised Ng as the “first Singapore architect to prove his mettle… one of the few bold architects who dared to stand up against authority”.
Towards the end of his professional career, Ng began to assume a more prominent role in wider professional matters. In 1958, a group of local architects set up the Society of Malayan Architects (SMA), following their unsuccessful bid to take over the European dominated Institute of Architects of Malaya. As the doyen of the local architectural fraternity, Ng was elected the first president of this body, a precursor of today’s Singapore Institute of Architects. During his term of office, Ng called on the Singapore Government to establish a university-level architecture school. SMA also called for the formal recognition of the Board of Architects. SMA was subsequently recognised as the sole body representing the profession in Singapore, and Ng was nominated a member of the board. Around the time of his retirement from practice, Ng was appointed a juror for the high-profile Singapore Conference Hall design competition, which is considered one of the most important modern architectural projects in Singapore.
Asia Insurance Building circa 1950s
In his personal life, Ng was a man of his times and class. He raised two sons and a daughter with his wife Sheila at the house he designed in Pasir Panjang. Beyond his urbane lifestyle, Ng enjoyed rural pleasures, such as visits to the seaside with his family. He was also a gun club member and used to hunt flying foxes in Malaysia. In cultural matters, he had a foot in both the east and the west. On the one hand, he was an avowed Anglophile, famous for always being immaculately turned out in his bow tie, blazer, and fedora hat. But he could also be very traditional, for example, in matters of filial piety. He made sure to honour his stepmother appropriately, and, likewise, expected suitable deference from his children.
Ng’s prolific career endowed his country with some of its best known landmarks. The Nanyang University Administrative Building is now a national monument of Singapore, while the Asia Insurance Building was the first local skyscraper to be gazetted for conservation. Other works of national importance include the Singapore Badminton Hall and the Lim Bo Seng Memorial. Beyond these icons, Ng’s key contribution to Singapore’s architecture was to demonstrate to the public, government, peers, and a younger generation, that emerging local-born architects could be as qualified and capable as established expatriates. In this, he laid the foundation for the next stage in Singapore’s architectural history.
Last modified on 5 May 2021. Reproduced from Dinesh Naidu, “Ng Keng Siang” in Leo Suryadinata, ed., Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume I (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2012), 605-07, with the kind permission of the authors and publisher, ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute.
References:
Chow, Fong Leng. “Ng Keng Siang (1908–1967): Singapore’s Pioneer Architect”. Elective study, University of Singapore, 1978/79.
Huang, Lucy. “Our Proudest Buildings Are This Man’s Creations”. In The Straits Times, 4 October 1959, p. 6.
Seow, Eu Jin. “Architectural Development in Singapore”. Ph.D. thesis, University of Melbourne, 1973.
Wong, Alfred. “The Life and Times of Ng Keng Siang”. In SIAJ: Journal of the Singapore Institute of Architects, no. 22 (March 1968): 10.
