The Incompatible Elements of Tradition and Progress in the Pagoda Columbarium
"In the high-rise Pagoda Columbarium, the niches are neatly arranged into numbered "blocks" and "units" that are all the same size and evenly spaced."
by Kwok Dao Yang Jonathan
The Mount Vernon Crematorium and Columbarium (the Pagoda Columbarium) was constructed in phases between the 1960s and the early 1990s to provide cremation services and final resting places for Singapore's population. Since independence, the government's prerogative had always been towards the practice of cremation for managing the disposal of the dead in land scarce Singapore, and the first government crematorium and columbarium services were provided at Mount Vernon. After cremation, the remains of the dead would be stored in cinerary urns, which would then be placed in niches in a vault. Such vaults are termed "columbaria," a word derived from Latin originally referring to compartmentalised housing for doves and pigeons. Upon entering the Mount Vernon complex from one of the side entrances, one would immediately encounter a distinctive nine-storey "pagoda-style" columbarium, where the cremated remains of thousands of (mainly Chinese) deceased are stored in neatly-ordered "blocks" and "units." It cannot be denied that death, and thus landscapes of death like columbaria, are invested with the "most sacred of human sentiments and values" (Kong and Yeoh 51); as such, the Pagoda Columbarium and other landmarks of death in Singapore become singularly important sites from which one can examine the constitution and identity of the nation. The Pagoda Columbarium attempts to incorporate traditional Chinese and vernacular elements into what is by definition a very utilitarian and modernist structure. This Postmodern1 attempt to reject the soullessness of a standard nondescript columbarium, however, juxtaposes two conflicting elements, and the end result is a fundamental emptiness and artificiality in the structure, which can only be described as kitsch - a term that Clement Greenberg, in his essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," describes as referring to "vicarious experience" that "takes advantage" of a "fully matured cultural tradition" by borrowing from it "themes" and "[converting] them into a system" before "discarding the rest" (543).2 The faked Chinese-ness of this Pagoda Columbarium raises the question of whether it is indeed possible for the government to "straddle East and West" (Ang and Stratton 179) in its search for a national identity.
Right from its independence, the government of Singapore had always iterated that "it considered cremation as the only viable long-term solution" (Kong and Yeoh 57) for the disposal of the dead in Singapore, largely because land was scarce, and urgent national concerns included finding space to build homes for the populace. In light of this, Chinese burial grounds were considered an "extravagant form of land waste" (Kong and Yeoh 56) due to their extensive nature in post-independent Singapore, and there were also questions about their hygiene. This contrasted starkly with the economy of space and relative sterility of columbaria, and the government soon decided that with the exception of the Muslims, Ahmadi Muslims, Jews, Parsees, and Bahaists, whose religions strictly forbid cremation, the majority of the population should be cremated after death and housed in columbaria. In addition, it undertook projects of exhuming, cremating and re-housing previously buried remains in columbaria (Lee 31). Such actions would be in the name of "national interest" (Kong and Yeoh 56) and be congruous with the "forward-looking task of constructing a 'nation' " (Kong and Yeoh 52). It becomes obvious that any columbarium can be viewed as a "marker of progress," since it is functional, hygienic, economical, and solves Singapore's land problem in an affordable way: properties that would make its structure "modernist." In the high-rise Pagoda Columbarium, the niches are neatly arranged into numbered "blocks" and "units" that are all the same size and evenly spaced out. The safety of visitors in case of any fire hazards is also ensured by the presence of highly visible bright red fire hose reels. The neat ordering of niches, the premium given to the safety of the columbarium visitors, and the introduction of modern technologies in the form of a lift (to take visitors up and down the structure) and electrical lighting facilities, all reflect the fact that the Pagoda Columbarium is a modern structure that symbolizes Singapore's development and progress.
On the other hand, we can observe a concerted effort to incorporate traditional Chinese elements into the Pagoda Columbarium. The most obvious, of course, would be its traditional Chinese Pagoda shape: like the pagodas in mainland China, the columbarium has an octagonal base and tapers slightly from the bottom to the top (a design that grew popular in China during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties). In fact, the word "pagoda" was probably derived from the Chinese words 八角塔 (in hanyu pinyin, bā jiăo tă, hence "pagoda"), literally meaning "eight-cornered tower" ("Pagoda" paragraph 7). In addition, the columbarium is the only high-rise structure in the surroundings, akin to traditional Chinese pagodas which were built as high as structurally possible to give the impression of visual power, grandeur, and prestige. The roof of the columbarium has an obvious Chinese motif, and would be similar in shape to pagoda roofs all over China: its teal colour is also common among the roofs of many traditional Chinese buildings, possibly because it is the colour of jade, a stone with huge importance to the Chinese. From afar, the Pagoda Columbarium could easily be mistaken for a Buddhist Pagoda found in China.
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