UWC2101D: Selves and Cities

Planning & the Meaning of Orchard Road

By Benjamin Ching

Ask any Singaporean what comes to their mind when they think of a place in Singapore and chances are the answer will be Orchard Road. Indeed, a study conducted by Henry Yeung and Victor Savage, who are geography professors in the National University of Singapore, for their paper "The Singaporean Image of the Orchardscape" found that besides the home where people are most of the time, "Orchard Road is the second place in Singapore that respondents have the most vivid impressions of" (85). Clearly then, it is a place with a unique identity that has captivated the hearts of many Singaporeans.

Its success in acquiring this unique identity has been attributed to its "imageability and "legibility" (69), both of which combine to not only "[evoke] a strong image" in the minds of people, but also to allow them to easily identify the different elements of the place. Its imageability can be credited to its "landscape character" (85), where the aesthetics of the place such as the general cleanliness, the existence of many uniquely designed buildings and the plethora of colour coalesce with the tempo of the crowds and vehicles to form a defining identity. The powerful "symbolic meanings" of "modernity, westernisation, consumerism and cosmopolitanism" that are conveyed under the guise of the architecture of the buildings, the predominant use of English and the activities of shopping and tourism and the celebration of different "festivities" such as the Chingay Procession and Christmas Light-up add to its imageability and enhances the carnival atmosphere by drawing great masses of people to the place. Orchard then owes much of its legibility to the presence of "outstanding landmarks, well recognisable nodes and distinct paths, as well as other landscape cues such as signs and directories" (85), which are no doubt the result of excellent planning.

What is peculiar perhaps about Orchard Road is the way it got its imageability and legibility. It was not so much the result of natural evolution but rather the result of a conscious plan by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to "set [it] aside for retail activity" (86). The URA executes this through a "Concept Plan" which "maps out the vision for Singapore's long-term physical development" (Urban, par. 1) and thus "all physical developments in both public and private space must be approved by the Urban Redevelopment Authority" (Yeung, 86). The success of this plan can be seen in the way that Orchard Road has been described as a place "of central importance to many Singaporeans as an experiential landscape, serving as a magnet that draws them to participate" (78), making it the "'main street' of the nation … that contributes to Singapore's character" (85).

Tan Kok Meng, a Singaporean architect, agrees with that claim when he says that Orchard Road is "perceived by Singaporeans and tourists possibly as the street with the most distinctive identity in Singapore" (96), in his article titled "Orchard Road: The Hyper-'Longkang' of Consumption". However, there is a sense that Tan does not think too highly of the success of the artificially planned Orchard Road when he likens its planning to "a re-forestration [sic] of the past" (99) that cumulates into "an immaculate rebirth". He is critical of what planning has done to Orchard Road - essentially a repeated erasure of its natural past, creating an entirely new landscape each time that has no semblance to the old save for the order that is imposed - when he ponders on the construction of "another narrative" in its future:

The future of Orchard Road is being plotted by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). Soon, it is rumoured, the angsana trees will be gone; there is an ominous campaign of extermination of the angsana from the face of the island, because they are difficult to 'maintain'. Instead, a re-forestration [sic] of the past may take place. And soon the orchards may perversely reappear again, if only as a theme. Apparently still not vital enough for them, the STB together with foreign consultants, local architects and planners are huddled together to conceive an immaculate rebirth of Orchard Road. (99)

The sarcastic tone that he uses in the quote signals his contempt for this newly constructed narrative - the plan to "transform Orchard Road into a commercial and recreational main street of world class" (99). But what is wrong with planning? Has the planning of Orchard Road taken anything away from the meaning of the place?

To Tan, the meaning of a place is "multi-coded into a [sic] interwoven mesh of personal and collectivised meanings, actual and constructed narratives" (98). Orchard Road had acquired a personal meaning for him through one of his unpleasant experiences there as a child, while a collectivised meaning was conjured through the many "national celebrations" that were held there. By actual narrative, he was probably referring to the "mystique of Orchard" (97) in the mid 1800s when jungles were still teeming even with the setting up of plantations and "a tiger was even spotted" there. All these were very real and natural to Tan, in contrast to the Orchard Road of today which is the result of a constructed "garden city" mystique or narrative. This constructed narrative has displaced the jungle as we now only have an "ersatz jungle" (97) of native angsana trees as a symbolic reminder of Orchard Road's natural roots. Everything else has evolved into an artificial form with the planned "systematic green and exotic 'landscaping'" taking the place of the planned plantations and the tiger being substituted with the Tiger beer brand name. For Tan, this had meant a lost in the meaning of the place for him because the angsana tree, a symbol of its past will soon be gone without a trace.

But is the meaning of a place ever really lost because of planning? I feel not, because "an urban landscape can be interpreted and its meanings located in the context of every individual's experiences" (133) according to Walter Benjamin, an early 20th century German essayist and critic who is quoted by Mike Savage and Alan Warde, sociologists at the University of Manchester, in their book Modernity, Post-modernity and Urban Culture. It is the experiences that we have at a place that count and it is pretty much independent of whether a place is planned or not. We could have equally memorable experiences at an unplanned beach or at the planned Orchard Road; so it can be seen that the planning of a place does not take away our own experiences and special meanings that we have for it. Moreover, according to Stephen Carr, Mark Francis (both architects), Leanne G. Rivlin and Andrew M. Stone (both environmental psychologists) in their book Public Space, "in order for people to see some positive meaning in a place it must resonate with their lives and evoke patterns of use that create bonds with the space" (188). This simply means that people identify with places because these places have made a difference to their lives.

Personally, Orchard Road has a special place in my heart as it brings back many fond memories of my secondary school and junior college days when I used to go down after school with my classmates not for any particular purpose but to soak in the unique atmosphere that could only be found there. We would often just find a little corner to sit, where we could bond and play the game "Truth or Dare". The dare would very frequently have something to do with the crowds; for example running around them and shouting some embarrassing phrases or going for a 'dip' in a fountain that is surrounded by many people. Of course, we got our fair share of unwanted attention from the security guards but that did not deter us from having our own fun. At other times, we would simply sit down somewhere to observe the passing crowd, watching the many different kinds of people who have gathered at this place. It is an experience that is not easily replicated elsewhere in Singapore and I am sure that Orchard Road has also left its mark on many other Singaporeans, just like the way these memories have been etched in my mind.

But that is not to say that the meanings that are encoded in a place will be the same to everyone because "individual connections emerge in a number of ways - from a person's life history and personal experiences, from a tradition of use of an area, and from special events in a place" (Carr, 239). Every individual will have their own set of meanings for Orchard Road because everyone perceives things differently and will hence have their own unique experiences. Carr et al mentions that "the varied meanings that are carried by spaces and their different functions in the lives of a heterogeneous community suggest that places … with their past histories somewhat clouded by present realities, will be experienced and valued in different ways, over time" (217). For instance, Tan places much value in the angsana trees along Orchard Road, but I question the relevance of the trees to the current generation of teenagers who hang out at Orchard Road every weekend. We can clearly see that different generations of Singaporeans will give their own meanings to different things in Orchard Road and the Urban Redevelopment Authority would be hard pressed to keep different relics of the past just to remind us all of our own memories of the place. There is simply not enough space in land scarce Singapore, especially not in the place that is most associated with Singapore's progress and modernity.

Orchard Road has always been the epitome of modernity in Singapore since the 1900s. In order for it to maintain this embedded history, it has to keep up with the times and forge ahead to create new horizons. Could it have been done without any planning involved? Apparently not, for we do not see any other Orchard Roads around in Singapore. Through natural progression and without the aid of any planning, Orchard Road would have been too insignificant to become a national icon because it would probably be just like any other street in Singapore today. However, through the judicious use of planning, the Orchard Road of today is considered to be "aesthetically pleasing" (Yeung, 73) and it is the embodiment of modernity even when compared to "the main streets of other metropolitan cities of the world" (74).

What's more, "meanings do not remain the same over time … settings can become more or less important to people, more or less meaningful as they play different roles in their lives, or drop out completely" (Carr, 234). If Orchard Road is to retain its alluring aura through the ages, it is essential that proper planning be carried out so that it is made more relevant and meaningful to the people of both the present and future. For this reason, planning has definitely played an important role in the development of Orchard Road. Although it does have a downside of erasing the past, it has its own merits too and we should not be excessively critical of it.

If Tan had his way, we would probably have a forgettable Orchard Road of the past today. So, yes! I would rather have the Orchard Road of the future and just "wait patiently to be told how its constructed mystique can be exhilaratingly increased, how its pleasures can be heightened manifold, how it will all be wonderful again" (Tan, 99). Who knows what the future has in stored for us? Planning gives us a solid foundation on which to react from while waiting for things to progress naturally is akin to "opening a box of chocolates". As Forrest Gump would say, "You'll never know what you're going to get!"

Works Cited

Carr, Stephen, et al. Public Space. Cambridge [England]; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Savage, Mike, and Alan Warde. Urban Sociology, Capitalism and Modernity. Basingstoke, Hants: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1993.

Tan, Kok Meng. "Orchard Road: The Hyper-'Longkang' of Consumption." Singapore Architect, 204:99. 96-99.

Urban Redevelopment Authority. "Preface." Orchard Planning Report 1994. Cited 28 Oct 2001. [Online Book]. <<URL: http://www.ura.gov.sg/dgp_reports/orchard/text/preface.html>>

Yeung, Henry W.C. and Victor R. Savage. "The Singaporean Image of the Orchardscape." Portraits of Place: History, Community and Identity in Singapore. Ed. Brenda S.A. Yeoh and Lily Kong. Singapore: Times Editions, 1995. 68-87.

Note to my readers:

In this draft, I am happiest with the sorting out of my key ideas in this revision and then reorganising them in a logical manner. In this revision, I have removed a few of the irrelevant sections and added some new ones. The most challenging aspect of my writing process is having to come up with something concrete to write on and to present it through a convincing argument. In future revisions, I would want to find some space to incorporate Rem Koolhaas' criticism of Singapore's planning.