Walking Tour Series | Tracing the Symbolic: Geometric Orders of Colonial Singapore

Charles Dyce, The Town and the Roadstead from Government Hill, 1842-47, watercolour & ink on paper

Date: 21 April 2012, Saturday
Time: 9.00am - 11.30am

Fee: $10 (for NUS students), $25 (for NUS staff and general public)  

Limited to 30 pax.

To register, email museum@nus.edu.sg or call 6516 8429.

*Please make tour fee payment by 13 April 2012 at NUS Museum upon receiving a confirmation email.

*Details on directions and meeting point will be sent upon confirmation and payment.

The tour will start at Raffles Terrace (on top of Fort Canning), the panopticon point of British colonial Singapore, then to explore the former colonial district and the legacy of George Drumgoole (Drumgold) Coleman (1795-1844) who played an important role in the planning, design and construction of public infrastructure and buildings in 19th century Singapore. The next part of the tour explores the Middle Road area which was known as “Little Japan” or “shita-machi” (downtown) during the Japanese Taisho era (1912-1926) and early part of Showa era (1926-1945) in Shonan-to (昭南島). The tour will end at the panopticon point of Japanese Shonan-to (the former Japanese Embassy) at Mt Emily Park, Wilkie Road.

The tour attempts to read the geometries which carry certain symbolic meanings from the city’s fabric, in relation to the two most important areas of colonial Singapore, such as the Masonic Pentagram (associated with Thomas Stamford Raffles, a Freemason) on the colonial district, and the Japanese Axis on Middle Road area.

About the Tour Leader

Dr Johannes Widodo is an Associate Professor at NUS Department of Architecture. He is also the Co-Director of  Tun Tan Cheng Lock Centre in Melaka and Executive Editor of JSEAA (Journal of Southeast Asian Architecture). He teaches on the history and theory of Southeast Asian architecture, Typology and Morphology in Architecture, and Singapore urban history among other subjects.