Montesquieu’s book ‘The Spirit of the Laws’, published in 1750, focused on political theory and comparative law. However, within the book Montesquieu used the theory of environmental determinism (the belief that a region’s climate could affect the behaviour of the cultures living in it), to describe Asian history. The use of this debunked method shows how determinism was used by Europeans to project their power and modernity, and later to justify colonialism in the 19^th century. This blog post will give an overview of how Montesquieu used environmental determinism to analyse Asia, and how this reflects European views on determinism.

Montesquieu argues that Asia’s geography is directly consequential for the hegemony and instability of major civilisations on the continent. This claim is ‘evidenced’ by the lack of a mountain range separating the north of the continent from the south, a function Montesquieu argues is served by the mountains of Scandinavia. To Montesquieu, the lack of a dividing range allows ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ regions to directly clash, contrasting with the more even gradient of European climates. The former was proposed to cause strong civilisations to border weak ones, which created unhealthy hegemony on the continent. Montesquieu concludes that ‘this is why liberty never increases in Asia, whereas in Europe it increases or decreases according to the circumstances’.

Montesquieu’s reasoning on this subject has been heavily debunked, but his writing opens a window into how central ideas of environmental determinism were to geographic thought in 18^th century Europe. To Montesquieu, the entirety of Asian history could be explained by the dissonance present in the region’s climates – a dissonance which glosses over regional variation and other features present in the region like higher mountains and larger floodplains – both of which would have a greater impact on the mixing of cultures across the continent. Despite this, it was climate that was considered fundamental to the nature of societies, and as a result other factors are non-existent within his characterisation of Asia.

Montesquieu’s argument offers insight into how Europeans would use these ideas to justify colonialism taking place in the two centuries after the book was published. His conclusion that climate made Asia inherently unstable and illiberal would be used to justify colonialism, where a European power would take advantage of regional instability to set up a regime and crush dissent. As a result, the idea that climate meant that these regions would be governed no differently or worse without a European power in control, was central to justifying colonialism. Because of this, it is important to understand how environmental determinism began to be applied on a global scale, and was used to create a hierarchy of civilisations, to ensure that such discourse doesn’t become the norm in the future.

Source: Anne M. Cohler et al. (eds.) Montesquieu The Spirit of the Laws, Book 17 Ch3 – 8, pp. 279-284.

In 1857, on the banks of the Inverclyde River on the west coast of Scotland, a young boy was born who would grow up to be pivotal in the spreading of the Royal and Ancient game of golf to Asia. His name was Gershom Stewart, and the son of Andrew and Margaret would prove pivotal in expanding the game Eastwards. After moving south to the Wirral Peninsula in England and becoming a member of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake, he would take up a role in the East India trade. In 1882, this employment took the young man to Hong Kong. Shortly after, and with a stroke of luck, he encountered the Royal and Sutherland Highlanders, a golfing battalion who had arrived from Ceylon with a desire to ‘keep swinging’. Stewart’s everlasting affinity with Hoylake can be seen in the parallel motifs between the two clubs’ crests.

^{1   2}

 

In May 1889, Stewart, working at the time for the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, put out a public notice in the press of the desire to establish a golf club in Hong Kong. The day after, thirteen men gathered at the Hong Kong Club on Queen’s Road, a vote was held and the Club was born into existence.

 ³

The early golfing years of the Club were enjoyed, as with many other sporting societies in Hong Kong during this period, at the Racecourse at Happy Valley. The first ball was hit by James Lowson of Forfar, Scotland, in July 1890. A talented sportsman, Lowson enjoyed plenty of success in club competitions during the early years at Happy Valley. From the few photographs that survive from this period of the Club’s history, the Links, situated in the middle of the racecourse appears to have struggled from overcrowding. With only space for 9 holes, and with the land being shared for a number of different sports, the quality of the fairways and greens suffered. This was exacerbated by flooding issues and the building of a large pond which was designed and dug in as a relief mechanism. This resulted in a concerted effort from the Club to try and find a more suitable plot of golfing land.

Three years passed before a piece of land was found at Deep Water Bay and was designed and converted into a Par-30, 8 hole Links. It was a remarkable turnaround as competitions began to be held at the Bay course later that year in 1893. In 1897, a ‘grand plan’ came to fruition. The unassailable Gershom Stewart, with the help of his good friend Sir William Robinson, Governor of Hong Kong, requested as it was the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, for Royal Charter. With celebrations all around the world, Royal Status was approved and 1897 marked the birth of The Royal Hong Kong Golf Club.

The Club would continue to grow in membership over the following years, with golfing life split between the Links at Happy Valley and at Deep Water Bay. In 1911, the Club looked once again outwards for greater space. Fanling Valley, much further north and close to the Chinese border was decided upon as a suitable location. With land carefully and meticulously allocated in the New Territories, getting approval for building a golf course was not an easy task. The Hon. Edwin Richard Halifax ‘an ally inside the Government’ proved to be a prize asset for the Club for his huge role in broking the deal which saw approval of the course’s building at Fanling in 1911. To this day, the Hong Kong Golf Club plays at both Deep Water Bay and Fanling.

 ⁴

In 1918, during the historic Racing Carnival, disaster struck, and a great fire broke out at the Happy Valley Racecourse. Very sadly many people lost their lives and the Golf Clubhouse was destroyed. To this day, the disaster of 1918 remains one of the toughest days in the Club’s history.

However, the clubhouses and buildings at Deep Water Bay and Fanling are of great interest. As golf clubhouses always are, these buildings became active hubs of social life, and home to stories of golfing successes, blunders, mysteries and tales. Learning more about club life, the personalities, customs and practices would be a tremendously interesting project to undertake. Historians of golf in Asia, and in British colonies more widely, have revealed that a far more ‘liberal’ attitude to female members was taken and indeed there is evidence of this in Hong Kong, too. A ladies Putting Club is known of as early as 1904 and any research into RHKGC’s history should endeavour to learn much more about this.⁵

1. https://www.golfweather.com/golf-news/royal-liverpool-to-host-2022-open/2418 [↩]
2. https://www.asiangolfconstruction.com/projects/hong-kong-golf-club/ [↩]
3. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw97786/Sir-Gershom-Stewart?LinkID=mp79714&role=sit&rNo=0 [↩]
4. https://www.golfinhongkong.com/fanling-golf-club-new-course-review/ [↩]
5. The Hong Kong Golf Club, Along the Fairways of History, (2014) [↩]

This blog post will explore how an evaluation of European mappings of the Tropics illustrates the development of Europeans’ concept of tropicality. As David Arnold notes, tropicality has ‘come to signify the conceptualisation and representation of the Tropics in European imagination and experience.¹ Early European mappings produced a notion of tropicality associated with marvel and spectacle. However, when I analysed later maps, the Tropics is presented based on increasingly positivist scientific observations illustrating what Arnold notes as a shift toward ‘scientific tropicality’.² European perspective of the tropical world was almost exclusively maritime, which meant that their original visions of the Tropics were always from the deck of a ship.³ This distant perspective meant that their tropical mappings often centered the coastline and encompassed a conceived exoticism that suggests, as David Arnold explores, ‘the Tropics were invented quite as much as they were encountered’.⁴

An example of Arnold’s claim that in early Orientalist thought, the Tropics were represented as an exoticised landscape can be seen through Denis Cosgrove’s analysis of the map Terra Brasilis in the Miller Atlas.⁵ This map was created in 1519, during the second decade of European contact with the Tropics. As Cosgrove notes, the map ‘presents to the European vision a place for witness and wonder, not a place to dwell’.⁶ The map is entirely pictorial and features scenes of nature and indigenous people. There are varied and exotic trees with many exotic fauna, such as multi-coloured birds, parrots and parakeets.⁷ The only labels on the map are on the coast, naming ports and bays that could have been areas for colonial conquest. This choice of labelling only potential areas that were relevant for settlement purposes highlights the lack of knowledge early European settlers had towards aspects of the Tropics that were not immediately related to their colonising process illustrating how the European notion of tropicality was based on imagination and a ‘bourgeois vision’.⁸ As Cosgrove writes, ‘the image is unmistakably tropical’,⁹ emphasising how it was this pictorial ethnographical type of knowledge that the founded the early European notion of tropicality.

 

In comparison, Heinrich Berghaus’s map created in 1852 highlights how Europeans’ understanding and the notion of tropicality developed. As Cosgrove explains, Berghaus’s map ‘offers no explicit moral judgements about the various environments and people it represents’.¹⁰ It conveys a tropicality based on geographical science rather than pictorial images. The map’s positivist observations highlights how the geographical experiences of Europeans in the Tropics developed the previous imaginative tropicality that was evident in the Miller Atlas. It provides evidence for Arnold’s claim that the notion of tropicality had shifted to involve a more systematic and scientific understanding of the tropics.

Comparing these two maps illustrates how Europeans’ visions and understandings of the Tropics developed. Initially, tropical mapping was centered around ‘the romantic constructions of imaginative tropicality’.⁷ However, as expeditions to the Tropics increased so did knowledge of the Tropics and this was reflected in how mappings and thus the notion of tropicality became more focussed on geographical science.

 

1. David Arnold, Tropics and the Traveling Gaze India, Landscape, and Science, 1800-1856 (Seattle (Wash.): University of Washington Press, 2014), 110. [↩]
2. Ibid., 112. [↩]
3. Felix Driver, Martins Luciana de Lima, and Denis Cosgrove, “11: Tropic and Tropicality,” in Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 197-216, 202. [↩]
4. Arnold, Tropics and the Traveling Gaze, p.5. [↩]
5. Driver, Luciana de Lima, Cosgrove, “Tropic”, p. 204. [↩]
6. Ibid., 205. [↩]
7. Ibid. [↩] [↩]
8. Arnold, Tropics and the Traveling Gaze, p. 6. [↩]
9. Ibid., 204. [↩]
10. Driver, Luciana de Lima, Cosgrove, “Tropic”, p. 208. [↩]

The Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway, often abbreviated as the MTR, is one of the key focal points of the city, for better or for worse. It is often the subject of artistic endeavors that seek to capture the ‘essence’ of Hong Kong^[1], used as synecdoche for the lived experience of the city^[2] and used as a vehicle to define the city in a global context.^[3] It is also a deeply political space – a space that has been at the centerpiece of much of Hong Kong’s political disputes in recent years. Most famously, the MTR has been sight of protests^[4] during the city’s recent bouts of political unrest but has also been put at the center of less dramatic political issues – an example closely related to the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests is that of the question of mainland jurisdiction over the Express Rail Link.^[5]

Given the importance of the MTR, an examination of it as a contested space utilizing related spatial theory seems warranted and does not seem to have been performed yet in an academic context. Other, more well studied examples of contested spaces in South East Asia, such as Brenda Yeoh’s Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore could be used in order to provide points of reference and comparison.^[6] The MTR itself is rife with room for spatial analysis, even outside of the context of investigating it as a contested space. For example, the MTR has a dedicated, long running project of integrating art into its stations, using the space as a place for exhibition.^[7] Theories of messy urbanism^[8] can also be applied to the Hong Kong MTR as a contested space, with incidents such as the aforementioned protests and a 2018 case of graffiti on the MTR representing some of the innate tensions of a messy urban environment.^[9]

To sum up, I believe there is a strong case for a thorough investigation of the Hong Kong MTR as a contested space. There is a wealth of primary sources available – outside of the images of and reporting on the 2019, 2014 and 2003 Hong Kong protests, smaller scale incidents such as a dispute over musical instruments being carried in the MTR are also useful for this investigation.^[10] Government and corporate statements on varying issues relating to the disruption of the MTR may also prove useful. As previously mentioned, there is a lack of existing academic work on the MTR as a contested space, but studies of other East Asian contested spaces may provide insight into the Hong Kong case. Finally, spatial theories, such as that of messy urbanism have obvious ways in which they can be applied to the Hong Kong MTR.

^[1] HKFP Lens. ‘HKFP Lens: Helen Gray Sets out to Capture the Spirit of Hong Kong’s MTR… from Exit A1’. Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, 3 February 2019.

^[2] Chung, Jack. ‘Officials Should Take the MTR Regularly to Understand Public Unhappiness’. South China Morning Post, 21 December 2021.

^[3] Chan, Bernard. ‘In Praise of Hong Kong’s MTR – Still One of the Best in the World’. South China Morning Post, 17 December 2021.

^[4] Leung, Hillary. ‘The Crisis Facing Hong Kong’s Subway System’. Time, 25 October 2019.

^[5] Cheng, Kris. ‘Pro-Democracy Lawmakers Boycott Visit to Express Rail Link Terminus until Legal Questions Are Answered’. Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, 2 August 2017.

^[6] Yeoh, Brenda S. A. Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment. NUS Press, 2003.

^[7] MTR. ‘Art in MTR’. Accessed 8 October 2022. http://www.artinmtr.com.hk/.

^[8] Chalana, Manish, ed. Messy Urbanism: Understanding the ‘Other’ Cities of Asia. Hong Kong University Press, 2016.

^[9] Lai, Catherine. ‘MTR Train Covered in Graffiti Appears on East Rail Line during Peak Hours’. Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, 13 March 2018.

^[10] Cheng, Kris. ‘Veritable Orchestra of Instruments Promised in Protest against MTR’s “selective” Enforcement of Bylaws’. Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, 25 September 2015.

The Japanese colonial project in Manchuria stands as being unique amongst the pantheon of colonial projects in China. Where the treaty ports were Chinese cities with portions carved out by western concessions, and fully foreign controlled regions like Hong Kong were limited in geographical scale, the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo was expansive in scope and scale – more comparable to the settler colonization projects of Africa or Australia. Manchuria was subject to grand, utopian Japanese visions and designs – something that David Tucker explores in his essay City Planning without Cities, Order and Chaos in Utopian Manchukuo.^[1] One particularly striking element discussed by Tucker is how Japanese urban planners conceptualized Manchuria. Tucker describes how Japanese urban planners explicitly saw Manchuria as a ‘blank slate’ – an empty, flat, virgin canvas on which they could paint their utopia.^[2] This conception of Manchuria colors every part of the resulting plans – most strikingly in the wider geographical layout of the planned communities which take strict geometric shapes, with no consideration for natural features, already existing communities, and economic viability.^[3] This plan of standardized hamlets has a number of fatal flaws seemingly total and disconnected – but the concept of imagined space can help piece them together.

The thinking behind the hamlet plan represents a very explicit example of Henri Lefebvre’s concept of imagined or mental space in action.^[4] As discussed by Lefebvre, mental space is conceptual in nature – it may be based on some set of guiding principles, perhaps even a conception of reality, but it is by its standard nature an unconstrained, uncontested space.^[5] Lefebvre uses this concept to critique the assumptions and ideas of other academics, framing mental space as an unconscious prior.^[6] This divide described by Lefebvre between the physical and mental space is extremely applicable to the manner with which Japanese urban planners approached Manchuria.^[7] Tucker discusses how the urban planners did study the lifestyle of Japanese farmers and applied those lessons into their designs, but did so in a way that simplified and removed nuance from the lives of farmers.^[8] This flawed conception of the lived experience of farmers was the basis for the geometric layout of proposed hamlets^[9], something which fed into many of the other numerous flaws with the hamlet proposal, notably including its security flaws, economic flaws and logistical flaws.^[10]

Where Lefebvre uses the concept of imagined space to expose the flaws and failings of academic ideas and theories – concepts that are difficult to ‘defeat’ with finality – imagined space is useful in revealing the links between the common elements between the varying flaws of the hamlet proposal. This is a textbook example of how spatial theory can be used to analyze colonial projects and urban planning – an while the implications of spatial theory may be somewhat obvious in this case, similar examples of flawed conceptions of imagined space can be found in other colonial projects of all shapes and sizes – from French Indochina to the British Raj to the wider Japanese Empire.

^[1] Tamanoi, Mariko. “City Planning without Cities, Order and Chaos in Utopian Manchukuo.” In Crossed Histories: Manchuria in the Age of Empire, 53–81. [Ann Arbor], Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies ; University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.

^[2] Tamanoi, Mariko. “City Planning without Cities, Order and Chaos in Utopian Manchukuo.” 55.

^[3] Ibid. 58-62.

^[4] Lefebvre, Henri. “Plan of the Present Work.” In The Production of Space, 1–67. Oxford, OX, UK ; Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell, 1991.

^[5] Lefebvre, Henri. “Plan of the Present Work.” 3-4.

^[6] Ibid. 4-6.

^[7] Ibid. 6.

^[8] Tamanoi, Mariko. “City Planning without Cities, Order and Chaos in Utopian Manchukuo.” 62-63.

^[9] Ibid. 66.

^[10] Ibid. 66-71.

Taipei, on the northern peninsula of Taiwan, has been referred to as a ‘tripartite city’ by Joseph R. Allen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota.¹ Under Japanese occupation, it arguably underwent a third layer of urban developmental influence. The island of Taiwan had been used to foreign influence, for as early as the 17^th century, the island had been occupied by the Dutch Empire (known as Dutch Formosa). The island really rose to significance in the late 19^th century under the control of the late Qing Dynasty. In 1877, Chinese restrictions on immigration to the island were lifted and Taipei in particular became a focal point for trade, development and activity.

Although Liu Mingchuan, Qing Governor of Taipei until 1891 had implemented several key reforms to Taipei, it was not really until the Japanese colonists arrived that modernity really felt like it was on the horizon. Kodama Gentaro, the Japanese Governor General and Goto Shinpei, a civil administrator were the main architects of Taihoku’s development. Shinpei, who would later go on to serve as director of the South Manchuria Railway and Mayor of Tokyo, had been educated in Germany.² Allen has alluded to the fact that Shinpei was also heavily influenced by Tokyo. In turn, Tokyo’s development had drawn many ideas from European cities such as Paris. Maps, such as the below from 1932, with ruler straight streets and a clear gridiron structure, really show how Taipei had been influenced by European colonial projects.

³

Taipei, even into the present day, as pointed out by Allen, has often considered itself a multicultural city. Away from Chinese mainland, and outwith the central power structure of the Chinese Communist Party, the city has always had a complex identity. Tan Hung-Jen and Paul Waley’s article ‘Planning Through Procrastination: The Preservation of Taipei’s Cultural Heritage’ discusses Dihua Street in Taipei, containing a number of late imperial edifices and buildings from the Japanese colonial period.⁴ The municipal government, property owners, stakeholders and citizens have all made an effort in varying ways to preserve these buildings as an important part of Taipei’s cultural identity. Additionally, buildings such as the Sotokofu, the main government building of Taipei and the Guest House (Táiběi Bīnguǎn), located in the city’s central district, were built by the Japanese and show a clear architectural and stylistic link to Europe. These buildings of grandeur, magnificence and opulence are typical of the domineering and grand style of buildings built under colonial and imperial rules. These buildings remain prominent today. The lack of ‘Chinese-ness’, as Allen describes it, can be much attributed to the Japanese era.

When one looks to understand the development of any space, place or spatial entity, one must understand and critically analyse the sources from which they are working. Allen cites the historian John Tagg, who maintains that even the ‘meaning’ from photographic evidence is dependent on the ‘discursive system’ and context within which it was taken.⁵When working with cartographic materials of Taipei as well, the same level of analysis must be used. For example, Allen’s article outlines the ‘lush’ maps of Taihoku the Japanese produced in the 1930s. Designed not with cartographic accuracy in mind, for they were meant to be understood and widely consumed ‘by women and children’, they show a bustling city, with buses, trains, commerce and activity. Taihoku is depicted as a well-run, prosperous and disciplined city, with all thanks to the Japanese imperial project. One image in particular, showing the city from a ‘bird’s eye’ perspective, looks out towards the sea and displays Mount Fuji standing tall and proud in the distance.⁶ To what extent are these depictions merely trying to emphasise the reward of colonial possession and desire?

The development of ‘utopian spaces’, especially in the context of colonial expansion, must always be considered carefully. For island cities like Taipei, their cultural identity, and the urban developments that often accompany them are politically contested phenomena. Is the island of Taiwan off the coast of China? Or is it off the coast of Japan? Many of the images that have come to light recently, raised by Allen in his article, have resurfaced only after exhibitions instigated by the Taipei City Cultural Affairs Bureau.⁷ With relations continuing to be strained between the ROC and the PRC, the nostalgia and romanticism of the many images from the Japanese period must be noted. Although clearly the Japanese prioritised the development of Taihoku, and indeed charted and archived much of their significant progress, one must always seek to understand why images have been constructed and re-presented in certain ways.

1. Joseph R. Allen, Taipei: City of Displacements (Washington, 2012), p. 31 [↩]
2.  Louis Frédéric, Japan Encyclopaedia, (Harvard, 2002), p. 6 [↩]
3. 1932 Murasaki City Plan or Map of Taipei, Taiwan [↩]
4. Tan Hung-Jen and Paul Waley. “Planning through Procrastination: The Preservation of Taipei’s Cultural Heritage” The Town Planning Review 77, no. 5 (2006), pp. 531–55 [↩]
5. Allen, Taipei: City of Displacements, p. 33 [↩]
6. Ibid, p. 39 [↩]
7. Ibid, p. 17 [↩]

This blog post focuses on a picture included in Bill Sewell’s book “Constructing Empire: The Japanese in Changchun, 1905-45”. Sewell focuses on the roof of the Changchun Hall of State to illustrate the “Asian Revival” architectural style which inspired many of the administrative buildings built in Japanese controlled Manchukuo in the 1930s. The view of the building presented shows how architecture during this period sought to promote Asian stylistic choices over European ones, most clearly seen in the style of roof. However, the choice to incorporate Chinese as well as Japanese styles reflects the shift of the Japanese government to the idea of Pan-Asianism.

Sewell notes that the roof of the Hall of State is built in a Japanese style, called “Imperial Crown” style. This was characterised by a tented roof, adding an Asian finish to an otherwise European-inspired building. This is evident in the picture of the Hall, where the building without the roof is indistinguishable from a Western administrative building. However, Sewell argues that the use of towers and a gentle slope for the remaining rooftop resembled Chinese instead of Japanese architecture. This is initially at odds with the idea of a colonial government constructing buildings for administration, but signifies the specific style of Japanese colonialism which was employed in Manchukuo.

Since the building was meant ‘to represent the entire country as chief government offices’ it is significant that the building incorporates elements of Chinese architecture, instead of being simply a melding of Japanese and Western styles. Sewell cites Ryue Nishizawa as suggesting that the choice of a Chinese style was in an attempt to project symbolism of harmony and sedateness, both represented in the long roof architecture chosen. This in turn would imply that the Japanese colonial government was seeking some form of legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese population, as opposed to the colonial governments led by European nations.

The decision to seek legitimacy from the Chinese population of Manchukuo fits with the idea of Pan-Asianism, a driving ideology of Japanese expansion during the 1930s. The movement sought to unite Asian ethnic communities politically and economically to combat European imperialism. As such, the end goal of Japanese colonies was assimilation into the wider state, as opposed to the Western model of colonial governance. This ideology was already present within the colony of Korea, which was becoming assimilated as a province of Japan at the time the Hall of State was being constructed. It should also be noted that this style of roof was present in architecture designed in Korea during the 1920s, suggesting that the Japanese government was in favour of rolling out this style of roof across its new colonies, to combat European design while promoting a unified Asian idea of architecture.

Overall, the roof of the Hall of State offers an insight into how architecture could reflect government ideology, and seek to project both power and legitimacy. In this case, the Hall of State’s roof was designed to oppose European building styles, while attempting to win approval from the Chinese population of the province, as an early step in the creation of a Pan-Asian utopian entity.

 

Sources

Kornegay, Nate, ‘Traces of the Imperial Crown Style in Colonial Korea’, Transactions 92 (2017), pp. 21-30.

Sewell, Bill, Constructing Empire: The Japanese in Changchun, 1905-1945, (Vancouver, 2019), pp. 64-106.

Picture in Sewell, Constructing Empire, p. 82.

 

This blog post focuses on the Raffles Town Plan, sometimes recalled as the Jackson Plan. It was formulated in late 1822, per Stamford Raffle’s vision by Lieutenant Philip Jackson for the town of Singapore. The concept of this plan was based on a pre-conception that Singapore would be a place of “considerable magnitude and economic importance”; therefore, its town plan needed to embody this newly fostered identity.[1]

Some may argue that Raffles had a unique vision when it came to town planning. His concept focused on three major philosophies: firstly, the integration of immigrants into formal town plans was essential. Communes for Indians, Chinese and other ethnic groups should be integrated so they were not left to develop separately. This, in turn, helped avoid public health problems like a lack of sanitation which would ultimately ensure uneven town development. If Singapore were to be successful, it, needed to grow as one. Secondly, a fort with parks and greenery should be at the centre. Forts gave the impression of prosperity, as did greenery. Third, communal harmony and ease of trade were factors that would ensure the growth and success of the town.

Below is the town plan of Singapore completed by Lieutenant Jackson. As can be seen by the notations on each section, Raffles wanted to reserve an area for a specific race or function. For example: from Fort Canning to the Singapore River and the sea beyond the Padang (labelled “Open Square”) for government use. Whereas other sections are entitled “European Town” “Arab” and “Campong” effectively segregating Singapore. Another important hallmark of colonial towns that can be identified are the wide and straight streets. These were justified by colonial rulers on the basis of public health and sanitation improvement; but in fact, were a tactic to prevent uprising or unrest from indigenous populations[2].

Plan of the Town of Singapore, Lieut Jackson, Survey Department Singapore, Survey Department Singapore (London, 1828).

The question I find myself asking is whether this town plan accurately depicts “integration of communities” as Raffles is said to have done. What becomes clearer upon second glance is that that “acknowledgement” may be a more fitting word to describe the town planning. What Raffles and Jackson have done is not integration as we would recognise it today. Rather an acknowledgement that other communities will need to live and exist in close proximity to their colonisers and for the success of the land as a whole (which was his objective “economic success” of Singapore) integration in the sense of acknowledgement was necessary. Singapore could not have been seen as a great powerhouse of industry nor economy if there were sections of the city that did not have sanitation and were not developed. One city, but separate communities is how I would describe Raffles vision.

[1] Buckley, C. B. (1984). An anecdotal history of old times in Singapore: From the foundation of the settlement … on February 6th, 1819 to the transfer to the Colonial Office … on April 1st, 1867. Singapore: Oxford University Press, p. 81. (Call no.: RSING 959.57 BUC-[HIS])

[2] Robert K. Home, “’Planting Is My Trade’: The Shapers of Colonial Urban Landscapes,” in Of Planting and Planning: The Making of British Colonial Cities ((New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013), p.59