Jiat-Hwee Chang

CONVERSATIONS ON THE TROPIC

Álvaro Rojas (AR)- The Portuguese first arrived in Singapore in the early 16th. Century?

Jiat-Hwee Chang (JHC) - Yes, the Portuguese came to Malacca, today's Malaysia. Malaysia and Singapore were once the same colonies and the same country, but then we finally split in '65. Malaysia is very close to us; we have a lot of people moving between the two countries. Technically you are not correct, but historically you are right.

AR- What kind of architecture or settlements, towns, or villages did the Europeans find in Singapore and the region when they first arrived?

JHC- The British only came to Singapore in 1819, but the Europeans had been in southeast Asia since the Portuguese were there in the 16th century. At that time, what they found was a very common indigenous architecture, a simple architecture, raised on stilts. It usually is one story, with a high pitch roof and a porous envelope, so I suspect it is a kind of indigenous architecture that you find in many places throughout the tropics. I'm not that familiar with Latin America. Still, when I look at the vernacular architecture of Latin America, there are some commonalities; they are really designed in a way that is, maybe, very common to the tropics. Porous, lightweight, timber construction.
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The Rumah Penghulu Abu Seman, a traditional Malay House conserved at the compound of the Heritage Trust of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. With its deep overhanging roof, porous walls, louvered windows, and volume elevated on stilts, the house has some of the climatic features of vernacular architecture of the Southeast Asia. Source: Jiat-Hwee Chang’s photograph.


AR- I suppose one could define the indigenous architecture of Singapore and other areas in the hot climatic zones as tropical.

JHC- Yes. Many anthropologists have looked at indigenous architecture throughout the region. Some give a functional explanation, which is that they are designed in response to their environment. But the indigenous architecture of the Southeast Asian region has great diversity. You could say that some of the region's indigenous architecture might not fit so well into our understanding of climatic design. There is always the cultural and the symbolic dimensions that influence the design of any architecture. A famous argument by Amos Rapoport is that we cannot look at vernacular architecture through just the climatic or the functional lens. Still, we have to look at it as primarily being shaped by culture. But of course, culture, the environment, and climate are very difficult to separate as they are deeply entangled.

A colonial bungalow in Singapore built around early 1900s for
British civil servants. The current building has been retrofitted for an air-conditioned interior but one can still see certain climatic design features, such as the verandah at the lower floor and the louvered openings above the windows at the upper  floor. Source: Jiat-Hwee Chang’s photograph.


AR- When the first Europeans arrived in Southeast Asia, do you think they learned or took advantage of what they discovered in indigenous or vernacular architecture?

JHC- Definitely. We can generalize and say yes, indeed, the Europeans have learned from the region's vernacular indigenous architecture. But the Europeans are a really big group. In Southeast Asia alone, there were the Portuguese, then the Spanish, then the Dutch, and then, of course, the British and the French who came later. And they were in the region for 400-500 years. There are definitely long periods of history where the Europeans were trying their best live, eat, and dress like the locals. Then there are certain segments of the Europeans that tried to acclimatize by acculturation for a very long time. But there are also periods where the Europeans were very conscious that they wanted to differ from the locals and live differently. Especially during the 19th century, when the notion of race became very important. During that time, they were trying to have a social and cultural distance between themselves and the indigenous population. They also had certain ideas in public health in much of the 19th century and perceived the tropical environment in a rather negative manner. In the broad sweep of history, I think it is not unreasonable to say that the Europeans have indeed learned from the indigenous architecture and culture. But there are different moments when they tried to distinguish themselves and impose their way of building and living in the environment.


A colonial military barrack in Singapore built in the 1920s-30s. The building was recently renovated to become a hotel but one can still see the tall ceilings and deep verandah. Source: Jiat-Hwee Chang’s photograph.
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AR- You already mentioned that you are not as knowledgeable about the Central American and Caribbean tropics, but do you see any similarities between tropical architecture by colonization in Singapore and Central America or other tropical areas of the planet?

JHC- Historically, there are, in fact, very real connections, as I have recounted in my book A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture. The British established colonies in the West Indies and the Caribbean region since the 17th century. In those regions, there have been systematic records of the military engineers trying to build in a particular way in response to the climate and what they saw as the unhealthy aspects of the tropical environment. The first military barracks that the British came up with for the tropical climate, in a very systematic manner and through the use of pre-fabricated components, were in the Caribbean. That was in the early 19th century. Subsequently, that model influenced how the British designed in India and in the other parts of the British Empire. That connection between the Caribbean tropics and the Asian tropics was very clear.

In terms of the planning of banana plantations, Frederick Upham in The Conquest of the Tropics writes about the United Fruit Company in Central America. There's a clear mention that when they were setting up these banana plantations, the United Fruit Company engaged the help of British public health experts who previously had experience in India and in Africa to advice them.

In the 19th and the 20th centuries, the connections are very clear. What is slightly less clear, in terms of historical documents, is what a number of scholars--who look at the architecture of the Caribbean and the American South--note about the multicultural influences on the regional architectural feature known variously as the verandah, piazza, and gallery. It was brought to the region through the complex interactions between the Spanish, the British, and the local population. These are not so much textual records but material cultural evidences. When we look at the architecture and architectural features, the similarities are undeniable. There are definitely, some kinds of connections that brought about these similarities.

A ventilation-brick-wall at a modernist building built by the colonial Public Works Department in the 1950s. Source: Jiat-Hwee Chang’s photograph

AR- If we go back a couple of hundred years before the United Fruit Company, maybe even earlier, to the middle of the 16th century, there are several cities that the Spaniards founded in Latin America like Havana or Granada. In general terms, the Spaniards imported some of the elements of the way they built in Spain's southern parts, using things like "bahareque" and "adobe" houses. Many of these houses were made of mud and clay tile roofs with short overhangs, high ceilings, and mostly flat facades with small openings. And that persisted in Costa Rica. But that's a different condition than the one the Americans brought to the banana plantations. It seems that the Americans tended to understand the climate and the conditions better than the Spaniards.

When you did your research for this book or any other article or writing that you have produced, regarding the tropics and architecture in the tropics, were you able to make comparative studies of how architecture has evolved in the different zones in the tropical regions?


JHC- When we use the phrase "tropical architecture," we are influenced by a few books that were first published in the 1950s and 60s. For instance, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew's famous book Tropical Architecture in Humid Zone (1956). At that time, it was very much a late-colonial project. They both worked in Africa right after the war and then were planning consultants to the British government in west Africa. They were looking at the tropics as a common zone. They didn't just look at one single territory but at multiple territories of the British Empire. When I was doing my research for my book, what I did was to explore connective history. Connective so as to see the British Empire as a larger whole, how certain ideas moved from one part to another part of it. I tried to understand how Singapore was influenced by the other parts of the tropical territories in the British Empire. During the colonial era, engineers and architects didn't just stay in one place. They moved around through the different parts of the tropics. Because of their experience of designing in different parts of the tropical territories in the British Empire, they were able to take some of the ideas from one place to another. The colonies did not have full autonomy. Very often, when they wanted to build something, they had to consult the colonial office headquarters in London. And very often someone there would actually correspond with them and say "Why don't you look at the example from -let's say- the West Indies or India?" or, "Why don't you look at examples from Barbados and study what they did in the past?" The period I was looking at, the 19th and 20th centuries, colonies like Singapore did not exist in isolation; they were very much connected. Regionally, sometimes the British would also look at what the Dutch were doing. The Dutch Empire had a different geography. Their major colony was the Dutch East Indies, today's Indonesia, and they were also in the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. They also had some other minor territories elsewhere. There was a lot of what we today call a multicultural movement of ideas and influences between one group and another.

Furthermore, Singapore, and maybe to some extent Latin America are migrant societies. We have people coming from the southern part of China, India, and people who are part of the indigenous community. When we say indigenous, we are also referring to people coming from today's Peninsular Malaysia and the Indonesian islands. We also have Arab traders. In migrant societies, it's very common for migrants to bring their own practices to the region. As you mentioned earlier, the Spanish were building in adobe and mud bricks in Latin America, which might not be very suitable for but yet they adapted the material and constructional methods in one way or another. Likewise, the Chinese brought houses from South China that might not fit the climate here, but then they adapted as well.

There's a lot of this kind of interesting cross-fertilization of ideas that led to a hybrid architecture, and this is something that I'm very interested in as well. How different cultures come together and influence one another. In that sense, maybe South East Asia is very similar to Latin America.


Brise-soleil, screens, and deep horizontal overhangs at the House of Alfred Wong, a pioneer post-independence architect, completed in 1968. Source: Jiat-Hwee Chang’s photograph.

AR- It seems that the British were a big connector in the development of tropical architecture, right?

JHC- Yes, at the peak of the British Empire, which is the late 19th, early 20th century, they controlled one-quarter of the world's territory, and also one-quarter of the world's population.

AR- Amazing! Of course, it makes a lot of sense now to me.

My family emigrated to the United States in the early '60s, so I did most of my education, and I went to architecture school in New York.

My first experiences designing projects in Costa Rica were highly influenced by the ideas that I had been exposed to in the school in New York. My own first house, which I built in 1976, was a white house. I made a few attempts to provide shade and shadow, but soon, the house was full of mold. I became really concerned with this situation and with the question of responding to the realities in a local environment. I started designing projects that were more about protecting the exterior walls. All the openings and longer overhangs, and I started theorizing about that, about how architecture in the tropics, in my tropics, should express itself.

What do you think about architectural expression? What would you tell students in tropical areas on formal architectural elements, shape, aesthetics of houses, and buildings, that could send a clear message that such architecture is tropical?

JHC- Your experience is something that is common to many of the older architects in Singapore. The first architecture school was only established in Singapore in the late 1950s. Before that, residents of Singapore had to go overseas to study architecture. Many of them went to England because we were a British colony. Quite a few went to Australia. A familiar story recounted by many of them is that they didn't learn how to design for the tropical climate. As you can imagine, during the '50s, there were even fewer books on architecture in Asia or Latin America. They were learning about keeping the houses warm because cold weather was the problem in places like London, Manchester, Melbourne and Sydney where they were studying., not hot weather. And upon returning to Singapore, they had to adjust and learn how to design for the tropics. The first major conference on tropical architecture was organized in 1953. At that time, a Nigerian student in Manchester realized that he wasn't being taught how to design in Africa by his teachers. He found Otto Koenigsberger, who had the experience of designing for many years in India, and he said to him, "I'm not being taught how to build for the climate in Africa, and what am I going to do when I go back there?". So, Koenigsberger said, "why don't you organize a conference, then?" It was from that conference that Koenigsberger established a department of tropical architecture. They realized that they had all the students from the former colonies, or at that time, the de-colonizing colonies who were studying in England because there were very few architecture schools in the tropics at that time. They weren't being taught anything about how to build in their homeland at all.

The other issue is that many architects in Southeast Asia have been and still are interested in discussing how to design in the tropics. Many of them would know the technicality of how to design for the tropical climate, especially when the focus on sustainability in recent years has re-emphasized the importance of climatically-appropriate design. I think they're also interested in the aesthetic question of design for the tropics. Tay Kheng Soon, a well-known Singapore architect, came up with these three words that encapsulate for him the aesthetics of tropicality: line, edge, and shade. He was responding to the modernist architects' obsession with plane, volume, and light. Le Corbusier famously talked about how architecture is the interplay of masses under the light. Different architects at different times tend to think about this question of an aesthetic for the tropics very differently. Some architects looked to indigenous architecture and then tried to learn from it. There are a number of architects who, since the 1980s, have been attempting to articulate an aesthetic of tropical architecture for the region.

AR-  Our first school of architecture here opened in 1971; before that, all of us graduated abroad. Most of our architects, before the local architecture school opened, went to study in Mexico. A few went to schools in the United States or in South America, Chile, perhaps, Brazil. But very soon, more schools opened in Costa Rica.

How do you imagine that tall buildings should be designed in the tropics? How should we approach the design of tall high-rise buildings or even mid-rise buildings in our area?

JHC- This is a question that many Asian cities actually face, and these cities, probably like some Latin American cities, are very dense. Besides the well-known research in eco-skyscrapers by the Malaysian architect Ken Yeang, there's been earlier attempts of trying to build tropical high rise. In Singapore, 80% of us live in public housing, and since the 1960s public housing has always been quite tall. Every building would be 12 stories high, and now, the public housing is very commonly at 30-40 story high. The design strategies adopted in the past were quite basic and modest. What they did was getting the orientation correct, having the building's long elevations facing north-south rather than east-west and then having a shallow building section to facilitate cross ventilation. Those were the basic things done, but since then, with Ken Yeang and then the Singapore-based architecture firm WOHA, and the interest of having tropical greenery, there have been different innovations. There are many younger architects that have been producing really interesting work for the past two decades. One of them is WOHA. They have been trying to reinterpret the high-rise and have adopted strategies different from Ken Yeang and Tay Kheng Soon. They have built quite extensively in the region, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India, and China. They rethink the volumetric aspect of the high rise in relation to the climate, and they have introduced certain types of vertical articulations of green spaces in the sky in a high-dense environment. One of the major problems that we face in many Asian cities in the tropics is traffic congestion, noise, and air pollution. In the traditional devices of design in the tropics, if one wants ventilation, one has to open the windows. But when you open your window today in one of these cities, you get not just the breezes but also the noise, dust, and polluted air. Some of the older methods of building with the tropical climate might not work so well for a dense city that is polluted and noisy. These other new challenges that we face have to be addressed at not just the architecture level. They depend on better planning, better provision of public transport, or better mixed-use zoning to minimize the need to commute. What WOHA seeks to address is at the architecture level, for instance, the creation of a new elevated ground level with greenery. That is essentially to try to cut the building off from the very noisy ground and the noisy road.

A lush landscaped space underneath the elevated volumes of the Modern Tropical House, designed by Tay Kheng Soon of Akitek Tenggara, completed in 1992. Source: Jiat-Hwee Chang’s photograph.

AR- Don't you think that a body of critical and theoretical thinking should be developed for architecture in the tropics, and indeed- for each architectural typology? Is this feasible? Do you know if there are people who are engaged in this sort of thing?

JHC- There have been, over the years, a number of global architects who have tried to do that. In fact, my knowledge from Costa Rica came from a book that I read about Bruno Stagno, edited by Bruno Stagno, Alexander Tzonis, and Liane Lefaivre.

When a colleague and I were editing a special themed section of the ABE (Architecture Beyond Europe) Journal on "Entanglements of Architecture and Comfort beyond the Temperate Zone", we realized that what we knew about Costa Rica was primarily through that book. I guess that is partly because the world is sometimes divided into different language spheres. The knowledge produced in Latin America, I imagine, is primarily in the Spanish language, which the rest of the world might not be able to access. But I think, fortunately, or unfortunately, the world today is dominated by the English language. English is also becoming the new global language that, in a way, connects different parts of the world. I don't think historically there has been any moment whereby such a big percentage of the world's population share a common language. Some people may not be very proficient in English because it's not their mother tongue, but at least, many people have English as a second language now in most parts of the world today. So, the possibility of a common discourse might increase.

Skyville at Dawson, a public housing project designed by OHA, completed in 2015. Source: Jiat-Hwee Chang’s photograph.

August 18, 2020