Simulating Singapore: Architectural Replications of the Narrative of (Neoliberal) Success

Replications and simulations of notable historical buildings and monuments like the Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal or even entire cities like Paris and London are not uncommon around the world. Such activities have been designated “fake heritage” by John Darlington, raising questions about authenticity and the implicit narratives of power, prestige, and historical legacy as the rationale for imitation. In this paper, I wish to extend this notion of “fake heritage” by examining two unusual copies of Singapore: the upscale residential community of Citraland in Surabaya and the town of Ullikkottai in Tamil Nadu. Both imitate Singapore differently. Citraland deploys numerous Singaporean monuments on its landscapes such as the merlion, a distorted statue of Stamford Raffles, and the Fountain of Wealth as aestheticized expressions of economic success. On the other hand, as a community of returned migrant workers Ullikkotai replicates Singapore by building bungalows modelled after those in Singapore. More substantially, the town’s new architecture is superimposed onto its own developmental narrative, as townsfolk incorporate Singapore’s famed story of going “from Third World to First” as their own. Singapore does not culturally occupy the same status as other sites that are commonly copied, and many of its copied symbols are in themselves unoriginal, being hybridized and appropriated entities from elsewhere. Its reproduction in Surabaya and Tamil Nadu, thus suggest actions beyond simply faking heritage, implicating alternate expressions of postcolonial desire.