Interim Developmental Histories of Post-war Singapore

Singapore experienced four transitional historical periods between the end of World War II and Independence in 1965. It was governed as a British Crown Colony from 1946 until partial internal self governance with a Labour Front alliance was granted in 1955. The 1959 Legislative Assembly elections replaced it with a new majority and progress-oriented government, but Singapore then merged with Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak to form the geopolitical nation known as Malaysia in 1963. During these periods, the dismantling of prior colonial structures proceeded apace with the building of new infrastructure and institutions such as the University of Malaya, and the processes of Malayanisation. These transitional periods complicate aspects of nation-state formation which are not entirely resolved even today. The country hails 1965 as the primary origin of what is “Singaporean.”

The transformation of landscapes and seascapes during these transitional periods, are thus not also not heralded within national histories, since they occurred prior to 1965. In the bid to continue as a regional and international port city as well as a transport hub, and along with repopulation into public housing estates, the geographies of the main and outlying islands underwent radical change and reinvention. These paper discusses the interim periods and formations such as cooperative housing, community centres, and combined temples etc. as neglected spatial forms which are indelibly connected to a better understanding of developmental history in the island-city-state.