Geoffrey T. Malone
Image courtesy of Malone’s family.
Based in Singapore since 1981, Malone is probably best known for designing the neon-lit, futuristic-looking Yishun 10, Singapore’s first purpose-built multiplex that officially opened in 1992. Malone was probably given the job by Golden Village Entertainment because he already had a reputation as an “architect of new pleasure domes” in the late-1980s. Commissioned by Shaw Organisation to convert the Republic Theatre at Marine Parade and the Savoy Cinema at Boon Lay into multi-screen cineplexes, Malone turned both into flamboyantly colourful buildings. The Savoy even revived the use of Art Deco motifs commonly found in early-20th C cinemas. During a decade when many cinemas were closing due to declining attendance and the introduction of video tapes, Malone’s designs helped to create new atmospheres and inject new lives into the building type.¹
Besides cinemas, Malone also designed two idiosyncratic postmodernist buildings—the Crystal Court (completed in 1983) at River Valley road and the Palisades (1985) at Pasir Panjang Road. Both buildings featured curvilinear wall and roof elements that used a combination of clear glass and plastic in a manner that reminds one of an early 1970s house in Castlecrag, New South Wales, he designed as a young architect. Both the Crystal Court and the Palisades are regarded as postmodernist because of the playful juxtaposition of different architectural elements, such as the opaque with the transparent, and the rectilinear with the curvilinear. These juxtapositions created geometries and forms that were more complex than typical modernist buildings. Such complexities were introduced not just due to the architect’s whims, they were also created for contextual reasons. At the Crystal Court, the large expanse of glass and the transparency it created helped to draw attention to the main tenant—the showroom of a lighting retailer—especially when it glittered at night. The rectilinear and less-transparent apartments that were placed on top of the showroom were also in keeping with the shophouse streetscape. In the case of the Palisades, the transparent walls led to large balconies with views of the Singapore Straits, which was in close proximity in the days before the Pasir Panjang Terminal was built.
Malone was also a serious movie buff and the founder of Singapore International Film Festival.
Geoffrey T. Malone passed away peacefully on Thursday, 17 February 2022. He is survived by his wife Lai Choo, his son Marc Wenjie and his daughter Lin Grace.
¹ See “Cinemas: The Architecture of Advertisement” and “Cinema-Churches: From a ‘House of Pictures’ to a ‘House of Prayers’” in Jiat-Hwee Chang, Justin Zhuang and Darren Soh, Everyday Modernism: Architecture and Society in Singapore (forthcoming, 2022).
