Women in Architecture and Planning in Singapore
Women had participated in the architectural, engineering, and construction fields before the Second World War though records are scarce. In 1915, the colonial society in Singapore learned of the publication of “The Englishwoman’s Year Book,” which featured a table of “Records for Women” that the author of the article claimed, “showed, at a glance, how the sex has broken new ground.”[1] The author pointed out that women taking up architecture and engineering professions were more fully dealt with than before. In 1927, the Morning Tribune reported over 300 fully trained women housing estate managers in London in the 1920s, an idea that started in 1864 when Octavia Hill, with the help of John Ruskin, bought up three houses in London and managed the tenants on these properties.[2] While reports on women architects and engineers continued, albeit sporadically into the 1940s, public mention of women architects in Singapore occurred only in the 1950s.
1950s and 1960s
Figure 1) The sole female member of the Society of Malayan Architects in 1958 was Lau Wai Chen.
The presence of female architects in the 1950s was partly attributed to Malayanization, the emancipation of women in the work sphere in tandem with Singapore’s economic development imperative, and the Colombo plan and UNESCO schemes that allowed for the enrolment of men and women in architectural schools. In 1956, a Singapore-born Chinese woman joined the Public Works Department (PWD) as an architectural assistant.[3] Chia Kim Hiak, who had just graduated from the BArch program at the University of Melbourne, was the first qualified Asian woman architect to join the department. The other woman architect was Janet Feaster, a graduate from the University of Hull. The PWD also hired other female architects on a temporary basis. Also, in 1956, the SIT hired its first Malayan Ng Chee Sen (BArch Melbourne) and its first woman M.W.K. Reader (AA London) as assistant architects.[4] In 1957, two women – Chia and Ipoh-born Theresa Lim Mun Sim (BArch Sydney) – joined the newly formed team of planners at the SIT.
In December 1958, the Malayan Society of Architects released the list of members in its inaugural journal issue (Figure 1). Lau Wai Chen (BArch Durham) was the only woman among the twenty-three members. [5] Lau had just joined the renamed “planners (replanning)” team at SIT, which comprised the three female architects, surveyor R.J.G. Littlejohn and engineer Liu Hua An.
Figure 2) There are a few woman architects listed in the HDB Annual Report of 1960.
At the establishment of the Housing Development Board in 1960, there were three female assistant architects Theresa Lim, Yap-Lau Wai Chen and Wong-Chia Kim Hiok (BArch Melbourne) (Figure 2).[6] Lim left in 1961 and took up a senior lecturer position in the Civil Engineering and Building Department at the Singapore Polytechnic (SP). Throughout the 1960s, Yap-Lau and Wong-Chia worked alongside others like Wong Wai Ying (BArch Sydney) who joined briefly in 1963, Iris Chen (BArch HKU) and Yang-Tan Ai Fong (BArch Melbourne) who joined in 1967. Yang-Tan and Wong-Chia became senior principal architects in 1978 and went on to serve in the HDB for over twenty years, with the former becoming chief research and planning officer in 1993.
1970s and 1980s
From the 1970s, more women joined the expanding public service as assistant or executive architects. Ng Kheng Lau (BArch HKU) joined HDB in 1972 and Chiam Shock Yuen (BArch Singapore) in 1973. Ng’s first projects were two commercial units in Neighbourhood VII (Buona Vista) and the Marine Parade Area Office and market. Chiam assisted in the Telok Blangah Neighbourhood III planning. Maria Boey Yut Mei (BArch. Singapore, MAUD Manchester, MLA Sheffield) joined in 1974 and undertook the housing and landscape design of Tampines Neighbourhood II from 1978 to 1989.[7] Boey created a town structural model that was implemented in other new towns was also responsible for the planning of Pasir Ris New Town. Koh-Lim Wen Gin (BArch Singapore) joined URA in 1974 as executive architect, was principal architect in the 1980s and served as chief planner between 2001 and 2008. By the end of the 1970s, university enrolment figures show that almost half were women. On 8 March 1977, a talk titled “A Place for a Lady in the Architectural Profession” jointly organised by the SIA, BoA, and National Museum was held at the National Museum Theatrette. The four panelists were Sim-Teh, Chiam, Koh-Lim, and Lim-Tan Suat Hua (BArch Singapore), who was in private practice. According to Sim-Teh, around twenty percent of architects in the Ministry of National Development were women.[8]
Many of the architects and planners moved up the ranks in public service. Ruby Lai-Chuah Suat Hong (BArch Melbourne, MSc NUS), a senior consultant at CPG, was a Colombo scholar and joined PWD after graduation in 1976. For over four decades, she was involved in the design and project management of schools, office buildings, healthcare projects and was chief project manager for the Esplanade Theatres by the Bay. Cheong-Chua Koon Hean, another Colombo Plan scholar (BArch Newcastle, MUP UCL, Hon. PhD Newcastle), joined PWD in 1981, the planning department in 1987, and was closely involved in land use policy development through Concept Plan 1991 and 2001. As CEO of the URA between 2004 and 2010, she oversaw the creation of the 2008 Leisure Plan and the development of the Southern Ridges, spearheaded the transformation of Marina Bay and initiatives on sustainability, built heritage conservation, and the real estate market. As CEO of HDB from 2010 to 2020, she extended the efforts to develop community-oriented smart towns with biophilic features. Since January 2021, Cheong serves as Chairman of the Center for Livable Cities.
Following Cheong-Chua, Hwang Yu-Ning (BArch NUS, MPP Harvard), began public service as an architect in the Conservation and Urban Design Division at URA in 1994, moved through leadership roles in planning, served briefly as director for Land and Liveability in the Prime Minister’s office before becoming chief planner and deputy CEO. Others like Malone-Lee Lai Choo, Heng Siok Ngo, and Lau Swee Choo began as DCB executive planners in the 1980s. Malone-Lee served as Deputy Director of Strategic Planning at MND between 1987 and 1989, was the first head of Urban Conservation at URA from 1989-1991. As Director of the Centre for Sustainable Asian Cities (CSAC) at NUS, she teaches environmental planning and its legal and institutional framework. After her, Teh-Foo Lai Yip (BArch NUS), senior director of Conservation, joined URA in the mid-1990s, a few years after the launch of the 1989 Conservation Master Plan.
1990s
Figure 3) HDB Executive architects Fun Siew Leng (left) and Marilyn Tan Cheng See (right) from Houseword, 1994, vol. 98.
By the 1990s, many executive architects in HDB were women. Fun Siew Leng (BArch NUS, MDes Harvard) and Marilyn Tan Cheng See were responsible for the curved block in Pasir Ris St. 13 completed in 1994 (Figures 3 & 4).[9] With architects like Ngein Siew Niang (BArch NUS) and Gidgetelena Ong Li Ching (BArch NUS), they led teams in designing and planning the housing in many precincts across the island. Ong joined Surbana Jurong Consultants and is one of two principal architects of its public housing arm. From the 2000s, as group director of urban planning design, Fun co-led the Singapore River task force, and pushed for a pedestrian-focused civic district with a “necklace of open spaces” in Tanjong Pagar, more walkways, and a waterfront promenade. She has been the chief urban designer at URA since 2017. The millennial years also saw several itinerant architects who joined and left, many of whom were not from Singapore.
Figure 4) A curved block of HDB flats at Pasir Ris Street 13 designed by Fun Siew Leng and Marilyn Tan Cheng See. Photo by Darren Soh.
Some of the architects left public service to join or set up private practices. Some joined private practices upon graduation and subsequently took up leadership roles in these offices or set up their own offices. Others established sole proprietorship or partnerships. The SIA council began to see women members from the mid-1970s. Sim-Teh served in the journal editorial committee in 1974. Lucy Tang-Chai Siew Kheun (BArch Melbourne) set up her namesake practice in 1969. [10] Lim-Tan was an associate partner at RSP until she established S.H. Lim Associates in 1979. She was an SIA council member from 1977 for over a decade. Jeanette Gan Kim Guat (BArch Singapore) established OD Architects in 1979. Tan-Ho and Shirley Tan Siok Lay set up HT Architects in 1983. Wong Meng Heng (BArch Singapore) co-founded Team Design Architects in 1992. Gan, Wong, and Tan-Cheong Sooi Peng (BArch Singapore) of SAA Partnership (now SAA Associates) served on the SIA council from 1989 to 1991.
A contemporary, Yap Mong Lin (BArch NUS, MArch UD Harvard), worked on the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong and Raffles City Singapore at I.M. Pei’s office between 1983 and 1984. before returning to serve her bond at HBD for five years. She continued at Cesma International (now Surbana) for another five years where she became vice president. Thereafter she joined RSP in 1994 for a decade, and after a brief stint at Alsop International, established Yap Architects in 2005, which became Multiply Architects in 2007. Rita Soh Siow Lan (BArch NUS, MSc Nottingham), a managing partner at RDC, who joined the firm in 1989, began serving on the SIA council in 1993, and became the council president from 2004 to 2007. She is the Institute’s first and only female president since its establishment in 1960. Another ceiling breaker, Angelene Chan (BArch Adelaide), Chairman of DP Architects, joined the firm in 1990, and became CEO in 2016.
Wo Mei Lan (BArch NUS) co-founded Liu & Wo Architects in 1984, with Liu Kah Teck. The firm has worked on over 100 conservation projects, many of which were shophouses.[11] The first of these was a house on Emerald Hill in the 1980s for Pamela Lee, then director for marketing of the Singapore Tourism Board.[12] Besides the public officers Koh-Lim, Malone-Choo, Hwang Yu-Ning and Teh-Foo Lai Yip, Wo is an advocate of building heritage conservation. Between 2006 and 2012, she was a member of the Conservation Advisory Panel (CAP) established in 2002.
Education
A number of individuals committed their lives to architectural education. Alice Tham-Yeo Yong Soo (BArch Southbank Polytechnic) was the first female lecturer at the Department of Civil Engineering and Building in the Singapore Polytechnic. She taught professional diploma in architecture from 1962 till her retirement in 1993.[13] She was joined by Theresa Lim a few years after, who taught at SP until 1987. Meanwhile, the earliest female lecturer to join the new Department of Architecture at the University of Singapore in 1969 was Evelyn Lip-Lee Mong Har (PhD NUS), who attended the Technical College in 1959 and left Kuala Lumpur during the racial riots. She has written many books on architecture and Chinese geomancy. In the mid-1970s, Pinna Indorf (BArch Texas) began teaching at the university after a decade of practicing in Bangkok and the United States. SP graduates Tse-Yu Swee Ling and Chan-Yeow Yew Lih taught from 1977 to 2016 and 1982 to 2008. Ng Kheng Lau taught from 1982 to 1990, followed by Gülsüm Baydar, a senior lecturer from 1990 to 1994. Tan Beng Kiang (BArch NUS, MArch UCLA, DDes Harvard), an advocate of participatory community design, was senior architect at PWD from 1983 to 1996, and joined the NUS faculty from 1999.
Conclusion
Many female architects, landscape architects, and planners have contributed to Singapore’s built environment. In recent decades, female architects and planners are taking up leadership roles in all sectors, public and private, and on multiple levels. Moreover, many women participated in architectural practice against various odds and challenges, pushing boundaries and innovation through visible or less visible ways. It is crucial to turn our attention to the transitional decades in the twentieth century to meaningfully situate the contributions of the architects in consideration of the historical realities of women in architectural production. Against the backdrop of economic and urban development, these women engaged in conceptualising, designing, planning, constructing, teaching, writing, and managing the modern buildings, spaces, practices, and events in the city. Given contemporary realities of diversity and inclusion in the profession, an expanded understanding of women's roles in shaping Singapore’s built environment and a reappraisal of past and present criteria and methods used to assess architecture is timely.
[1] “The Woman Engineer: New Avenue of Labor for Feminine Workers,” The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 2 March 1915.
[2] “Woman Day by Day – Shortage of Women Estate Managers,” Morning Tribune, 4 October 1927.
[3] “Asian woman architect joins P.W.D.,” The Straits Times, 11 April 1956, 2.
(4]“Appendix 1 Senior Staff at 31 December 1956.” SIT Annual Report 1956.
[5] “List of Members,” Journal of the Society of Malayan Architects, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Dec. 1958): 7.
[6] Chia is known as Mrs Wong Choon Leng in HDB records. For consistency, the article retains the maiden names of the individuals; and the married name added in hyphenation in front.
[7] Teo Lian Huay. “A new face and a new life,” The Straits Times, 12 February 1984. “21 Raffles Scholars accept awards,” The Straits Times, 8 September 1992.
[8] “Women taking up building career,” The Straits Times, 9 March 1977.
[9] “The Architects behind HDB flats,” The Straits Times, 27 March 1990.
[10] “Lucy Chai Kiew Kheun (chartered architect), 1969,” Registry of Business. Record ref. 68709, NAS
[11] “The Savior of Shophouse,” Happy Hands – Quarterly newsletter for Friends of the MND Family, Issue 1 (Oct. 2013): 4.
[12] 30 Years of Conservation in Singapore since 1989: 30 Personal Reflections and Stories. Singapore: URA, 75.
[13]Interview with Alice Tham-Yeo Yong Soo, 15 August 2021.
Written by Eunice Seng, last updated on 30 August 2021.
