When nature ran out of caves to house the human population, the humans dug into the earth and extracted rocks to create caves around themselves. Then we decided that our caves needed to be subdivided, partitioning off certain spaces in which we conducted specific human activities: the bedroom for sleeping, the kitchen for cooking, the living room for living, the John for… Johnning, and the doghouse for the husband. And all of that was for just one human family.
When people mix and mingle to form a society, we also need to build caves to conduct our various activities. Whether it’s for trade, or education, or public security each building is identifiable to its purpose and is laid out to make the facilitation of its purpose as efficient as possible. Depending on what society prioritizes, it will construct more of one type of building in which a particular activity is carried out more often, and fewer of other buildings whose purpose is less required.
Religious societies will have more buildings meant for carrying out rites and rituals, militaristic societies will have more barracks and training facilities for their militia, and so on. In fact, by observing the kinds of buildings prioritized by a society, we can more or less infer what kind of people we are likely to encounter if we were to visit. And the prevalence of certain other types of buildings, like slums and ghettoes filled with dark, dingy streets crowded with ruffians and cholera give the impression that outsiders are not welcome.
So, yes, clearly the builders design the buildings they need, while the buildings reflect what kind of people have built them. Archaeologically speaking, the remains of buildings are all that’s left to tell modern explorers who their builders were, what they thought was important, how they structured and lived their lives, and who or what they worshipped. Sadly, they may also hold clues as to what happened to the people who once lived there.
The buildings of ruined Tenochtitlan, for example, tell us of a people who were warlike and deeply religious to the point that human sacrifice was a commonly accepted practice for what they considered the greater good. Of course, much of what we know about such people depends a lot on the physical evidence we can piece together, so we have to account for some inaccuracy of interpretation due to insufficient context.
If we look at a living, breathing, functioning society like Singapore today, we can see a strong correlation between the infrastructure we have built around ourselves and the people that we are today. Across time, we see how modernizing an urban landscape for land-scarce Singapore by putting the priority on proper housing policy eventually developed a people with a much stronger connection to the land than ever before, even if that land is an area of 800-1200 square meters in a high-rise apartment block. The majority of households own their own property today, and while we still bicker and gripe over policy, every National Day we see on national television how strongly and genuinely moved those in attendance at the parade are. And with our own eyes we see how that emotion gets transmitted to our fellow viewers at home too. It’s a pride that comes from being literally grounded, rooted in the land we call home.
Other buildings tell of our other national priorities. The number of well-equipped, well-designed schools we have, from pre-school to now 6 university campuses, suggests how important education is to us. Not only are our graduates in high demand around the world as employees for multinational companies, our myopia rates are likewise through the roof.
Our continual port and airport developments testify to our dependence on being a travel, destination, and transit hub for the world. Singaporeans love to travel and take advantage of our access to practically anywhere in the world. Whether as casual tourists or on business we are packed and ready to go, showing off our latest adventures on Facebook and Instagram.
Our expanding MRT lines are shaping us into a population that truly prizes speed and efficiency. It shows in how our people have been recorded as being one of the fastest walkers in the world, our reputation for efficiency keeps our global services strongly in demand, and we constantly behave like time is money.
Our main business concerns occupy the main part of our downtown area in buildings that are all shiny with glass and steel, clean and modern-looking. While the business going on within the buildings is providing us with financial support to fuel our rising confidence in being world-players despite our humble beginnings, the whole futuristic vibe gives us a boost in pride and the mentality that we must always do our part not to let our tiny civilization down.
And that’s also a downside since we also feel pressure to live up to the standards that our buildings constantly hold in our face. Since you live here, you must earn your place and keep up with our rising standards… the ‘or else’ is left unsaid because that’s the fuel we burn to keep relentlessly pressing forward as we have done over the last 60 years — and we’re just getting started. Our collective stress levels have never been this high and we’re becoming increasingly concerned with our mental health and that of our children.
But our tiny but resilient society will deal with each problem in time. Lately we’ve embarked on a massive public greening project called the Singapore Green Plan 2023, building in parks and green spaces everywhere within our urban landscape. Sure, it won’t do much for our internal stresses, but at least it still provides shade from the sun, it provides a water conservation function, and creates calm and tranquil places in which we can chill out now and then. Or exercise, which creates the same effect. Ok, I’m taking the definition of ‘buildings’ loosely, but if we have to include parks and trees as an integral part of our infrastructure I think they can still be considered ‘buildings’.
So, yeah, Singaporeans build the buildings we need based on our priorities for living and thriving together as a society. The reverse is also true, our buildings very clearly represent our priorities, but also our hopes and aspirations, as well as our anxieties and insecurities. What we hope, when our society has finally crumbled to dust a long, long time from now, is that archaeologists from the future will be impressed by what our comparatively primitive society was able to do to create a good life for the people who once lived here.
(1108 words)
Inspired by Singapore-Cambridge GCE ‘A’ Level H1 General Paper (Paper 1) 2020 Question #4