Seminar

It was a long weekend for me last. We had a conference of sorts, a continuation of what we did a year ago. 3 speakers and 3 great talks. There was a greater unity of theme and a more in-depth look at materials and detailing this time round, but the consensus seems to be that the event was a bit too long. We'll do better next year. Pity too, that the audience was not as packed as last year's, partly due to a competing event the same afternoon. We seem to be having a surfeit of good talks lately. And this December, Singapore will host an architetural Design Festival and some major Art event as well. Doesn't rain but pours...

Chup

Royal Shakespeare Company

It's only October now, but I dare say the best theatre I'd seen this year, or in recent years for that matter, were the 2 plays by the RSC in Singapore this July. I went for "King Lear" on 19 July, and "The Seagull" on 22 July. It was an incredible feat that they were brought to Singapore at all, with a top-notch cast and production. This same cast and production will be performing in London end of this year, a long season for them.

But what magnificient dramas! Pages of script which seemed lifeless on paper sprung to spell-binding life on stage, without effort or artifice. Pages of monologue which seem like the most soppy, unreal melodrama in the case of Nina's character in The Seagull becomes hauntingly tragic when spoken by Romola Garai (pictured above). Stiffled sniffs all round the theatre. And Ian McKellan as Lear! Good God! The play, first performed in 1606, is almost exactly 400 years old, but damned if I'm ever going to give away all possessions to my children, if I had any, before I know well and good I'm going to die soon after. There are truths here as timeless as any from the bible. There is the English language here of the greatest density and dexterity. Sadly, these plays also make one soberingly clear just how impoverished the theatre scene in Singapore is, and what a long climb we have yet to make.

I wish I could be in London at year's end to catch these and other plays again...

Chup

Passage

At the end of the day, what do we really remember? A student I taught 3 years ago wrote me an email and introduced himself as the boy who went to Dubai for a holiday, and who had shown me the photos later. Strangely, I remember those photos, his antics with his family members, but not the architectural scheme he worked on for a whole year. I couldn't have spend more than 15 minutes looking through his photos, but they remain comparatively vivid, even if it was 3 years ago. So what? We recall pictures better than studies? This student somehow suspected that too, and hence, that was his prompting.

At the end of the day, do we really remember our own creative works? I'd forgotten most of what I wrote or designed... But the people I'd met and whom I've learnt from, that's something else. The above photo was taken on 23 May 2007...

Chup

Jitong

I recently came across a house I'd designed about 3 or 4 years ago, built from a sketch I did, but which I never saw being built, or whether indeed they had built it, and it was a pleasant surprise to find it in finished form. It brought back some memories, some nice, some not so nice, and I'm not sure I would ever design something as heavy-handed as this again. My taste has evolved somewhat, but it was a worthwhile experiment at the time, when I wanted to screen off the front facade from the car porch and evening sun. It was a speculative project, meaning built for sale, and you gambling on whether it would find a buyer. Anyhow, I'm glad to see it built and occupied.

Chup

Anyways, as a post script; here's the sketch from that liberal-marker-pen era...

Choker

Why would a woman want to wear a choker? The name itself is already unappealing. And it's always black it seems. But with old age creeping on me, this is the image I find myself thinking of when I see a woman wearing a choker: a scene from "From Russia With Love", a very blonde Italian, greeting Bond with her only accessory... I was young then, and some things you see for the first time when you were young never ever leaves you.

Chup