3. Solvencia con medidas de riesgo
3.4. Insolvencia
This potential imagined renaissance is the key part of the document. In fact the section on the chapel, the ‗grand centrepiece of the Convent‘, is titled ‗Primed for a Renaissance‘. The document also says of the site generally that ‗its rare architectural features combined with an aura of intellectual and spiritual refinement lends it the makings of a cultural attraction of world-class proportions‘. This is consistent with the government‘s ambition of transforming Singapore into a ‗global city of the Arts‘. In 1989 the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts presented a report that paved the way for a range of statutory bodies such as the National Heritage Board and the National Library Board, and the development of new museums like the Singapore Art Museum, later established in the St. Joseph‘s Institution near the Convent
26
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington (London: Macgibbon and Fee, 1965. 1961).
159 site.27 As with heritage conservation, the government took a pragmatic view that cultural development would assist economic development. The subsequent government report in 1992,
Singapore: Global City of the Arts, further developed these goals, while the Renaissance City Report in 2000 was explicit that ‗we want to position Singapore as a key city in the Asian renaissance of the twenty-first century and a cultural city in the globalised world‘.28 These were all steps in the further creation of Singapore‘s ‗brand‘ as a global city and tourist destination.29 The focus in the document on an idealised future use of the site is not only practical, since it is setting a framework for use, but it also reflects the significance of the future for Singapore. That is, the focus is firmly on the future rather than the past, and on a utopian future of growth, consumption and modernity.
Throughout the tender document, line drawings and artist impressions are used to imagine how the site might be redeveloped. The chapel, Kong suggested, had been made optional for inclusion in the tender because it was regarded by many as a ‗commercial albatross‘.30 If this was perhaps due to a lack of imagination in how to incorporate the chapel into a commercial enterprise, then the tender document helpfully provided ideas. There are several colourful artist impressions of possible uses for the chapel – as an art gallery (Figure 18a below), a small concert hall (Figure 18b below), a museum, and as a ‗centre for thematic cultural activity‘.
27
Singapore Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts. "Report of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts," (Singapore: Singapore National Printers, 1989).
28Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, Singapore - Global City for the Arts, Ministry of Information and the
Arts (Singapore: Singapore Government, 1995). Also Renaissance City Report: Culture and the Arts in Renaissance Singapore, Ministry of Information and the Arts (Singapore: Singapore Government, 2000), 4. See also Chapter 5, ―The Making of a Renaissance City: Building Cultural Monuments in Singapore‖, in Lily Kong, Ching Chia-ho, and Chou Tsu-Lung, eds., Arts, Culture and the Making of Global Cities: Creating New Urban Landscapes in Asia (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2015).
29 See also Can-seng Ooi, "Reimagining Singapore as a creative nation: The politics of place branding," Place
Branding and Public Diplomacy 4, no. 4 (2008).
160
Fig. 18a: Chapel as art gallery Fig. 18b: Chapel as concert hall
The text suggests that it might also be ‗a nurturing environment for children‘s artistic endeavours, to tie-in with ―Infant‖ in the present name of the Convent‘. The possible uses fit with the earlier STPB suggestions of activities for audiences of ‗refined taste‘, with the goal of the ‗city of the arts‘. They are also traditional European cultural activities, in keeping with the ideas of developing Singapore as a ‗renaissance city‘.
Other imagined uses for the site are elaborated throughout the document. It is suggested that Caldwell House would be suitable for ‗elegant dining in formal style‘. Art galleries, music or performance studios and function rooms are also suggested as appropriate. The irony here is that Caldwell House was where the nuns lived, and as Figure 19a below shows, the actual past is far less glamorous than the imagined future.
161
Fig. 19a: Caldwell House, 1934. Source: C.H.I.J. Victoria Street 1854-198331
The food eaten by the Sisters was simple, may have been eaten in silence, and would have occurred out of the public gaze – a long way from the ‗elegant fine dining‘ option recommended as creating ‗the atmosphere most appropriate to the image of the CHIJ‘. Figure 19b below shows the artist impressions of potential opportunities for dining in the redeveloped Caldwell House.
Fig. 19b Possible scenarios for dining in Caldwell House
The austerity of the nunnery is replaced by the elegance of the women seated at the small table and the almost fantastic image of the woman with the parrot.
31C.H.I.J. Victoria Street 1854-1983 (Singapore: C.H.I.J., 1983), 32. Also Elaine Meyers, Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus: 150 Years in Singapore (Penang: The Lady Superior of Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, 2004), 46.
162 Similarly, it is suggested that the former dormitory could be used for ‗dining facilities for exclusive corporate functions‘ (Figure 20 below).
Fig. 20: Dining in the former dormitory.
The two female staff are beautifully dressed and coiffured. They are also white, like the waiter in Figure 19b. In both these representations, we can see the flip from the colonial to the post-colonial moment. When Singapore was a British colony, hotels like the Raffles and clubs such as the Singapore Club were social centres for Europeans of status. Cultural Historian Maurizio Peleggi has argued that colonial hotels were ‗a foundational institution of European modernity‘.32 Non-Europeans were not allowed in, other than as staff. The hotels
were sites of colonial fantasy, an escape from the hot Asian outside for Europeans who dreamt of ‗home‘ and for non-Europeans who were excluded. Although the Convent site is inherently colonial, the drawings suggest that the balance of power has changed – now it is the Singaporean who is relaxing among the gracious remnants of colonialism and waited on by European staff. Symbolically, rather than being in Chakrabarty‘s imaginary ‗waiting room of history‘, waiting to be considered sufficiently ‗modern‘, Singaporeans have achieved this ‗European modernity‘ for themselves.33 There is a re-casting of the building, but also a
recasting of the social.
Suggestions for appropriate use of the courtyards are also for dining, where ‗under the elegant archways, white wicker furniture with potted palms would bring home the charm of the tropics‘, a scene again reminiscent of the colonial. Figure 21 below shows the large artist
32 Maurizio Peleggi, "The Social and Material Life of Colonial Hotels: Comfort Zones as Contact Zones in
British Colombo and Singapore, ca. 1870-1930," Journal of Social History 46, no. 1 (2012): 136.
33
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton: Princeton University, 2003), 8.
163 impression of the possibilities for ‗pleasurable outdoor dining‘, as well as a photograph of the actual cloisters and courtyard.
Fig. 21: Courtyard
Here we starkly see the contrast between the real present and the imagined future. The Convent cloisters and courtyard in the photograph look drab, deserted and neglected. Even when in use previously, the buildings and surroundings were generally spartan and utilitarian. The painting imagines the space almost as a pleasure garden, beautifully landscaped with colourful flowerbeds, palms, seats and a fountain. The outdoor restaurant has comfortable chairs, with tables covered with food. The food is European, as is the formal garden, and overall the painting has a French aristocratic ambience. It represents a ‗renaissance‘ – a term used historically in a fundamentally European context. Yet the man comfortably lounging by the table is Asian. Again, it is Singapore imagining itself in very European terms.
164 We look from the drab photograph of the present to the colourful and serene imagined future. In many ways, this sums up the entire document, which, with the exception of the technical tender brief at the back, represents the attempt by the URA to frame the boundaries of future use of the site and to set the stage for the desired ambience of the development. So, in stark contrast to the actual state of the Convent site and buildings, we are told that ‗the serenity of the open field, with birds that have made this city-locked cloister their home make an ideal haven of comfort and relaxation for shoppers and tourists‘. The future development is portrayed as an oasis in the city. It builds upon the other aspects of the imagined past – the silence of the chapel, the laughter of schoolgirls and the serenity of the Convent. In a city of constant change, it is portrayed as an oasis, a Utopia where time has stood still.
Where shops are identified as appropriate potential facilities, they are described as ‗exclusive, specialist shops‘, ‗quaint little shops‘, and ‗high value-added trade workshops for the repair of antiques, cultural artefacts, leather items and musical instruments‘. They could also be ‗exclusive cafés for the trendy‘. Here ‗trendy‘ equates with modernity and with exclusivity. The ‗Underground Facilities‘, potentially as large as 3,000 square metres and containing parking and more shops, are mentioned, and it is suggested that ‗this new aspect of the CHIJ could be a modern, clean counterpoint to the antique charms of the Convent‘. Again, we see the interplay and juxtaposition of the old with the clean and modern of the new. ‗Modernity‘ is new, clean and trendy, fitting with the aspirations of becoming a ‗global city of the arts‘ and a ‗renaissance city‘. Yet the developer must also be sensitive to the heritage of the site, so that the glimpses of the past are not completely erased. This represents, in concrete form, the dilemma for Singapore – how to ‗modernise‘ in the quest for economic development, without destroying its heritage buildings and becoming another ‗bland‘ globalised city.