The mirror of territorial identity in Singapore professional architecture 1923–1969

In a globalized world, nominal reference and titles differentiate and contribute to spatio-temporal identity formation. Changes therein therefore challenge the stability of territorial identity. Singapore and Malaysia are two nations that share not only much common history, but also many territorial claims, physical and otherwise, that have had parallel and often competing development as the pivot of colonial British Malaya prior to their independence. These parallel similarities and cultural dualities stake and outline claims of identity within broad phases of political paradigms over a span of time: colonialism, nationalism, separation and independence; and illuminate the question of territorial identity. ¹ Vacillating conditional phases within the Singapore professional architectural society, its iterations and journals, and the correlation to changing guises in contested territories of identity offer insights to the nature of challenged identities in a precarious global world that continues to fragment or reconfigure. ²