Description:
The Bukit Brown Municipal Cemetery is an important manifestation of the period that consolidated overseas Chinese identity in Singapore. Prior to this period, dialect affinities resulted in spatially-distinct residential enclaves as well as separate burial sites such as the Kwong Hou Sua for Teochews, and Peck San Theng for the Cantonese.
The cemetery at Bukit Brown allows us to examine history through its material culture as well, such as the wide range of materials used for the graves’ construction, like greenstone, granite, bricks, decorative tiles as well as Shanghai plaster.
They point collectively to the dedication and wealth bestowed on such afterworld abodes, and to the craftmanship that existed on the island. The epigraphic material may also be deciphered as heritage, and permit the reconstruction of the larger Nanyang community that included Singapore.
The talk is an attempt to document such efforts, and to illustrate their importance for Singapore’s collective memory.
Speaker’s bio:
Lai Chee Kien is Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore. He is a registered
architect, and graduated from the National University of Singapore with an M Arch. by research [1996], and then a PhD in History of
Architecture & Urban Design from the University of California, Berkeley [2005]. He researches on histories of art, architecture,
settlements, urbanism and landscapes in Southeast Asia. His publications include A Brief History of Malayan Art (1999), Building
Merdeka: Independence Architecture in Kuala Lumpur, 1957-1966 (2007) and Cords to Histories (2013).
