Exhibitions That Made Architecture And Design History: The More We Get Together
The temporary exhibition, The More We Get Together: Singapore’s Playground 1930 – 2030 ran from 20th April to 30th September 2018. Curated by Rachel Eng and Wong Hong Suen where both work at the National Museum of Singapore. This exhibition is based on a playbook The More We Get Together for the Young and Young at Heart. This exhibition attempts to portray the story of Singapore’s playgrounds from the past, present and into the future.
Exploring the meaning of playgrounds to us as a society, the evolution of playgrounds to meet our needs and the kinds of playgrounds we want for our future and how we can build them. This exhibition displays of the iconic playgrounds of the 1970s to today’s modern, as well as community-built versions. These playgrounds have played a role be it in our childhood or adulthood experience in Singapore. This exhibition will bring back nostalgic memories and creatively think about the future of Singapore’s playgrounds. With the variety of playground surfaces and original blueprints of the iconic playgrounds, it pushes people to discover how Singapore defined playgrounds back then. Understanding the physical boundaries and equipment as well as playgrounds’ place and meaning in Singapore’s society.
Additionally, the exhibition exposes people to the designers of the past playgrounds, pushes people to design their own and contribute to what the future design of playgrounds will be in Singapore. We’re interested in how this particular exhibition could successfully gather feedback and opinions from Singaporeans as part of a research kind of exhibition. Not only that, this exhibition relates closely to what we are currently working on for our studio module. Understanding what was, what is and what will be in the future. How we can identify and learn the key success factors of the past and input into our future designs. Witnessing first hand through this exhibition how impactful Singapore’s society and other external factors play a big part in the evolution of Singapore’s playgrounds. With this analytical understanding, it’ll benefit us as a whole to adapt and be more sensitive to both internal and external factors into our design concepts.
Our group works on understanding the factual aspect of the exhibition, analysing how several design aspects used in this temporary exhibition was successful and linking them back to the different theories that we’ve been taught throughout this module. Our analysis will be segregated into macro and micro categories for better clarity. We’ve decided to relate our finding to the exhibition reading of the “The Feedback Machine” where Fisher Alison and Karen Kice discussed on the exhibition practice of “activity research as the subject of display”. The reading mentions how great the impact and successful it was towards the genre of exhibitions. Through analysing this exhibition we would be able to see whether this exhibition has overcome the challenge of research as a physical experience as questioned in the reading. This’ll tie back and clarify our interests in how this exhibition type works as a whole.
The more we get together exhibition and the National Museum of Singapore touches on Singapore’s playground from the past to the future. Showing how the roles of the playground were in the past and how they transitioned to the current and how they will transition to the future.
Playgrounds in the past were pockets of outdoor space for children to bring their toys and play together as during the post-world war period, resources were scarce and people found a way to be creative in those times. Thus since the start a playground is associated with enjoyment and playing together. As Singapore was gaining financial stability, more HDB blocks were built. Playgrounds were built in between them in order to bridge the racial and social divide. The public’s perception of playgrounds then changed to a place where children and their parents could come together in peace and enjoy the facility. Iconic heritage playgrounds were built to represent such a time. These playgrounds were built from the inspiration of the local scene and culture. For instance, local fruits like mangosteen and local animals like the kanchil, also known as a mouse deer. As Singapore was a Chinese dominated country, the iconic dragon playground was built to represent luck and prosperity according to the Chinese belief. The need to draw inspiration from local scene and culture into the building design of these playgrounds was to allow it to be relatable to all races and the same time to promote the local identity. Racial riots were still happening in Singapore’s early days as a nation, hence the need to establish a symbol of peace and racial harmony.
The presences of creative and whimsical design to playgrounds creates a message of a lighten mood in this hectic age. Encouraging users to take de-stress and interact with each other. The exhibition’s goals was to share with the visitors the rich history of the Singapore playgrounds at the same time showing how the playgrounds transitioned as the country transitioned from 3rd world to 1st world. It showcases the role of the playgrounds of the past and present and future. Snippets of the future playgrounds were shown to portray a message that Singapore anticipates and wishes to cater to society’s wants and needs towards the new playgrounds in the urban environment. The playgrounds will in the future, cater to all demographics and is all inclusive, from young to old. The underlying message is that the Singapore playground is a place to have fun and boost the local identity.
