(14 Mar) Resilient Singapore: Reimagining the Civic Core through Environmental History
Singapore’s wild roots: Uncover the civic core’s layered past on foot.
Event details
Date: 14 March 2026 |
Time: 9.00am – 11:00am |
Venue: SMU Yong Pung How School of Law, 55 Armenian Street, Singapore 179943 |
Theme: Adapting to Change I: Urban, Social, Cultural |
The history of Singapore’s urban centre is a showcase for resilience in the island city. Its changing landscape is a direct reflection of the things that have made Singapore, from the early port to the agricultural areas, military and civic development, to the reclamation projects. Their development has been the cornerstone of, and reflected, social and economic growth, as Singapore moved through good times, and bad. Each of these socio-economic shifts has left its memory inscribed into the landscape and with them, a story.
Starting from Armenian Street at the front of SMU’s Yong Pung How School of Law, this tour delves into the landscape under our feet, imagining a Singapore as it was at different points in its chronology, from the agricultural development of the nineteenth century, to the technological innovations of the early twentieth century, to the Japanese occupation, and beyond. This will be a predominantly social and environmental history, as opposed to a classic national history, one which will tell lesser-known stories from Singapore’s past and highlight parts of our history and landscape that might be commonly overlooked. All these stories point toward one thing however: resilience. Collectively they demonstrate that change can be viewed in a positive light, even if it might not have seemed that way once.
