ALMOST half a century ago, Singapore was a young nation that placed its economic success foremost. To match her capitalist creed, Singapore’s landscape saw one facelift after another, with old buildings torn down to make way for new projects.

 

In 1960, Singaporeans moved first from small villages and slums into the first HDB New Towns, then into new-fangled BTO projects, glitzy condominiums and architectural marvels.

 

Eager housewives and families on Sunday outings once queued to enter Oriental Emporium in 1966, and welcomed the heartland shopping centres that popped up over the 1970s, before being wowed by state-of-the-art mega malls along Orchard Road in the New Millenium.

 

All this while, the city skyline has evolved in the past years to include skyscrapers of multinational corporations, the Singapore Flyer, and our very own hotel-casino Marina Bay Sands.

 

Some have criticised the city planners’ approach to propelling Singapore towards the world stage (We’re now a hub for everything, and we’ve got the buildings to prove it too.), calling it “pragmatic”, “ruthless”, even “brutal”.

 

Rem Koolhaas, in his essay Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis...or 30 Years of Tabula Rasa, has been particularly scathing.

 

“The civil servants—the bureaucracy of Singapore—are obsessively active. Like the horse men of the Apocalypse, they will not rest before the entire island is plowed over, made utterly unrecognisable,” wrote the Dutch architect.

 

At the same time, the Singaporean in the street has questioned: “Are we changing too much, too fast? Is there anything for me to remember my childhood by? Am I happy living here?”

 

This particular chord has been resonating often and for many in the past few years, as more have become aware of the rapid changes in their home country.

 

For some, the loss of places that are intimate, or strike a particular note with them, have led to great distress.

 

We instantly call to mind Bukit Brown and Queenstown, as the planned demolition of these places has mattered to enough SIngaporeans for the issue to become prominent in the mass media.

 

Even as the stories of loss are becoming all too familiar, allow us to recall a few of them.