For my final project on Heritage, I have to nominate a site in Singapore worthy of UNESCO's World Heritage status. There is a list of criteria to be fulfilled, which can be found at their website, and also listed below.
Ok, so after having painstakingly mulling over this over days and nights (truthfully, it was just a couple of hours), and considering my weaknesses (not very good in historical sites), I have my bid: Punggol New Town and Coney Island (Pulau Serangoon).
WHAT? There hardly seems to be a link between Punggol and Heritage!
Don't be too quick to judge, as you will see.
So here is the selection criteria to qualify for a WHS. It must fulfill at least one criteria below (seems easy right but there are so many possible sites to choose from hence the dithering!)
Cultural site
1. to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius;
2. to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design;
3. to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared;
4. to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history;
5. to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change;
6. to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria);
Natural
7. to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance;
8. to be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features;
9. to be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals;
10. to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.
I plan to nomiate it as a mixed heritage site and use the ones in bold i.e. (ii), (iv) and (x) as justification.
UNESCO WHS are almost synonymous with thousand-year long historical sites like Angkor Wat (Western imperialist idea of heritage) but recently they've shown to be more open to modern constructions. A case in point is Berlin's Modernism Housing Estates (awarded WHS in 2008), which was the source of inspiration and I plan to use as a comparative study. For time's sake (have to go school soon) I shall not elaborate my justifications (that will be left to the essay and not on this blog). All I need to do now is SOURCE FOR TOWN PLANS AND OTHER EVIDENCE [major headaches].
At least I've decided. One major step cleared.
I've actually considered some other possible WHS for Singapore. What do you think?
- Bukit Brown cemetery. [Although somewhat interesting given the recent debate, it means I will have to document the architecture of the graves = have to go down to cemetery several times (not very appealing and out of the way) + not very good in this kind of historical and architectural stuff]
- Balestier (multiple interesting monuments like the last wayang stage in Sg and shophouses, but they are all very disparate and difficult to find a common theme)
- Tiong Bahru - for public housing again but downside is I'm not very familiar with the place (then again, I'm not familiar with Punggol too, but at least Punggol has the 'natural heritage' part = more to talk about)
- Historic and Civic Districts of Sg e.g. Little India etc. (typical but b-o-r-i-n-g)
Ok folks, that's all!
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