An Asian Avant-garde: a lexicon of Asian Modernity

Abstract

This short paper traces the formative influences that led to new avant-garde positions and theories of Singapore architect and theorist William S.W. Lim. Under the tutelage of the London County Council architects at the London AA in the 50s, most notably under Bill Howe, John Killick and John Partridge, and later at the GSD, under Josep Lluís Sert, Jaqueline Tyrwhitt and Kevin Lynch, one could argue Lim had an education that blended a potent concoction of a number of neo-avant-garde pedagogies. Lim’s early writings and built ideas were predicated on the sheer aura and astonishment of constructing in reinforced concrete, but tempered with the logic of efficiency, social responsibility and nationhood. He celebrated and rejected the ideas of Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius in equal measure, vis-à-vis the institutional formations of CIAM, following in the footsteps of Team X and Ekistics. The debate and rejection of high modernism would be embodied in Lim’s writings about cities and architecture in Asia. Sert’s GSD served as an intellectual refuge after the dissolution of CIAM, and powerful alternative positions came out of this period. Positions favoring pluralism and diversity were being formed concurrently in the work and writings of his contemporaries, namely, Cedric Price, who was similarly under the tutelage of the LCC architects at the AA, and Fumihiko Maki, Lim’s classmate at the GSD. Lim invented an unparallel lexicon in his urban theories, which favored the autonomy of the individual and sought to elevate creativity in all participatory functions of the design process. The power of Lim’s theories is found precisely in the manner they coalesced into an alternative space outside of mainstream governmental policies. Through his writings, he continued to project an alternative history and theory of Asian urbanism and architecture.