Singapore will soon unveil her first Underground Masterplan. Joshua Comaroff from Lekker Design unearths concepts of the 'underground' that has intrigued and inspired countless dark visions in film, architecture and culture. For more, read his book Horror in Architecture.
Living & Dying Underground
In Singapore, it is nearly impossible to get oneself buried. And even harder to stay so. Since independence, most of the island’s traditional graveyards have been razed, and their occupants disinterred. The last major historical site, Bukit Brown, is about to be remade as a highway. It might seem contradictory, then, that greater numbers of the living may soon be able to work, shop, and play beneath the ground. This is not actually as inconsistent as it would first appear. Due to the specter of land scarcity, Singaporeans are quite used to regulations that tell them which parts of the nation’s soil they may occupy—and under what circumstances. Interestingly, however, the announcement by the Ministry of National Development of a subterranean master plan has been greeted, from some quarters, with unease.
This reaction is understandable. The underground has traditionally been a domain of fear. Recessive spaces, we believe, are where bad things happen. Humanity has viewed caves, cellars, and tunnels with revulsion, as the very opposite of its natural environment. In many cultures, these are the imagined home of dangerous and unclean creatures: trolls, witches, and monsters. They are also the rude dwellings of pre-moderns and anti-moderns. The “caveman” is the very discursive foil, the vulgar Other, of the urbanite. Normal people, we assume, need a very compelling reason to flee the light. Isn’t the most disturbing of all uncanny possibilities to be buried alive? Anthony Vidler, and before him Edgar Allan Poe, certainly thought so