Abstract
In the Asian mini-city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore, massive public housing programmes, far more extreme in density and height than their European and North American predecessors, have played an unexpectedly prominent role in development policy since the 1950s. This article explores some of the ways in which the original conventions of public housing were transformed and “densified” in these territories, and argues that the key influences in this process were not so much avant-garde modernist architectural discourses as the organisational mechanisms and political pressures within late British colonialism and decolonisation.

Keywords
Modern Movement, Modern architecture, High density architecture, Urban growth, Modern urban planning, Large-scale public housing, Hong Kong modern architecture, Singapore modern architecture.

Issue 50
Year 2014
Pages 44-51
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.52200/50.A.2TTL4OUX