Mr Jaime Lerner, President, International Union of Architects

Ms Rita Soh, President, Singapore Institute of Architects

Mr John Ting, Convenor and Chairman, Organising Committee, UIA Regional Forum

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good Morning

            Thank you for inviting me to the Opening Ceremony of this inaugural UIA Regional Forum. I am honoured to join you in this premium event.

2          The world has been a global village for a long time.  Four hundred years ago, it took more than a year to travel around the world.  Even at that time, the world was interconnected. Spices, especially nutmeg, was worth its weight in gold. It was only grown in the spice islands of South East Asia and the Dutch had a monopoly.  The British who wanted to get into this trade built a trading fort at Amboyna on the island of Ambon.  The Dutch attacked the fort in 1623 and tortured and killed the British factors and their Japanese workers.  This massacre greatly upset the English and the rivalry between the Dutch and English in this part of the world intensified.  The Dutch concentrated their resources in South-East Asia.  One result was that their fort called New Amsterdam on a small island half way around the world was neglected and had only 24 rusting and obsolete guns defending it.  New Amsterdam surrendered to an English warship in 1664. In the treaty of Breda made 3 years later, the Dutch gave up New Amsterdam and the surrounding territory that they called New Netherland to the English in return for a monopoly in South East Asia.  The English changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York.  The island on which the fort stood was Manhattan and the surrounding New Netherland is the United States.  The affairs of three continents were interconnected.  Unlike the one year time needed for information and people to travel around the world in the 1600s, recently I traveled around the world in 3 days.  Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the global village is a reality. The world is increasingly becoming borderless and more and more interdependent.  This is a result of the extraordinary advances in communications technologies with their instant rapport and ease of travel. Political encounters, the 9/11 incident, the Olympic Games and the Bali Bombing, are beamed around the world instantly. The Internet and the mobile phone enable interconnectivity to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

3          Physical boundaries are no longer obstacles to many happenings – SARS, bird flu, which happen in one country affect other countries. Atmospheric pollution, the haze, and other environmental issues know no boundaries. The world is now a single ecological unit.  We all share the same environmental entity, the same destiny.  Therefore, every country, every constituent of society should be concerned and mindful with the spillover effect of its action on others.  We are collectively responsible for making our cities more ecologically viable; we are responsible for protecting the natural wildlife areas, the world’s garden.  The global village is our collective responsibility.

4          Maintaining ecological balance is a prime responsibility and top priority. We could look at the balance on a macro global scale as well as on a community scale, and inherent in this process is the need to maximise the recycling of matter and energy.  Ecological balance on the community scale is the basis for a cumulative global ecological balance.  And since architectural structures form a significant part of a community’s facilities, the architect plays a major role in this process of maintaining ecological balance.  This can be done by designing buildings to achieve ecological viability, which means the buildings are ecologically-friendly and have a positive impact on the environmental, social and economic systems.  At the same time, these buildings should lead to enhancing both the economic well being and environmental health of communities and the quality of life.  When architects all of the world share this common vision and strive to and take action to achieve it, there will be better ecological balance and the world will be a better place to live, work and play.

5          Sustainability, mobility, and identity are part of the equation of ecological balance.  The architects and urban planners must think and act in terms of long-term consequences of their decisions on the diminishing resources of the world. Architectural practices have ecological consequences that degrade the environment.  Therefore, architects must address the quality and sustainability of the use of natural resources and ecosystem, quality of life, impact of the production and use of energy.  The challenge is to be able to do this with available technology, cost factors, client’s expectation and regulatory limitations. The current paradigm of thought that treats building as an economic process, rather than an ecological, social and cultural phenomenon, responding to people’s needs and aspirations as well as the deeply entrenched economic thought that dominates social, cultural and environmental concerns must also be overcome. And the problem of current public policy that promotes economic competitiveness as an end in itself, at the expense of the public good must also be addressed.

6          DesignSingapore Council recently presented a show of 15 projects done by Singapore architects in the prestigious Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition.  The collective works, titled ‘Second Nature’, highlighted the creative ways that our architects respond to and transform nature in Singapore’s urban landscape.  I could sense an intuitive emergence of a design sensibility among the architects towards a modern urban tropical aesthetics, mindful of the ecological sustainability and quality of life, becoming almost a natural instinct.  This will be the way to go, in tackling the dynamic challenge of our limited resources.

7          Before I end my speech, I would like to share a thought related to my first point on a world of borderless economics and unrestricted connectivity.  I recently read an article on cross-disciplinary designers.  Architect Daniel Libeskind has ventured into the design of a piano, and automobile agent Toyota is designing sustainable pre-fabricated housing with the efficiency of a well-oiled engine. Design has become borderless too.  We have much to do.

8          I would like to conclude by extending a very warm welcome to our overseas delegates.  I hope you will enjoy your stay on our island home of Singapore and appreciate the eclectic mix of architectural design steeped in our rich and variegated culture and history.  To all our delegates, I wish you a fruitful, interesting and inspiring conference.

            Thank you.