The Impossibility of Mapping (Urban Asia‪)‬

Following the lifework (1960s to 2010) of visionary Singaporean architect William S. W. Lim, The Impossibility of Mapping (Urban Asia) is a compelling compilation of case studies and historical projects. This multifaceted publication takes Lim's ideas to a future Asia: a region defined by an irreducibly complex urban topography under constant flux. Looking from Singapore to Southeast Asia, and from this region to Asia more expansively (and beyond), it presents a diverse range of activities which may be productively framed through the notion of critical spatial practice. The book has three interconnected points of departure: Lim's lifework; the interdisciplinary exhibition 'Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts at Critical Spatial Practice' at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and the related conference, 'The Impossibility of Mapping (Urban Asia)'; and the cross-cultural and urban festival 'CITIES FOR PEOPLE, NTU CCA Ideas Fest 2016/17', held at venues around Gillman Barracks, Singapore. The multiple links are emphasised in three key ways: through editorial texts, through design concepts, and through selected projects inserted as 'intermissions' between each of the book's sections. Artists, planners, activists, architects, scholars get together in this volume to respond to Lim's critical spatial practice. Research essays, artworks, visual and textual documentation, spatio-temporal maps grapple with the diversity of Southeast Asia, offering unexpected responses to planning, building, and living cities and urban spaces, but also put forward the question, 'Who owns the city?'. This key collection offers a path into spatial questions in Asia and beyond, and serves as a teaching and research tool.Contents: Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts of Critical Spatial Practice Foreword: William S W Lim and the Rights to the City (Nikos Papastergiadis) Editors' Notes (Ute Meta Bauer, Roger Nelson, and Khim Ong) Poets, Visionaries, Politicians: Tropes in Archival Images (Roger Nelson) The City as Living Room: Introduction: The City as Space to Be Lived — A City for People (Ute Meta Bauer) An Emergent Asian Modernism: Think Tanks and the Design of the Environment (H Koon Wee) SmellScape Singapore (Sissel Tolaas) Figurations of Place and Plurality in William S W Lim's Incomplete Urbanism (Shirley Surya) In the Space of Incompleteness (Laura Miotto) The Films for Incomplete Urbanism: Dreaming of a Void to Come (Marc Gloede) Critical Imagination and Urban Spaces of Possibility (Sacha Kagan) Global Anglophone Networks of Tropical Architecture (Jiat-Hwee Chang) The City as Multiple: Introduction: Mid-Century Modern: Forms and Spaces in Cities (Roger Nelson) Thailand's Shophouses: A People's History and Their Future (Chomchon Fusinpaiboon) Revolution versus Counter-Revolution: The Rise and Fall of the People's Party's Modernist Architecture (1932–47) (Thanavi Chotpradit) Phnom Penh's Bassac Riverfront: A Modern Cosmopolitan Cultural Precinct (Pen Sereypagna) Strata Megastructure: Architecture of Flexibility and Enterprise (Calvin Chua) The City as Stage: Introduction: Uneven Development: Setting the Stage for Practices of Informality (Khim Ong) Everything is Fine, Keep On Urbanising!? (Yvonne P Doderer) The Living City (John Wagner) World Café: Air, Land, and Water (Marjetica Potrč) Idealising Cities as a Place of Hope: Arts, Farming, Food, Sustainability, and Rehearsals (Woon Tien Wei) Conversation About Datang Untuk Kembali (Arriving to Return) (Indieguerillas, LuLu Lutfi Labibi, and Ari Wulu) The Multiple Must Be Made: Software for a City Yet to Come (Nashin Mahtani and Etienne Turpin) Incomplete City Walks: Coffee Shops and Hawker Centres (Magdalena Magiera) Activating Our Cities through Transdisciplinary Transnational Projects (Laura Anderson Barbata) CITIES FOR PEOPLE NTU CCA Ideas Fest 2016/17 Afterword (William S W Lim) Contributors' Biographies Image Credits Contributors' Acknowledgements Colophon Readership: Artists, planners, activists,...