Swan & Maclaren were the most prominent and prestigious
architectural practice working in Singapore during the latter part
of the British era, that is to say, from 1892, when the firm was
founded, through to independence in 1965. As such, the history of
Singapore architecture, during that period, is very much the
history of Swan & Maclaren. Of course there were other
important players, local Singaporeans as well as British, working
in Singapore at this time, but there is no denying that Swan &
Maclaren were the key players during this era, representing the
architects of choice for those who could afford them - their list
of clients during the period we are considering reads like a litany
of the good and the great of Singapore. The output of the firm was
extraordinary, too, ranging from corporate blockbusters like the
Hongkong & Shanghai Bank and the Union Building of the 1920s,
to factories, shophouses, department stores, hotels, schools and
university buildings, railway stations, churches, mosques, a
synagogue, bungalows, even the odd cattle shed! And not just in
Singapore, but also in Peninsular Malaya (later Malaysia), Bangkok,
Rangoon and the east Bornean state of Sarawak, once the fiefdom of
the White Rajahs, later a Crown Colony. The names of partners and
senior members of staff are also among the most famous in
Singapore's architectural record: the eponymous Messrs Swan and
Maclaren who founded the firm, Regent Alfred John Bidwell, one of
the most talented architects of the British era, famous for having
designed Raffles Hotel, the Victoria Memorial Hall and Theatre, the
Chased-el Synagogue, the Teutonia Club (today's Goodwood Park
Hotel), Stamford House and much else besides; Arts and Crafts
maestro, Scotsman David McLeod Craik; the 1920s and thirties
triumvirate of "starchitects", Frank Lundon, Denis Santry and Frank
Brewer; Serbian Slobodan Petrovitch who designed the Tanjong Pagar
Railways Station, and C. Y. Koh, author of everyone's favourite
early Modernist masterpiece, the Water Boat House on Fullerton
Road. Similarly in the postwar era, when we see the emergence of a
new generation of local Singaporean architects who would lead the
practice through to independence. The scope of the book covers the
period from the mid-1880s, when the two eponymous founding
partners, Archibald A. Swan and J. W. B. Maclaren first came to
Singapore, and continues through to the end of the British era in
1965.
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