The conference extends what is presented spatially in the exhibition Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts of Critical Spatial Practice, and further engages with its key themes through cross dialogue and exchange between architects, artists, cultural producers and urban researchers. The conference will focus its discussions on (Southeast) Asia and its multiple modernities in relation to architecture, urban experimentation, planning, and development.

Responding to eminent architect William S. W. Lim's provocation "Imagining the Unimaginable", the conference commences with a keynote lecture by Professor Leon van Schaik, with a response by Dr Lilian Chee, on Monday, 14 November 2016. The keynote lecture is co-presented with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) as part of the URA Speakers Series.

A two-day conference continues on 25 and 26 November with panel discussions chaired by Asian Urban Lab and William S. W. Lim, Roger Nelson and Dr Etienne Turpin, and featuring presentations by 17 speakers who are active in the fields of architecture and urban studies.

The programme includes a tour of the exhibition by Shirley Surya, and hosts the Singapore premier of Christopher Rompré's film The Man Who Built Cambodia.

KEYNOTE LECTURE

Monday, 14 November 2016, 6.30 – 8.30pm

URA

URA Function Hall, Level 5, The URA Centre,

45 Maxwell Road, Singapore 069118

KEYNOTE LECTURE IN HONOUR OF WILLIAM S. W. LIM

Contesting Modernity in Asia: reaching towards a Non-West Modernist Past; reflections on the thinking of William Lim

by Professor Leon van Schaik (South Africa/Australia), Innovation Professor of Architecture, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia

"We are the creatures of our mental space, a space formed through our life experience.” In this lecture, Professor Leon van Schaik argues, as he has in his book Spatial Intelligence (2008), “that we have a responsibility to uncover and analyse how our histories in space have formed the intellectual and experiential assumptions that are the frame of our lives as professionals and as citizens”. Professor Van Schaik's keynote lecture addresses the influence of William S. W. Lim over his career and manifold collaborative practices.

Response by Dr Lilian Chee (Singapore), Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore

This keynote lecture is jointly presented with the URA as part of the URA Speaker Series.

CONFERENCE — DAY 1

Friday, 25 November 2016, 1.00pm – 6.00pm

NTU CCA Singapore

The Single Screen,

Block 43 Malan Road, Singapore 109443

PANEL: IMAGINING THE UNIMAGINABLE

Chairpersons: Asian Urban Lab and William S. W. Lim

Speakers: Jeremy Chia (Singapore), Researcher, Asian Urban Lab, Singapore; Dr Sacha Kagan (Germany), Research Associate, Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany; Professor Kwok Kian Woon (Singapore), Associate Provost (Student Life), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore; Dr Eunice Seng (Singapore/Hong Kong), Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong; Alvin Tan (Singapore), Founder and Artistic Director, The Necessary Stage, Singapore; and Koon Wee (Singapore/Hong Kong), Assistant Professor, Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong

Moderator: Tan Dan Feng (Singapore), Director, Asian Urban Lab, Singapore

Exhibition Tour: Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts of Critical Spatial Practice

By Shirley Surya (Indonesia/Hong Kong), Associate Curator, Design and Architecture, M+, Hong Kong, and contributor to the exhibition.

CONFERENCE — DAY 2

Saturday, 26 November 2016, 9.30am – 6.00pm

NTU CCA Singapore

The Single Screen,

Block 43 Malan Road, Singapore 109443

PANEL: MID-CENTURY MODERN: FORMS AND SPACES IN CITIES

Chairperson: Roger Nelson (Australia/Cambodia), independent curator and PhD candidate, University of Melbourne, Australia

Speakers: Dr Chomchon Fusinpaiboon (Thailand), Lecturer, Department of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; Pen Sereypagna (Cambodia), architect, artist, and Project Manager, The Vann Molyvann Project; Dr Thanavi Chotpradit (Thailand), Lecturer, Department of Art History, Faculty of Archaelogy, Silpakorn University, Thailand; Dr Simon Soon (Malaysia), Senior Lecturer, Visual Art Department, Cultural Centre, University of Malaya, Malaysia

PANEL: THE MULTIPLE MUST BE MADE

Chairperson: Dr Etienne Turpin (Canada/Indonesia), Research Associate, Urban Risk Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States, and Visiting Research Fellow, NTU CCA Singapore

Film screening: The Man Who Built Cambodia, Christopher Rompré, Cambodia, 2015, 35 min

Lecture: "The Future is Urban" – Cities in the Time of Known Unknowns

For enquries on this conference, please email: NTUCCAIDEASFEST@ntu.edu.sg

Titled CITIES FOR PEOPLE, the pilot edition of the NTU CCA Ideas Fest 2016/17 comprises a wide diversity of events. Artists, architects, designers, urban researchers and practitioners bring to life some of the ideas through collaborative experiences. Issues of sustainability, food, biodiversity, energy, and water resources will be addressed in various parts of the Gillman Barracks arts precinct. A summit in January 2017 will take a broader look at spatial practices on the social, cultural, and political constructions of space.

Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts of Critical Spatial Practice is an open-ended exhibition that serves as a laboratory of ideas, exploring the indeterminacy and changeability of urban living. Borrowing its title from eminent Singaporean architect William S. W. Lim’s book Incomplete Urbanism: A Critical Urban Strategy for Emerging Economies (2012), this multifaceted project takes his practice and the initiatives of the Asian Urban Lab that Lim started with colleagues in 2003, as a point of departure. It presents various researches into the spatial, cultural and social aspects of city life according to the publications Lim was involved with.