Divesting & Purging Ritual of Buildings: Case of Bukit Timah Campus

Consumption Culture and divesting rituals
In consumption culture we understand that there are rituals for commodities. Called divesting, these rituals seek to remove the meaning on a commoditiy before it is resold as a second hand, but new product. Because commodities are never really pure objects that provide utility when consumed but more than that are symbols and encapsulate within them social meanings and statements, there is a need to remove the symobols and meanings before reuse to another social context is possible. Whether this is ever truly completely successful or not is an issue that can be further explored. However what has been argued before is the idea of attempts at divorcing objects of their original meaning. Just like how second hand goods are often divorced from their previous owners and their previous meanings for the owners and the social context (ie familiy, friends, collegues etc) that those items might have held.

Urban Structures as objects of social meaning
But I was wondering how has our consumption culture has pushed this ideas the realm of urban studies, to buildings. Buildings themselves like any items in the social sphere are never deviod completely of utilitarian or economic uses. It is entirely concievable to see them to hold meanings and become symbols in the social context which they stand. Thus framed, they are embedded with meanings that become salient to the larger social envrionment they stand in.

Bukit Timah Campus
We look now at the case of the Bukit Timah campus in Singapore. A building rich within the educational history of the island's history. This campus had for many years changed hands. From the then Raffles College, to Singapore University (later names National University of Singapore), to NIE (National Institute of Education), to SMU (Singapore Management University) and then final back to NUS again. Definitely the building is rich in social meaning in the Singaporean context. From a macro level there is the idea of its social meanings in the National psyche. But then moving down layer upon layer of institution, the building has different meanings for each of them. For NUS it can point to their Genesis. For NIE and SMU it is a location of temporial importance that served them till their true campuses have been built in other parts of the country. Specifically for SMU, like NUS it serves as a "Genesis point" for their begining.

And further down, for individual students who walk through the campus doors, they too hold their own special meanings, no doubt of nostalgia for them.

Divesting Ritual in Bukit Timah
Recently, I've walked through the campus. As a student of SMU who studied in the Bukit Timah campus and the new campus in the city the place holds a special meaning for me. But empirically what I have seen when walking through the place is seeing a sort of "purging" and divesting of the meanings that the previous occupants (us) held on the place. Some observations:

1. Coloured white instead of its previously distinct brownish orange
2. Knocking down of walls that used to mark groups study rooms
3. Completely revamping the toilets from blue to white themed
4. Changing first levels study rooms and seminar rooms into offices

And of course, ultimately the removal of the distinctive SMU logo on what used to be the Acccountancy tower with the NUS logo. It would seem from my perspective, that someone had spent quite abit of effort purging any traces of SMU''s previous existance on the campus. This is of course important in allowing for new meanings to be forged as the new Law School moves in and sets its place. But yet, from a sociological perspective, this has interest underpinnings of power movements. Where once the dominant power has gained control of its trophy, it purges any visages of its competitor's existence to pave way for the new. This is especially important since SMU had been seen as the "Different" new kid on the block set to break the traditional educational mold of NUS. Indeed for lack of a better word, SMU seemed like an insurgent bent to break the "power" of the dominant educational institution that was NUS.

Not putting an ethical slant to this (for surely SMU would have purged any existence of NIE before it moved in and NIE of NUS before that), the process as it is seen is indeed one that is truly facinating.

I am not sure what other sociological implications my observations might bring. But this is indeed interesting for me. Wish I had brought my camera during that visit.

Yongchang