Associate Professor Chang Jiat Hwee’s book awarded Colvin Prize 2023
We’re excited to announce that Associate Professor Chang Jiat Hwee’s book Everyday Modernism: Architecture and Society in Singapore (co-authored with Justin Zhuang and photographer Darren Soh) has been awarded the prestigious Colvin Prize for 2023 by The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB) at its Annual Awards Ceremony on 15th December 2023. Founded in 1940, the society is one of the world’s leading subject and professional associations for architectural history and architectural historians.
The Colvin Prize is awarded annually to “an outstanding work of reference that relates to the field of architectural history” and named in honour of Sir Howard Colvin (1919-2007), a former president of the society. Since its inauguration in 2017, there have been seven editions of the prize and its previous winners include Professor Murray Fraser of the Bartlett School of Architecture, and the late Mark Girouard, “Britain’s most readable architectural historian” according to The Guardian.
Everyday Modernism, a book published in Singapore by NUS Press in 2022, seeks to tell stories of everyday modernist architecture and structures in the built environment of this Southeast Asian city-state. These range from public school buildings to multi-storey car parks and even pedestrian overhead bridges. Other examples covered include public housing projects, cinemas as well as shopping centres. The book aims to fill gaps in existing studies of modernist buildings in Singapore, and, more importantly, provide new conceptual frameworks and narratives to rethink the significance of the city-state’s modernist built environment. You can get a copy of the book from the publisher’s website.
The SAHGB Colvin Prize jury’s citation for Everyday Modernism: “The judges agreed that the collective endeavour of Jiat-Hwee Chang, Justin Zhuang and Darren Soh had created a book that was conceptually excellent, broad in scope, and ingenious in its use of different angles to explore the city of Singapore. The insightful text and specifically taken photographs combined to make a book that is eminently readable, a model for similar studies, accessible to a wide audience and an invaluable and lasting work of reference.”