Fifth Year, 1st Semester | National University of Singapore

Typology: Steel Mill, Arms Production Line

Location: Mandai, Singapore

Year: 2022

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Allusion as Deterrence: A Defense Narrative

 

The research investigates the renewed role of Steel and the politics of its production in Singapore’s state narrative. By inferring historical and organizational links in the timeline of NatSteel (Singapore’s state-run steel enterprise), revealed are the abstract forces that operate on both local and geopolitical levels that have culminated in the dissolution of Steel as a legacy industry from Singapore’s state narrative.

It is here that Singapore’s omniscient decision-making of ousting steel from the state narrative will be challenged. Although steel as a legacy industry has now faded into Singapore’s past due to seemingly lacklustre demand, steel may yet serve another important purpose to national interests. Historical pioneers such as Howe Yoon Chong who helmed an executive role in NatSteel before being appointed Minister of Defence reveal steel’s unspoken role in the defence industry. Through projective speculations grounded in the movements of these state agents, the rearguing of steel’s significance in Singapore is subsequently established by positing its renewed importance in supporting Singapore’s understated booming weapons manufacturing and export business.

Mandai’s historical relationship to defence agendas becomes a key site for intervention. Under the decommissioned granite quarries that puncture its land reside Singapore’s hidden Underground Ammunition Dump (UAD). Contradiction is seen through its seemingly covert nature being in fact an open secret that can be found over the internet. If the nation’s military stockpile located in the UAD is conventionally a state secret, why is it that its precise location and underground nature are easily revealed upon investigation? This calls into question the image production of Singapore’s defence industry and whether the intentional information leak serves as a deterrence strategy to potential aggressors.

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Mandai: The Signifier and Signified
Drawing upon Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of the sign and its constituent two elements - the signifier and the signified, often there is no inherent link between the two as is the case of Mandai.

The quarry acts as a sign - standing in for and communicating the idea of something else. In the case of Mandai, it alludes to the thought of an inconspicuous hidden underground facility. This relationship then conjures the signified - an imaginary construct of Singapore's armament capabilities that causes one's mind to dramatize what is actually there compared to the actual fact of the matter. How then might Steel come to play a part in this theatrical act of allusions and imaginaries that is part of Singapore's deterrence strategy?

On the surface, the architectural intervention serves as a Steel Mill within the carved granite landscape of Mandai. It is publicly accessible with designated heritage trails that take its visitors through the entire process of recycling, production, and manufacturing of steel whilst regaling its historical role in Singapore. Under this unassuming visage hides The Singaporean War Machine - a self-sustaining ecosystem that produces its own steel for its full-fledged arms production facility with a direct underground link to the existing 400 football field-sized UAD. Military-grade testing bunkers and research labs allow for the streamlining of defence operations by consolidating human resources from Mindef, DSO National Laboratories and Defence Science and Technology Agency(DSTA).

In this single facility where research, fabrication, testing and stockpiling of weaponry occurs at a rapid pace, it is the leisurely pace of the unassuming visitor and his innocent appreciation for steel that the Singaporean War Machine feeds upon to sustain its guise.