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Obituaries
Victor Chew (OW1945)
10/04/1928 – 29/07/2021
Victor Chew was one of Singapore’s pre-eminent architects. He was pioneering in the development of post-colonial architecture and he contributed significantly to the development of Singapore’s cityscape. He was 93 years old.
Victor was enrolled into Wesley College in 1942. He and his siblings were refugees fleeing from the Japanese and they managed to board one of the last ships that left before Singapore fell. When the St Kilda Road Campus was taken over by the military, they attended Wesley at Scotch.
Victor began in the Second Form under RR Belshaw. By 1943, at the September Cadet Corp camp at the military base in Watsonia, he had won the shooting competition on the miniature range. In his final year he sat his Leaving Certificate alongside OWs such as historian Geoffrey Blainey (OW1947).
After the war, he returned to Singapore and then went to Hong Kong to study engineering; however, realising it wasn’t for him, he eventually went on to study architecture at Cambridge University in England, returning to Singapore in 1955. He started his own practice CAV Chew & Partners in 1963 before founding Kumpulan Akitek, which, translated from Malay, is ‘Group Architects’.
He was ahead of his time in many ways, not least in his sensitivity to the environment. In one of his early residential housing projects, he designed homes to follow the contours of the hillside rather cutting and reshaping the hillside to follow the homes. In the rush of urban development, many buildings of architectural significance were demolished. The need to conserve Singapore’s architectural heritage then began to be recognised, and of these attempts, Victor was critical. In an interview with the Straits Times newspaper in 2007, he said, ‘Right now we seem to be interested in only gazetting buildings built before independence. But that’s not us.’
Completed in 1975 and now known as the State Courts, the Subordinate Courts Singapore was designed by the celebrated architect, Victor Chew (OW1945). Image courtesy of photographer Darren Soh
Perhaps his words were heard. Recently, one of his works, the former Subordinate Courts (now the State Courts) building completed in 1975 and regarded as a truly unique masterpiece of form and function, has been gazetted by the Government as a building of architectural importance and will be conserved for posterity.
In a letter of condolence from the Minister of National Development to his family, the Minister wrote that Victor ‘contributed significantly to our nation-building years. [He] cared deeply about the development of the next generation of architects and the practice through his engagements with the Board of Architects, Singapore Polytechnic and the School of Architecture at the University of Singapore.’
He was conferred the Public Service Star (BBM) in 1976 and appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1979 for his contributions to the community.
His granddaughter recently relayed that as a little girl she stood with Victor in the wings at a large family Christmas gathering, watching silently on as so many relatives worked out the numerous permutations as to who was going to sit where. Victor, whose seat of course was fixed, and observing the kerfuffle turned and said, ‘Many problems have many solutions, but you should always look for the most elegant one.’ That was certainly how he approached design and architecture.
Victor held fond memories of Wesley College. He kept in touch with developments at the school and was proud to be an Old Wesley Collegian. Sapere Aude.
Contributed by Kei-Jin Chew, Singapore