As a former theatre of the tabula rasa, Singapore now has the tenuous quality of a freeze frame, of an arrested movement that can be set in motion again at any time on its way to yet another configuration: it is a city perpetually morphed to the next stage. The curse of the tabula rasa is that, once applied, it proves not only previous occupancies expendable, but also each future occupant provisional too; ultimately temporary.

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?

Die Lust der Zerstörung ist gleichzeitig eine schaffende Lust!

All that is solid [...] is made to be broken tomorrow, smashed or shredded or pulverized or dissolved, so it can be recycled or replaced next week, and the whole process can go on again and again, hopefully forever, in ever more profitable forms.

Expendability is defined by time.

When the time–bound validity of things is predefined, the city finds itself in a permanent process of dynamic recurrence.

In the presence of a constant force of reformation, citizens are embracing the New as an intrinsic part of life; longingly awaiting the Nouvellateur to recondition the Old.

Following the cyclical motion of mechanical renewal, the city fabric is composed of concurrent entities in transition.