An Embedded Worlding – The Practice of Lim Chong Keat

MAC and Architects Team 3 have often been depicted as pioneering architectural practices during the time of postcolonial nation-building in Southeast Asia. This article instead focuses on Lim’s own views, in order to highlight the productive tension between his allegiance to local, national, and regional agendas, and his commitment to universalist values that traveled across national boundaries and disciplinary fields. The aim is to explore the intertwining of beliefs embedded within, yet transcending, geographies and disciplines that motivated Lim’s principled approach. After the Federation of Malaya became independent in 1957, MAC was one of the first practices established by Singapore- and Malaysia-born architects who had trained in the United States and in the United Kingdom.

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