William S.W. Lim


William Siew Wai Lim, born in Hong Kong in 1932, is a Singaporean architect. He graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and continued his graduate studies at Harvard University. Lim was a Fulbright Fellow in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Harvard University. Since 1957, he has worked in Singapore and Malaysia in several businesses as a partner. His work began from the design of modernist structures for residential and commercial interests, and progressed on to large-scale shopping centres in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. His designs include the People's Park Complex in Singapore, which went on to become the model for commercial development in the city; the Golden Mile Complex ; and the Tanglin Shopping Center. In 1981, he started his own business. He was a founding member of the Singapore Heritage Society. Lim is also a co-founder and Chairman of Asian Urban Lab and President of the Architectural Association of Asia. He was conferred a Doctor of Architecture Honoris Causa by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia, in 2002 and appointed Honorary Professor of LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts in 2005. Currently, Lim writes and lectures on a wide range of subjects relating to architecture, urbanism and culture in Asia as well as on current issues relating to the postmodern, glocality and social justice. He is author of Asian Alterity: With Special Reference to Architecture and Urbanism through The Lens of Cultural Studies, as well as editor of Asian Design Culture and co-editor of Non West Modernist Past.

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