Meng Ta Cheang

I joined OD 205 as my second job in Singapore. Working under Mr Meng’s guidance, we won the design competition for the proposed extension to the Chinese High School in 1988. Our concept for “A village for learning” later became very much my own personal journey of learning, having just left a job which I found lacking in direction.

The one most important thing I learnt from Mr Meng was his groundedness in design approach, no doubt part of his Dutch modernist background. My take-away from those three years – sheer discipline and fundamentals like the grid dimension which was always a multiple of 60cm, mundane as it may sound – is what has shaped my career today.

“Lie down, and let me walk over you”, he would say, in his belief that a young architect’s learning process has to be a submissive one, and most likely painful as well. Together with my colleagues, we willingly complied. Today, I don’t see enough of these qualities, in young graduates we employ or the undergraduates whom I tutor. Hence I treasure his mentorship even more.

I recall our job interview when he introduced himself as ⼤強. My own name, incidentally, is 偉堅. I have often wondered whether the connection between our names was the true reason that he offered me a job. For that, I am forever indebted, as a humble student.

Life has come full circle, as I find myself on Monday mornings, walking under the iconic yellow ceilings at Kent Ridge, to the School of Architecture to tutor my second year students. If I can only offer them half of what I learnt from Mr Meng, I would have done him proud.

May he rest in peace.