Lai Chee Kien

Architectural and Urban Historian

Forum Moderator

Lai Chee Kien is an independent scholar and a registered architect in Singapore. He graduated from the National University of Singapore with an M Arch by research [1996], and a PhD in History of Architecture & Urban Design from the University of California, Berkeley [2005]. He taught at the National University of Singapore and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. His publications include Building Memories: People, Architecture, Independence (2016) [Book of the Year], The Merdeka Interviews (2018), Early Hawkers in Singapore: 1920s and 1930s (2020), and Cords to Histories: Architecture and Life in Southeast Asia (2021, in Chinese) [Asia Magazine Book List for Non-Fiction, 2021]. He researches on histories of art, architecture, settlements, urbanism and landscapes in Southeast Asia.