Think of Singapore icons and you would remember the grand, gigantic stuff — the Marina Bay Sands hotel, the Esplanade, the Sports Hub, the Singapore Flyer, the Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay, for instance.

But what about the ones you may have seen before but never really noticed: The Concourse, Old Changi Hospital, the Pearl Bank apartments, the Kampong in Buangkok, the Benjamin Sheares Bridge?

Thanks to a talented young Singaporean designer, they won't go forgotten.

24-year-old Teo Yu Siang's "Building Singapore" is a solo passion project, aimed at presenting the "uncensored, honest histories" of 50 buildings in our nation-state.

Teo's story is quintessentially Singaporean, yet fascinating — he and his identical twin brother Yu Sheng are starting their final year in National University of Singapore Accountancy school, but are both passionate about design.

"As with many Singaporeans, I opted for a “safe” choice in university since my family isn’t very well-to-do," he shared in an interview with Mothership.sg. "But after spending years studying what I’m not passionate in, I increasingly regret my choice of study/career, and doing graphic design became a little outlet for me during studies."

He and his brother do corporate logos, web design, posters, magazines and more, and have been putting pen to paper for the past decade.

What triggered this project, though? Teo says he was tired of the numerous state-driven #SG50 celebrations, and finds them very self-congratulatory, with superficial, even "historically fishy" narratives.

In his words:

We can, and should, celebrate what we’ve achieved thus far but also be aware of our flaws and the alternative narratives that drive our histories.

We’ve progressed at a crazy pace, but we’ve also left many people behind. We say we thank our pioneers, but in the same breath we demolish the homes and neighbourhoods they grew up in – for new estates, malls, and expressways.

We celebrate our multiculturalism, but often fail to examine the boxed, “CMIO” nature of our dialogues around racial issues. Our education system is the best in the region, but our system of meritocracy also promotes unequal opportunities.

Much of our official history is constructed to preserve the legitimacy of the ruling party. Building Singapore aims to explore these issues, a building at a time.

Over the past three months, Teo drew each of the buildings from scratch, with the help of Illustrator, photos and/or Google Street View as references. This Rainbow HDB block took him about half an hour to do, while Parkview Square took him more than half a day:

He also designed and coded the very elegant website hosting the project, which his brother assisted briefly with marketing on its associated Facebook page.

And hey, in case you think all he did was draw some little pictures, you've got another think coming — for Teo, the story behind the building is just as, if not even more important than the building itself.

That's right, every single one of these buildings is accompanied by a short, fascinating story. We learned plenty of new things about these places, many of which we never knew!

The Red House Bakery, for instance — did you know that it was a popular hangout place for local bands in the 1960s?

Betcha don't immediately know where this is:

And we particularly like this:

Five more buildings are on their way, and you can tune in to the Building Singapore Facebook page to see them as they are unveiled.

Meanwhile, we'll treat you to a few more cool Singapore icons that might not immediately come to your mind:

Go on, you know you want to see the rest — click here.

All images in this story are from "Building Singapore", and are used courtesy of Teo Yu Siang.

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