Colour use was an important part of the advice given to residents through the décor articles in Our Home. Considering the indebtedness of the Singaporean highrise to modernist design principles, it is unsurprising that much advice was about ‘the dangers of heavy colour’ and the practical ‘sense’ of using lighter colours, especially white [14] . As we noted, within modernism whiteness operated to reveal the true function of architectural form, delivering a transparency and clarity of purpose that was without disguise. This vision of architectural clarity was itself entangled with wider notions of modernisation, itself expressed through co-dependent notions of civilisation and cleanliness. For Le Corbusier [15] it is through whiteness ‘home is made clean. There are no more dirty, dark corners. Everything is shown as it is’. The link between colonial structures of governance (seeing, monitoring and controlling colonial subjects) and ideas of cleanliness is now well documented [16] . In the Singapore colonial context, Yeoh [17] has documented how sanitation ‘produced a public landscape which was orderly, disciplined, easily policed and amenable to the demands of urban development’. In short, a ‘sanitized city’ was at the same time understood to be a ‘progressive, civilized city’. In the context of post-independence Singapore, the emphasis on a clean, orderly city and citizenry remained, but was deployed by a newly empowered local authority in pursuit of its own modernization agenda. Indeed, the modernist housing programme, with its emphasis on transparency and cleanliness, carried much of the practical and symbolic weight of materializing a progressing and civilising Singapore.

Articles from the first decade of Our Home (the1970s), in particular, offered advice that was consistent with modernist principles of interior design and its commitment to white and light interiors. White was routinely advocated, as in this observation: ‘there is a sense of spaciousness in the flat – contributed in not small way by the white walls’ [18]. Or this: ‘Walls were all white thus opening out the area. Dark colours would have made the flat look small’ [19]. Or this: ‘On entering the … flat … one is impressed by the spaciousness and simplicity of décor. The living and dining rooms have all-white marble floors and … [w]alls are white … [and] white is the dominant colour in the kitchen’ [20]. Yet there was also ambivalence about going too far with white. For example, one ‘all white’ flat was found to be ‘dazzling’ but also a little ‘clinical’ and in need of ‘softening’ [21]. Indeed, it was more a palette of colours generally described as ‘neutral’ – beiges and off-whites – that gained the approval of the HDB. Not only did such colours help make flats look ‘airy’ they did not compromise a ‘homely’ atmosphere. To this approved backdrop residents were encouraged to judiciously add other colours in the form of ‘highlight’ or ‘contrast’ or ‘feature’ elements. Mr Lee, for example, was praised for his ‘controlled and cleverly chosen’ use of ‘peacock blue’, ‘flaming red’, and ‘sunshine yellow’ in artwork and his creation of ‘effective spots of colour’ through cushions [22]. Another ‘modest make-over’ was praised for the ‘nice touches’ delivered by way of ‘paintings’ (calendar prints of local artists’ work) and ‘colourful patchwork cushions’ [23]. Yet another D-I-Y improvement was praised for its effective and economical use of ‘decorative accents’ such as a hand-painted feature brick wall. By the 1980s the commitment to white and light walls was waning and alternative looks (including even heavily ornamented wallpaper) were featured in Our Home alongside of those schemes more evidently indebted to modernism. This not only reflected changing interior fashions more generally, but also the new consumer freedoms in relation to colour and style afforded by the larger flat sizes.