Shyue Woon’s Dark Cities: Looking Into the Livability of Cities After Dark

By Pia Diamandis

While the city slumbers, Singaporean architect Shyue Woon has been channelling his passion into a series of photographs titled Dark Cities. The photographs have been published in three books: Carpark, Capsule and Euljiro, respectively, an exploration of Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul. Woon’s photographs look into the seemingly forgotten nooks and crannies of these major cities, questioning whether the cities provide enough for their people; enough comfort and enough livability. This is why Dark Cities by Shyue Woon is relevant for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Sustainable Cities and Communities.

At first glance, Woon’s Dark Cities focuses on the architectural details of a city. These photographs have rendered the cities into abstracted moods and tones. They zoom in on cold concrete and an unnatural environment made of straight lines. However, here and there, trails left behind by living beings are creeping through. A pigeon sits perched on a ledge, observing the horizon; meanwhile, a seemingly neglected ceiling window is left open by the hands of a person who has long been gone. As viewers flip through Woon’s photographs, their mental image of a city becomes more human-centred. They understand that cities, more than any other form of human settlements, are irrevocably made by human hand. Yet his photographs pose the question, through their details: how have cities been made to serve humanity?

Woon’s later photographs feel more familiar. Unlike his abstracts, these look as if they have been captured by a person’s eyes. The eyes look up at the dark city sky, overshadowed by the glowing skyscrapers, making the moon and the stars barely visible. Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul are all the world’s top-ranking cities in multiple liveability indexes. Singapore has been Asia’s number one most liveable city for twenty years in a row as of January 2024. Still, Woon’s photographs show that in these very cities, which are boasted and rewarded for being liveable, seem to be treating life as a peripheral object. Everywhere one looks, the landscape is dominated by grey concrete and artificial lights. When a person is in view, they are made small by the city's infrastructure. Yet, this very same infrastructure seems to lack maintenance.

In an article in Forbes Magazine, Joel Kotkin, a presidential fellow at Chapman University who has been studying upward mobility in global cities, wrote, “Ultimately, great cities remain, almost by necessity, raw (and at times unpleasant) places. They are filled with the sights and smells of diverse cultures, elbowing streetwise entrepreneurs and the inevitable mafiosi. They all suffer the social tensions that come with rapid change and massive migration.” Still, Woon’s photographs long for a better future, one where these cities will come alive and care for even their slumbering residents.

Find out more about Shyue Woon’s Dark Cities and their other initiatives by checking their Instagram on @dark_cities.