Built in 1939, we have to remember that buildings like the Old Supreme Court didn’t have the trappings of modern buildings like air-conditioning or artificial lighting – architects had to plan ways to provide ventilation and natural lighting into a building, while, in the case of Singapore, keeping out the tropical heat. In his exploration of the Old Supreme Court Building, Jerome experiences the effect of lighting and how Frank Dorrington Ward bathed the interior of the building with soft light.

Jerome writes:

The green coloured versions somehow casts a tranquility that envelops the space, something that is very much in evidence in the grand old Supreme Court building. It is in providing Singapore with a masterpiece of his architectural genius, that Frank Dorrigton Ward, makes wonderful use of frosted as well as clear glass windows and skylights, that makes it unnecessary to use artificial lighting during the day. What is simply brilliant about the work is that the soft light that filters through, bathes the internal spaces such as the Rotunda Library, the Courtrooms, Judges’ Chambers and passageways with a glow that speaks of a calm that only seeing can describe. This was something that I was fortunate enough to savour on a few visits to the grand old building before work begins to transform it into the National Gallery of Art. It is certainly comforting to know that once the transformation is complete, we will still see much of the magnificent light that it is now bathed in, comforting in the sense that there is still a place to which I can go to feel the glow that only those wonderful windows of old can bring.

More people today are likely to equate windows with an operating system software, rather than the “thing in the wall that lets the light in”. And so Jerome’s post is aptly called Windows 1.0.