Before air conditioning was introduced in Singapore in the 1920s, temperature control was a matter of architectural design. Environmental historian Fiona Williamson tells us how people kept themselves cool before air conditioning arrived, why weather science was important to the colonial enterprise, and what environmental history can tell us about a city’s development. 

Fiona Williamson is an environmental historian with a particular interest in the history of the climate, meteorology and extreme weather in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. She is professor of environmental history at the Singapore Management University.

What Fiona Talked About

• 03:12 – How people kept cool before air conditioning
• 05:49 – When and how air conditioning was introduced to Singapore
• 07:53 – Who could afford early air conditioning
• 10:19 – European reactions to tropical heat
• 12:51 – Meteorology as a colonial science
• 15:31 – Observational stations and instruments
• 18:07 – Colonial attempts to manage water and flooding
• 23:15 – The MacRitchie Reservoir mistake
• 28:03 – Fiona’s book Imperial Weather
• 34:19 – Fiona's work with the International Commission for the History of Meteorology
• 36:52 – Climate history is…
• 38:02 – Whether climate change can be reversed

Transcript and Resources

• Read the transcript: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/the-days-before-air-conditioning-fiona-williamson/transcript/
• Read the BiblioAsia article: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-21/issue-4/jan-mar-2026/air-conditioning-in-singapore/

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This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music “Di Tanjong Katong” was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Fiona for coming on the show.

BiblioAsia+ is a podcast about Singapore history by the National Library Singapore.