Soo Seng Tan was born in Singapore in February 1931 and attended the University of Sheffield, UK, where he obtained a Bachelors degree in Architecture. In September 1959 he enrolled at the Architectural Association, London, where he attended the post-graduate, six-month course held by the Department of Tropical Architecture. Upon completing the course is recorded leaving Southampton docks for Singapore on the 5th May, 1960, returning to his family home, a 14-room mansion in the exclusive Cuscaden Road, in the exclusive Central Region of Singapore. He appears to have entered private practice and by 1970 had established, or was employed by, the firm of ‘Architects Incorporated’, based in the historic Asia Insurance Building on Finlayson Green. The practice worked for a number of major clients, from the 1960s, including Nanyang University (now part of the National University of Singapore), and Nanyang Tun Chow school. His brother, Soo Ren Tan, also undertook architectural training in the UK, in the 1960s, and later worked with Soo Seng Tan before establishing a practice under his own name. It is uncertain how long Soo Seng practiced for but in 1988 he is recorded as a joint director of Soo Eng Pte Ltd, the Tan family’s real estate development company, tasked with the sale of 3600 sqm of land on the Cuscaden Road, presumably including his family home.
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