People

text Mavis Ang photography Winston Chuang

art direction Kaffy Tan

location books actually

Designers, store
owners, parents and
now authors, multitasking is Ker-Shing
and Joshuas way of
life. below Their book
is a fun approach to
observing architecture.

who Ong Ker-Shing and Joshua Comaroff

why The owners of lifestyle store Strangelets have just published
an architecture book with a pop-culture twist

what gets them out of bed in the morning The desire to be surprised.

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Talking about buildings in architectural jargon just isnt

as fun as comparing them to something more familiar,
such as monsters, says Joshua Comaroff of Horror
in Architecture, a book he co-wrote with his wife and
business partner, Ong Ker-Shing. Thats the whole idea
behind the book we wanted to help ourselves better
articulate what we saw. Having known each other
for almost 15 years, the couple, who also head design
firm Lekker Design and quirky concept store Strangelets
together, spend a lot of time discussing their architectural
interpretations which eventually became the backbone
of this paperback.
The horror in this book refers not to the distasteful
elements of buildings, but rather, how both famous
and obscure architectural works mirror the themes
common in horror movies. While the couple is backed
by an academic background in architecture (they met at
Harvards Graduate School of Design), this book isnt just
for the learned few. Ker-Shing explains that it doesnt

even have to be read in a linear way. The introduction

is quite academic. But you can skip that and go into the
chapters, which teach visual thinking but are entertaining,
too, she says. So, expect to be amused by the well-known
works of architects Frank Furness, Louis Kahn and Mies
van der Rohe (as well as local structures) with the help of
zombies, freaks, and other characters in B-grade horror
flicks.
As first-time authors, Joshua and Ker-Shing both learnt
that publishing a book involves a lot more than just writing
it. Hunting for the photos was the biggest challenge,
recalls Joshua. The multi-tasking couple have been
simultaneously working on a few other books, and the next
one to be published (hopefully before the end of the year,
says Joshua) touches on small space living in Shanghai.

Horror in Architecture is available for $24.93 at

Books Actually and Kinokuniya.