Singapore’s Modern CBD: a Sea of Change

Trinity Church as viewed through Wall Street.

The view of the former Telok Ayer Market, at the end of the narrow passage formed by the backs of the towering structures of Robinson Road and Shenton Way, reminded me of a similar view that I got of Lower Manhattan’s Trinity Church during a visit to New York in 2015. Both 19th century structures, they stood in sharp contrast to their more modern and much taller companions. As markers of the past, both tell a story of progress through change and adaptation.

Most of us would be familar with Telok Ayer Market as ‘Lau Pa Sat’, the ‘old market’ in localised Hokkien or Teochew (Pa Sat is a loan word derived from the Malay ‘pasar’ or market), the former market is now among the oldest buildings in what became Singapore’s modern financial district. A witness to the area’s 20th century transformation, the former market does itself tell a story of change. Erected as the second Telok Ayer Market in 1894, it replaced an earlier market located at what would now be the north side of Cecil Street at Market Street after that had lost its seafront due to the reclamation of Telok Ayer or ‘Water Bay’ from 1879.

The reclamation of Telok Ayer, a bay used as an entry point for many Indian and Chinese immigrants in the early days of Singapore as a British trading post, would provide land for the post-independence development in the so-called ‘Golden Shoe’ area, which formed the heart of the mdoern day CBD.

Now dominated by the later 20th and early 21st century towers of glass, concrete and steel, the CBD is rather surprisingly, where many other reminders of the past can be found, markers even of the bay and its original shoreline, and what became of it.

A Sea of Change
A view towards what would before 1879 have been the bay known as Telok Ayer.

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‘Built on Memory: Tracing Singapore’s CBD Through Time’

If you are keen to find out more on the CBD and its transformation over the course of 200 years, and about the markers of the past that can still be found, you may like to know that there is an exhibition that I have put together in collaboration with the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre. Entitled ‘Built on Memory: Tracing Singapore’s CBD Through Time’, it contains archival photographs, maps and illustrations that tell the story of change and also some fun facts about the CBD and what could be discovered in it. The exhibition is being held at SCCC Level 9 & 10 foyer and runs from Oct 16, 2025 to Apr 07, 2026 and is open daily from 9 am to 10 pm.

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Shenton Way, which opened in 1951, was one of the later roads to be constructed in the Golden Shoe area. It was developed as part of the financial district from the late 1960s.

An early addition to Shenton Way, the Singapore Conference Hall, which opened in 1965.

The towers of the ealy 1970s are now being replaced by 21st century structure.

19 Cecil Street, a throwback to the 1920s. It was built as a temporary HQ for the Oversea-Chinese Bank in 1929. The bank was one of the Chinese banks that merged to form OCBC in 1932.

Juxtapositions of the old and new.

A one-time sea-facing temple that marks the southern extent of the bay that was reclaimed.