The temporary building which stood for 35 years

A rather uninteresting and unremarkable building which was recently demolished was the Capitol Centre. Built b the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) as the Capitol Shopping Centre in 1976 on the site of the former National Showroom along North Bridge Road – well known as a landmark due to its towering neon advertisement tower (which came down in 1974), it was a meant as a structure intended to temporarily house the businesses and food stalls from the Hock Lam Street area which were displaced by urban renewal while they awaited resettlement.

Capitol Centre located across from the iconic Capitol Theatre was demolished at the end of 2011 to make way for a new development which will incorporate the Capitol, the Capitol Building and Stamford House.

The National Tower on North Bridge Road (source: Derek Tait)

Over the years the building was to see several transformations which did prolong its useful life. The first was in 1985. With the last of the building’s occupants moving to Hill Street Centre and Funan Centre in January of that year, the Capitol Shopping Centre was available for conversion into a car park to help solve the city’s parking woes. The conversion was completed in August 1985 and the centre became the Capitol Car Park Station which had a capacity of some 300 car park lots and 150 motorcycle lots.

A more significant transformation took place in 1992. That saw it become The Design Centre, an initiative by the Trade Development Board (TDB) to promote local product design capabilities. The Design Centre  included an exhibition space to showcase both local and international designs and a shop on the lower level, as well as a design library. The building also housed several offices of the TDB and the TDB run Export Institute of Singapore. The centre was opened in April 1992 by then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry, Lee Hsien Loong. The Design Centre played a part in organising overseas trade mission to promote local design as well as the International Design Forum.

A large part of the building after its conversion back to a commercial building was still used as a parking space.

A car park information board with parking charges listed seen just before the centre’s closure.

The Hock Lam Street area (in the foreground) in 1976 from which businesses were moved temporarily to the Capitol Shopping Centre – the flat roofed building seen at the top of the picture (image source: http://a2o.nas.sg/picas/). Funan centre (Hock Lam is Hokkien for Funan) sits on top of the area today.

The Design Centre seen in 1993 (image source: http://a2o.nas.sg/picas/).

Despite the heavy investment in developing the building as The Design Centre, the centre closed not long after in 1995. The building then became the Capitol Centre which had the likes of bargain shops and private educational institutions using the space until it more recent closure to allow for its demolition to allow work on a redevelopment project which includes both the Capitol Building (and Theatre) and Stamford House to be carried out.

A notice of the closure of the road leading to the car park prior to work starting on the Capitol project.

Capitol Centre just before its demolition.

The front portion of of the upper level that was more recently used by a private education provider.

An air well in the building.

Even with its conversion for commercial use, The Design Centre and later the Capitol Centre, did feature quite a large car park with on the front area of it used by the tenants of the building. In its latter years, the spaces around the car park which being well shaded and airy, served as a popular hangout for the Myanmarese migrant community – with Peninsula Plaza next to it being where many businesses and eateries catering to the community were found.

Myanmarese migrants found the car park a cool and convenient space to hang out in.

The well shaded ground level of the car park.

Another view of the ground level – I often used the car park as a short cut.

An Auto Pay Station seen after the closure provides an indication of when the car park would last have been used.

Parts of the building provided wonderful perspectives of the buildings around, including of the Capitol Theatre.

Another perspective – the steeple of St. Andrew’s across North Bridge Road seen over one of the airwells .

A view through a grilled opening of a staircase.

With the redevelopment, the place of Capitol Centre, and before it the National Showroom with its towering neon advertisement which featured prominently in the city skyline for much of the 1960s and early 1970s, will be taken by a 15 storey luxury residential tower sitting on a four storey shopping mall and a public plaza between in part of the space which will stretch across from the mall to the Capitol Building and Theatre. Judging from impressions of the redevelopment released by the developers, the tower will rise rather prominently above the iconic Capitol Building and dominate the development in the same way the National Tower before the Capitol Centre took its place had once dominated the area.

With the Capitol Redevelopment, Capitol Theatre will be restored as a theatre / cinema and the Capitol (former Shaws Building) will be converted into part of a luxury hotel.

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The glow in the dark

Wandering around in the glow of the Shanghai night, I was reminded of the fascination I have always had for the bright lights of a city. Somehow, wandering around in the warm glow of city lights seems to provide me with a lift, transporting me at the same time into a world that seemingly is one where fairytales would be made of. It is perhaps that same magical feeling one gets in the fairytale world of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, where one somehow becomes immediately immersed in the delightful fantasies that the gardens had contributed to Hans Christian Anderson in the telling of his stories. It is a wonderful feeling that the glow of a city gives, whispering in the language of the hustle and bustle of the streets that seem, as in the words of the Christmas tune “Silver Bells”, to be “dressed in holiday style” by the luminescent neon and incandescent glow.

The lights of Shanghai draw people from all over China ... a tourist waits in the bus in the warm glow of the Shanghai night.

The National Billboard on North Bridge Road (source: Derek Tait)

I suppose my fascination had started all those years back when as a child, Singapore seemed to be awash in the glow of lights. Neon signs seemed to be omnipresent and one could never seem to escape being bathed in the glow of neon. I remember Guillemard Circus being particularly bright – dominated by the huge advertisement billboards that glowed in the dark. Speaking of huge billboards, the mother of all billboards, one that rose some 50 metres above ground and with an area of some 186 square metres, had stood above the National Showroom along North Bridge Road, in between Capitol and the big Bata store, dominating the skyline of the civic district. That billboard stood for some 11 years, having been erected sometime in 1963, before being taken down in 1974 when the National Showroom shifted out to make way for redevelopment. The blocks of flats that I had lived in didn’t escape as well. A huge flashing neon Setron advertisement wrapped around the cylindrical water tank could be seen for miles (Setron was a homegrown maker of TV sets).

The glow of Shanghai on a rainy evening.

The dimming of Singapore started in 1972, when a ban on flashing neon signs came into effect. The oil crisis of 1973 played a part as well, as efforts to save energy came into effect and bright light started losing favour. Further restrictions came into effect in the late 1970s as the use of outdoor advertising and neon signs was discouraged, making it difficult to obtain a license for erecting billboards and neon advertisements, for reasons ranging to the distraction these would have to motorists, to the clutter that it was said to add to the skyline. Still, there were those occasions when Singapore still had a bit of a glow, one of which would be the light-up which put a glow on the evening of National Day. Many buildings in the civic district would be illuminated, and it was during those occasions that it was always nice to wander around the city. The grandest buildings that would be lit up would be the Supreme Court, City Hall, the Victoria Memorial Hall and Empress Place Building, the GPO (now Fullerton Hotel), and the building that housed the school that was to become my alma mater which is now the Singapore Art Museum. One light up that I always looked forward to seeing was the one that involved the filter beds at the corner of Cavenagh Road and Bukit Timah Road, opposite the Japanese Club, where there would be the streams of the fountain dancing in the coloured lights.

The neon glow of Shanghai.

What is nice to see these days is that some of the glow has been regained with a rethink of restrictions that now see areas such as Orchard Road brightened up. It is also nice that many of the wonderful buildings we have are also aglow, and with the first ever F1 night race in Singapore, for three evenings, audiences worldwide are treated to the spectacle of not just of a race under lights, but one that provides the world with a view of the beautifully illuminated edifices in our civic district. Whether I am in Singapore, or in a city like Shanghai, the warm glow of the illuminated cityscape is something that never fails to lure me and it is something that I can’t help but marvel at.

The street circuit, seen during the inaugural F1 night race in 2008, runs through the beautifully lighted iconic structures of down town Singapore.

More photographs of the Shanghai glow:

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