The three blocks that make up the former Changi Hospital are probably some of the most misunderstood buildings in Singapore. Much has been speculated about them and how they were used during the Second World War, leading to the buildings having gained a reputation for something that they are not.
A tour of the former hospital in 2017.
Just what role did two of the hospital’s original blocks play? Why were they built in Changi? How were they part of the overall strategy for the defence of Britain’s possessions in the Far East? What happened in them during the war? These are questions that I hope to answer during a specially arranged visit that will permit us to have a look at the buildings behind the security fence for a tour that I will be conducting in conjunction with Changi Chapel and Museum’s (CCM) programme being organised to mark the 80th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore.
Block 24. What role did it originally play?
Two sessions of the tour will be conducted on 19 Feb 2022, which will begin with a docent-led tour of CCM through which will provide participants with a better understanding of Changi as a military site, how it became associated with captivity – both military and civilian, and provide a deeper appreciation of the experience of the civilian and military internees. Following the docent-led tour at CCM, participants will travel by coach to the site of the former Changi Hospital where my section of the tour will begin.
In a hospital ward with a view that will change the perspective of what the hospital was and what it meant.
Registration for the tour will begin at 10 am on 10 February 2022. Please visit https://ccm1-och22.peatix.com/ for more information, tour times and to register. Information can also be found on the CCM website. I will also be doing two tours of the former Tanglin Barracks (Dempsey Hill) to explore its connections with the Second World War, one on 12 February and another on 5 March 2022, both from 9am to 10.30am (more at this link).
Tanglin Village or Dempsey Hill, a spacious and joyous site on the fringes of Singapore’s city centre, has a history that goes back more than a hundred and fifty years. Established as Singapore’s first purpose-built military camp, Tanglin Barracks, it is a place with stories abound. There are quite a few that I find especially intriguing, including one which has as its leading protagonist a rather flamboyant German mariner by the name of Julius Lauterbach, whose exploits on and off the high seas make for quite an interestIng read.
Tanglin Village today
Lauterbach’s chapter in Tanglin’s history is set against the backdrop of the First World War, a conflict which pitted his native Germany against Singapore’s colonial master, Great Britain. Almost overnight, friends found themselves on opposing sides and even if the war may have been raging far from Singapore’s shores, its fallout extended to the island in one way or another. On 24 October 1914, some three months into the conflict, nationals of Germany and Austria in Singapore received an order to report to the P&O Wharf. There were a number of prominent members of the mercantile community amongst the group. Initially interned on St John’s Island, the group would be moved into Tanglin Barracks‘ vacant blocks and were joined by internees who had been detained in Malaya.
St. John’s Island.
The choice of Tanglin Barracks as a place of internment was only possible as the British infantry units who would have normally be quartered at the barracks were most — in Europe. This arrangement however, would leave Singapore with threadbare defences, although there seemed to be little of concern with the main threat to the island’s security having been ascertained as internal rather than external. The responsibility for maintaining order was placed squarely on the shoulders of the officers and men of a British Indian Army infantry regiment — the 5th Light Infantry, which was quartered at Alexandra Barracks.
The former Gillman Barrack’s officers’ mess – close to the site where the first shot was fired to signal the start of the mutiny.
At Tanglin Barracks, a total of about 250 civilians were held, accommodated in a cluster of barrack buildings which had been ‘wired in’ with scaffolding used as watch towers. The 5th Light Infantry provided the camp’s security details together with a handful of men from the volunteer units. Within the confines of the camp boundary was also a ‘small bungalow’ that was converted for use as a hospital for internees. Tanglin Barracks’ Teutonic flavour was also to be enhanced by a group of about sixty Prisoners of War (POWs) from the German naval cruiser, SMS Emden, which brought the total number of internees at the camp to 309. The POWs were housed separately within the confines of the camp in a barrack block that acquired the name ‘Emden Villa’.
The cricket field and P-Block.
The Emden must have been quite well known in Singapore, having gained notoriety for the damage and disruption to Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea that it had inflicted in the early months of the war. Among the cruiser’s exploits was a daring raid on Penang harbour during which two ships — a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer — were sunk. The Emden, as did many naval vessels on both sides, also employed tactics that could be compared to pirate ships in sending boarding parties to storm merchant ships, either to scuttle them, or if the cargo was valuable enough, to commandeer these vessels as a ‘prize’. The men of the Emden who had found their way to Tanglin were in fact members of ‘prize crews’ of three ships that were recaptured by the Allies, the most senior of whom was Reserve Lieutenant Julius Lauterbach. Lauterbach was taken along with the prize crew of the collier, Exford, which was carrying a cargo of 6000 tons of coal when it was recaptured by the armed auxiliary cruiser, HMS Empress of Japan, off Sumatra on 11 December 1914.
Lauterbach was already well known in many circles in Singapore in his days as a master mariner who was based at the port of Tsingtao (Qingdao), which Germany held as a concession port from 1898 to 1914. He had been an established fixture on the merchant marine scene and many among the civilian internees had made the passage on ships that Lauterbach had captained. His arrival at Tanglin was said to have been greeted with a loud cheer because of his fame. Being the highest ranking officer among the POWs, Lauterbach was afforded with a degree of respect by his captors, who put him in a three-room house on his own within the camp perimeter and close to the Emden Villa.
Julius Lauterbach at Tanglin
As soon as Leuterbach arrived in Tanglin, he set out plotting an escape and after having observed security arrangements at the camp, he determined that a tunnel would best serve his purpose. On 27 January 1915, with help from a group of trusted men he started on his dig right under the noses of the camp guards, under the guise of doing gardening. It could also have been that the members of 5th Light Infantry who were guarding the camp and who were free to interact with the internees, was under Lauterbach’s influence. Lauterbach was also able to have the company of a French-Chinese Eurasian admirer during his internment, albeit with a locked gate in between them. The young lady, according to a boast that Lauterbach made, had come to Singapore to see to his wellbeing having made her way from her native Shanghai once she got wind of his plight and was also able to hand information such as maps to him to aid in his intended escape.
A very special ward.
Mutiny
All this while, unhappiness was fermenting (some say fermented by Lauterbach and company) among members of the 5th Light Infantry. In January 1915, a decision was made to deploy the 5th to Hong Kong. The destination was however not communicated to the troops. There were rumours abound that the destination was not East, but West in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). With it large Muslim contingent, many among the rank and file were incensed by the prospect of having to fight fellow Muslims. In a move to quell the growing sense of unease, the transfer was brought forward. With the 5th due to be sent out on 16 February 1915 — the day after the three day Chinese New Year holiday weekend, the unit stood down from its duties at Tanglin on 14 February 1915 and camp security was left in the hands of one British and three native officers and twelve men of the Johore Military Forces, who were without ammunition, and a deployment of volunteers.
Remembering the victims of the Mutiny – a plaque at the Victoria Concert Hall.
The growing sense of unhappiness and the impending move to what was rumoured to be Mesopotamia provoked members of the 5th Light Infantry into action and just after 3 pm on the afternoon of 15 February 1915, members of the regiment’s Right Wing — numbering just over 400 men, mutinied (infantry regiments were then split into two wings, each with four companies). A group of about eighty rebels headed to Tanglin, intent on freeing German prisoners in the hope that they would lend support to the rebellion. At 3.45 pm, the mutineers reached Tanglin with a group among the eighty laying siege to Tanglin Military Hospital and firing into its administration building. In spite of coming under fire, Staff Sergeant Vickers, RAMC, managed to make his way to the medical officers bungalow some 300 yards away (270 metres). Finding the Medical Officer out, he was able to raise the alarm to the police, Fort Canning and a Dr Fowlie. A group of fifteen men reached the POW camp about half an hour later around 4.15 pm and also fired on the guards. The lock to the gate was then blown up. In the chaos of the attack, four officers were killed along with ten men. One German prisoner was also fatally wounded.
Buildings of the former Tanglin Military Hospital.
An eyewitness, Corporal J F Bray, RAMC, who was stationed at the prisoner hospital recalled being roused by the firing. German prisoners then told him that a mutiny had broken out. He then rushed to the POW hospital’s dispensary to get dressings in order to attend to the wounded, one of whom was a prisoner in W-Block (now Block 17). Inside W-Block, Bray witnessed six to seven members of the 5th freeing German prisoners before moving them into Y-Block (Block 26). Bray also witnessed the leader of the mutineers shaking hands with the German prisoners. Unsuccessful in their attempts to enlist the help of the Germans, the mutineers then left, promising to return with arms and ammunition. The bulk of the German prisoners, including Lauterbach, had in fact refused to take up arms; some went on to help in attending to the wounded, and transport the more seriously hurt to Tanglin Military Hospital.
Block 17 – a block that many who served National Service in the army will remember as the Enlistment Centre
Lauterbach’s Epic Escape
In the commotion of the disturbance at Tanglin, Lauterbach made a final push to finish the tunnel that he had been working on. Determined to get away unnoticed, he decided against walking out the open camp gate and use the tunnel he had worked on. Selecting a handful of prisoners to go with him for their ability to speak English made the escape as the darkness fell, having to making a vault over a final set of barbed-wire that lay beyond the tunnel exit. Leaving at around 8pm, the group decided that the main roads were to be avoided and took a route through grass, lallang and rubber plantation — a decision that got their guide and themselves lost. With some further help obtained through a handsome bribe, the group eventually found their way to the coast, some five hours after leaving Tanglin. There the scene was set for a voyage to Karimun. The long twelve hours that it would take them to get to the islands, which lay on the neutral Dutch side of the Melaka Strait, would only be the first leg of what was to become an epic journey of escape. The journey was to involve trudging through the jungles of Sumatra, a journey from Padang to Batavia (Jakarta) to Surabaya, a passage on a Dutch steamer to the Celebes (Sulawesi), a five day passage across the Celebes Sea to Mindanao in a leaking boat that required water to be bailed out by hand continuously, a voyage disguised as a Dutchman from Manila to China’s north coast where he made his way down to Shanghai. From Shanghai, he would head east to Japan, then Hawaii, and San Francisco from where he boarded a train for New York. At Hoboken — across the Hudson from Manhattan, Lauterbach signed on to a Oslo bound Danish ship as a Swedish stoke. Making landfall in Europe, he made his way to Copenhagen before finding himself on German soil on 10 October 1915 — some eight months after his escape from Singapore and ten months after his capture onboard the Exford.
Some of you would probably have read the news about the possibility of a heritage trail in the Pender Road area in the Straits Times over the weekend. The trail involves the estate containing five wonderfully designed houses that were erected by the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company’s relatively junior engineering staff in the early 1900s. The company, which was part of a group established by Sir John Pender that had a monopoly on the British Empire’s submarine cable network and hence a virtual monopoly on worldwide communications. It morphed into Cable and Wireless in 1929 through a merger with Marconi, which had a stranglehold on radio communications.
Designed by Swan and Maclaren and built between 1908 and 1919, the houses are among a wealth of several hundred residences that were built during colonial-era, which are often referred to in Singapore as “Black and White houses”. While the term is correctly applied to these houses, which are timber framed, which coated in black tar based paints do exhibit a distinct resemblance to the English Tudor-style houses from which the term is derived, the same cannot be said of Singapore’s other colonial residences.
The bulk of the colonial houses, particularly those built from the mid-1920s for senior municipal, government and military officers feature Public Works Department designs with concrete columns and beams. Although many of these are coated in white finishes and feature black painted trimmings today, not all have been coated in the same colours historically. The term also prevents us from looking at the many styles that can be found among the colonial homes.
Visits to the estate – an important note:
Much of the estate at Pender Road is tenanted. To maintain the residents privacy and to avoid causing nuisance, the estate is out-of-bounds to the general public. However, do look out for a series of controlled visits that will give the public an opportunity to visit the estate and learn more about these architectural gems. These are being planned in collaboration with the Singapore Land Authority as part of the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of guided visits. Hopefully, this can start in the second half of this year.
The Estate’s Houses in Photographs
Married Engineer’s Quarters (two off, built in 1919)
Bachelor Jointers’ Quarters (built 1908 and extended in 1914)
Married Jointer’s Quarters (three off, built 1919)
Constructed on land reclaimed from the swampy Kallang, Rochor and Geylang river estuary, Kallang Aerodrome impressed Amelia Earhart enough for her to describe it as being “the peer of any in the world” when she flew in just a week or so after the aerodrome opened.
As Singapore’s very first civil airport, Kallang was witness to several aviation milestones. This included the arrival of the very first jetliner to Singapore. The visit, which provides the opportunity to view the site through a guided walk and a short sharing of Singapore’s early aviation history, is supported by the Singapore Land Authority. There will also be the opportunity to have a look at and into the former airport’s lovely streamline-moderne former terminal building, and go up to its viewing deck and control tower.
When and where:
21 September 2019, 10 am to 11.30 am
9 Stadium Link, Singapore 397750
Registration:
Participants must be of ages 18 and above.
A unique registration is required for each participant (do note that duplicate registrations will count as one).
Registration shall be made using the form at this link (now closed).
A confirmation will be sent to the email address used in registration to all successful registrants one week prior to the visit. This email will confirm your place and also include instructions pertaining to the visit. Please ensure that the address entered on the form is correct.
The Streamline Moderne Terminal Building of the former Kallang Airport.
Constructed on land reclaimed from the swampy Kallang, Rochor and Geylang river estuary, Kallang Aerodrome had the reputation of being “the peer of any in the world”. As Singapore’s very first civil airport, it bore witness to several of Singapore’s aviation milestones. The visit provides the opportunity to view the site through a guided walk and is supported by the Singapore Land Authority. Among the highlights will be a visit to the airport’s streamline-moderne former terminal building and its control tower.
When and where:
7 September 2019, 10 am to 11.30 am
9 Stadium Link, Singapore 397750
Registration:
Participants must be of ages 18 and above.
A unique registration is required for each participant (do note that duplicate registrations will count as one).
Registration shall be made using the form at this link (closed).
A confirmation will be sent to the email address used in registration to all successful registrants one week prior to the visit. This email will confirm your place and also include instructions pertaining to the visit. Please ensure that the address entered on the form is correct.
The Streamline Moderne Terminal Building of the former Kallang Airport.
Registration is now closed as the event is over-subscribed.
Note:
This visit is a repeat of the one held on 3 Aug 2019 and as such, opened only to those who were not provided with a place for the earlier visit.
Places would be allocated only to the first 25 eligible registrants. Unsuccessful registrants would be placed on the waiting list.
Successful registrants will be notified by email by 9 Aug 2019.
Further information on the series, which is being organised with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), can be found at this link: Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets.
Background to the former CDC and the visit
The move of Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s former Communicable Disease Centre to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) in December 2018 and its handover to SLA, provides an opportunity to pay the sprawling grounds that it occupied a visit.
Formerly the Infectious Diseases Hospital and Middleton Hospital, the centre played a key role in the containment of highly contagious diseases. Many of the site’s original buildings from 1913, laid out in the distinct manner of the pavilion=style hospital wards, of old, can still be across its expansive 9.7 ha. site.
The visit, which provides the opportunity to learn more about the site through a guided walk, is supported by SLA.
When and where:
17 August 2019, 10 am to 11.30 am
2 Moulmein Road, Singapore 308076
Registration:
Participants must be of ages 18 and above.
The visit is opened only to those who did not obtain a place for the 3 Aug 2019 visit.
A unique registration is required for each participant. Duplicate registrations will count as one.
Places will be allocated to the first 25 eligible registrants.
Registration shall be made using the form at this link (registration closed).
Update: Registration closed as of 7.05 pm, 22 July 2019 as all spaces have been taken up.
Further information on the series, which is being organised in with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), can be found at this link: Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets.
The move made by Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s former Communicable Disease Centre or CDC to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) in December 2018 and its handover to SLA, provides an opportunity to pay the sprawling grounds that it occupied a visit.
Formerly the Infectious Diseases Hospital and Middleton Hospital, the centre played a key role in the containment of and the fight against highly contagious diseases. Many of the site’s original buildings from 1913, laid out in the distinct manner of the pavilion style hospital wards of old, can still be found spread across its expansive 9.7 ha. site.
The visit, which provides the opportunity to learn more about the site through a guided walk, is supported by SLA.
When and where:
3 August 2019, 10 am to 11.30 am
2 Moulmein Road, Singapore 308076
Registration:
Participants must be of ages 18 and above.
A unique registration is required for each participant (do note that duplicate registrations will count as one).
Registration shall be made using the form at this link (now closed).
A confirmation will be sent to the email address used in registration to all successful registrants one week prior to the visit. This email will confirm your place and also include instructions pertaining to the visit. Please ensure that the address entered on the form is correct.
No. 10 View Road is perhaps best known as the former View Road Hospital, a branch of Woodbridge Hospital (now the Institute of Mental Health) until the early 2000s. The hospital housed and treated patients undergoing rehabilitation with many finding employment in the area.
The complex, which sits on a hill close to Woodlands Waterfront, does have a much longer history. Completed in late 1941 in the western side of the Admiralty’s huge naval base, its grounds also contains a unique above-ground bomb-proof office. The building also provided accommodation for the Naval Base Police Force’s Asian policemen and their families from the late 1950s to 1972, during which time the Gurdwara Sabha Naval Police – a Sikh temple that has since merged with the Gurdwara Sahib Yishun – was found on its grounds. The building has also been re-purposed in recent times as as a foreign workers dormitory.
The visit, which is supported by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), provides participants with the opportunity to learn more about the site through a guided walk through parts of the property.
When and where:
27 July 2019, 10 am to 11.30 am
10 View Rd Singapore 757918
How to register:
Do note that spaces are limited and as this is a repeat visit, kindly register only if you have not previously participated.
Participants must be of ages 18 and above.
A unique registration is required for each participant. Duplicate registrations in the same name will count as one.
Registration shall be made using the form at this link (closed as of 7.40 pm 15 Jul 2019).
A confirmation will be sent to the email address used in registration to all successful registrants one week prior to the visit. This email will confirm your place and also include instructions pertaining to the visit. Please ensure that the address entered on the form is correct.
The disused buildings of the former Changi Hospital have, since the hospital’s colsure in 1997, been the subject of persistent rumours that stem from a misunderstanding of the buildings’ wartime history.
The hospital, which began its life as RAF Hospital, Changi, was among the most highly regarded in the RAF medical service. It boasted of some of the best facilities, and the environment it provided was ideally suited to rest and recuperation. Occupying buildings of the Changi garrison that were perhaps the least troubled by the occurences in Changi from Feb 1942 and Aug 1945, it was only in 1947 that the hospital was set up. Two Royal Engineers’ Kitchener Barracks buildings built in the 1930s were turned into the hospital to serve RAF Changi after the air station was established (in 1946). A third block, which became the main ward block, was added in the early 1960s.
Suported by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), the visit provides an opportunity to learn more about the former hopsital and its misunderstood past. It will also offer participants a rare opportunity to take a guided walk through parts of the property.
When
13 July 2019
How to register
Do note that spaces are limited. As this is a repeat visit, kindly register only if you have not previously participated.
Participants must be of ages 18 and above.
A unique registration is required for each participant – duplicate registrations in the same name will count as one.
Registration shall be made using the form at this link (closed as of 7.06 pm 1 July 2019).
A confirmation will be sent to the email address used in registration one week prior to the visit with admin instructions to all successful registrants. Please ensure that the address entered on the form is correct.
The 2019 edition of Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets, a series of State Property Visits that has been organised with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) starts this June with a revisit to No. 5 Kadayanallur Street.
Two(2) sessions are being held on 22 June 2019 (a Saturday), each lasting 45 minutes.
Each session is limited to 25 participants.
Participants must be of ages 18 and above.
Registration is necessary. Do note that registration for both sessions closed at 6.50 pm on 10 June 2019.
There will be three Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets guided visits to look forward to this March. Being held as part of Singapore Heritage Festival 2019, the visits will focus on sites used by former hospitals: View Road – former Rimau Offices / View Road Hospital (16 March), Kadayanallur Street – former St. Andrew’s Mission Hospital (23 March) and Halton Road – old Changi Hospital (30 Mar). Places are limited and registration would be necessary.
In addition to the visits, I will also be taking a walk “Down the Middle” in search of the markers that the various communities that have flavoured Middle Road over the years have left behind. The walk will be held at 4 pm on 16 Mar 2019. More information on this can be found at: https://www.heritagefestival.sg/programmes/down-the-middle.
At 5 Kadayanallur Street : a 1929 vintage Smith, Major and Stevens lift, .
Information on the Singapore Heritage Festival can be found at the festival’s site. Information related to the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets sites being visited can be found at these links:
Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets is a collaboration with the Singapore Land Authority that allows members of the public to visit to sites and properties managed by the authority that are normally closed to the public.
News on the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of guided visits:
The relative isolation of Loewen by Dempsey Hill within the former Tanglin Barracks is a clue to how its buildings might originally have been used, as a military hospital that was known as Tanglin Military Hospital. Established at the end of the 1800s in what were attap roofed barrack-like buildings, it served as the military’s main medical facility for its European contingent of troops on Singapore’s main island until Alexandra Military Hospital was opened in mid-1940.
No. 32 Company, RAMC at Tanglin Military Hospital c. 1930 (source: Wellcome Library via Wikipedia).
With British units involved in the Great War in Europe, Tanglin Military Hospital was manned by members of the Singapore Volunteer Field Ambulance Company during that period.
The hospital, which has certainly had a colourful past, was among the locations where the Singapore Mutiny of 1915 was played out. That incident saw a party of Sepoy soldiers raiding Tanglin Barracks. Among the locations the mutineers entered was the hospital. Patients were driven out and personnel shot at. The mutineers succeeded in scattering guards and liberating Germans prisoners. The hospital staff were reported to have “displayed great resource and bravery in attending to the wounded and in remaining within the vicinity of their post” during the incident.
Block 72 during days when the Ministry of Defence occupied Tanglin Barracks. Buildings within the cluster at Loewen was put to use by the SAF Medical Corps, HQ 9 Division and also the Music and Drama Company.
The opening of the new military hospital at Alexandra, saw the hospital’s role reduced to one used primarily for the care of soldiers afflicted with skin conditions and diseases of a sexual nature. A significant part of the hospital was in fact already dedicated to this even before the move. Infections of the nature were apparently quite common among the troops and as a main hospital, one of Tanglin’s two large ward buildings was already given to this use.
The former military hospital’s general ward.
It was in its days as a hospital for skin diseases and STDs that a young doctor, Dr William Frankland, was posted to it. Now 106 (and still working!), Dr Frankland has since acquired the reputation of being the “Grandfather of allergy” – for his pioneering work in the field. His remarkable life and accomplishments has been celebrated in many ways, including through the publication of his biography “From Hell Island To Hay Fever: The Life of Dr Bill Frankland” in October 2018. This biography would probably not have read very differently, or not have been written at all, if a toss of a coin not long after he had arrived in Singapore late in 1941 had not been in Dr Frankland’s favour.
The building where the hospital’s dermatology and venereal diseases wards were located.
The toss decided who would take on the seemingly more appealing role of treating patients with dermatological conditions and venereal disease and involved Dr Frankland and another newly arrived colleague with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), Captain R. L. Parkinson. A choice had been offered to both and it was either to have been this, or an Anaesthetist at Alexandra, which neither doctor fancied. Quite sadly for Parkinson that toss would seal his fate. He was killed on the 14th day of February 1942 during the Alexandra Hospital massacre, while administering anaesthesia to a patient on the operating table.
Another view of the buildings used by the military hospital at Loewen by Dempsey Hill.
The long career of Dr Frankland, who is now considered to be Britain’s oldest doctor, has been especially eventful. He is best known for the introduction of pollen counts in weather reports. He also has had the privilege of working under Sir Alexander Fleming and counted among his patients, a certain Saddam Hussein. More information on Dr Frankland can be found at the following links:
There has been much mystery over the origins of The Quadrant at 19 Cecil Street. Identified in Gretchen Liu’s wonderful compilation of images charting Singapore’s progress over the year’s, Singapore: A Pictorial History 1819-2000, as having been built for the Kwangtung Provincial Bank, it turns out that it was for another Chinese bank – the Oversea Chinese Bank – for which it was erected for.
The Quadrant
Built in 1928/29 and designed by Keys and Dowdeswell, the motivation for the construction of the quadrant shaped Art Deco building – in an area that wasn’t considered by the directors of the bank to have been in a “not quite central” location – was the need to search for temporary premises. The bank’s HQ at 62-63 Chulia Street was affected by the implementation of the 1909 amendment to the Municipal Ordinance known as the “Back Lane Scheme” (more on the scheme: Off a little street in Singapore), which effectively cut its premises into half.
As the Kwangtung Provincial Bank, 1939 to 1979.
Rather than invest time and effort to seek new premises, the bank decided instead to erect a new building on a site at the corner of Cecil and Market Streets occupied by 6 three-storey shophouses they had acquired. The bank felt that the building – even if there were no plans to use it once a more central location (closer to the hub of commercial activity by the Singapore River) was found – was a “good investment”. The bank moved out once its permanent premises at China Building in Chulia Street (current site of OCBC Centre), which was co-developed and shared with Chinese Commercial Bank, was completed in late 1931. The two banks together with Ho Hong Bank merged in 1932 in the face of the Great Depression under the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) banner and China Building became OCBC’s HQ.
China Building, completed in 1931.
The temporary HQ was occupied by wine merchants, Eastern Agencies from 1933 to 1938, the Kwangtung Provincial Bank from 1939 to 1979 and Four Seas Communications Bank from 1982 to 1990 (which was already part of the OCBC group by that time). Pacific Can, when the building was renamed Pacific Can Building, occupied it from around the early 1990s to the 2000s, by which time I have been advised it had come into the hands of the State. Other occupants were Cherie Hearts – a childcare group, and then the Homestead Group, , which has a lease on it until 2021. The group had planned to lease the premises out to a bank, but despite much interest, the economic put paid to the idea and instead has sub-let out the lower level of the building to The Black Swan. The grand banking hall the building was given is still very much in evidence in the gorgeously decorated bar and bistro – almost three decades since it was last used as a bank.
The Black Swan.
Stairway to the gallery (mezzanine).
Also in evidence at the rear section of the 20 feet high banking hall is an upper level “gallery” from which the bank’s managers could have a view of what went on below, which the bistro uses as a cocktail bar, The Powder Room. There is also a private dining area located in the former vault.
The former banking hall – seen during yesterday’s Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets.
The Powder Room.
The former bank vault.
The upper levels of the building – access to which is through a beautifully built stairwell where a rebuilt 1929 vintage Marryat and Scott elevator is installed – is occupied by a co-working space run by WOTSO.
Designed by an architect who can be said to have left his mark in Singapore, the Art Deco building that we know today as The Quadrant was originally built as a headquarters for a Chinese bank.
The main feature of the building’s interiors was its banking hall and a mezzanine – from which bank managers could supervise the goings on in the hall below. Both are very much in evidence today, as is a bank vault, even if the building has long been re-purposed. Another highlight is a working vintage lift. Although substantially rebuilt, it has quite a number of its original components such as its counterweight, still in use.
The visit will take place on 1 December 2018. As spaces are limited to 30 pax and participants over the age of 18 years, pre-registration is required.
Do note that unique registrations are required and duplicate entries of the same particulars would count as one registration.
The former banking hall and the mezzanine from which the goings-on on the ground floor could be viewed by the bank’s supervising staff (courtesy of The Black Swan).
November’s #SLASecretSpaces guided visit takes participants to the former Tanglin Barracks. There an introduction would be made to two of the barracks’ institutions of healing: physical healing in the form of the former military hospital, and spiritual, in the form of a beautiful garrison church.
The barracks traces its history to the early 1860s, when it was among the earliest that were purpose-built in Singapore. The design of the original barracks is attributed to Captain George Collyer (after whom Collyer Quay is named). Many of the structures that we see today are the interventions of the early 20th century when the current church building as well as what we see today of former military hospital were put up.
Singapore’s main military hospital before the completion of the modern hospital at Alexandra in 1940, the complex featured three main buildings. The larger two were where large and airy wards were laid out. The visit will end in St. George’s Church, which although is no longer a garrison church, is still very much in use. Completed in 1913, the history of the church actually dates back to the early days of the barracks. The church was gazetted as a National Monument on 10 November 1978.
More on the history of both institutions will be shared during the visit.
Visit Details & Registration
When : 3 November 2018, 9 to 11 am
Where : Loewen Cluster, Dempsey Hill (the visit will end inside St. George’s Church)
Participants should be of ages 18 and above.
A unique registration will be required for each participant and each registration admits only one (1) person.
(Duplicate registrations in the same name shall count as one registration).
Please register only if you are sure that you will be able to make the visit.
Next in the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of guided State Property visits brings us to two delightful houses (one of which will be opened) designed by Major P. H. Keys.
Major Keys would be best known as the architect of the Fullerton Building, which turned 100 in June of this year.
The visit, which is supported by the Singapore Land Authority, will take place on Saturday 1 September 2018. Two sessions will be held from 10 – 10.45 am and from 11 – 11.45 am.
Registration (kindly register for only one session) :
Participants need to be of ages 18 and above. Do also note that unique registrations are required and duplicate registrations shall be counted as a single registration.
[Registration has closed as of 17 Aug at 12.09 pm as all slots have been taken up]
Next on the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of State Property Visits, being organised with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), is to No. 5 Kadayanallur Street on 7 July 2018. The visit is limited to 40 participants of ages 18 and above. Registration (limited to 40 participants of ages 18 and above) may be made by filling the form at this link (fully subscribed as of 1707 hrs 22 Jun 2018).
With what could be described as Dutch gables prominently displayed, the pair of houses right at end of Watten Estate Road gives the area a distinct feel. The houses are what remain of a cluster of six. Erected from the late 1920s (when four were constructed) and into the mid-1930s (when another two were added), the houses occupied a plot of land that had once been part of the vast Chasseriau Estate1. All similar in design, the houses were each given a uniquely shaped gable Dutch gable. Perched on a small hill and with its verdant surroundings, the setting for the cluster of houses could quite easily have resembled a Dutch or Flemish country village.
One of two Dutch-gable topped houses at Watten Estate Road.
The architect behind the designs for the houses, I was pleasantly surprised to learn, was the preeminent Major Percy Hubert Keys. Major P. H. Keys is best known for efforts that were quite significantly larger in scale and included the likes of the Fullerton Building, the Bowyer Block of Singapore General Hospital and the (King Edward VII) College of Medicine, all of which stand today as National Monuments. While the designs of the three were carried out in Keys’ capacity as a Government Architect, the work that he carried out through his private architectural practice, Keys and Dowdeswell, is also well thought of. Examples of these are the 1929 Oversea Chinese Bank at Cecil Street (now the Quadrant) and the 1930 Namazie Mansions (now the Capitol Building) and Capitol Theatre.
Once the home of Major P. H. Keys. An architect best known for the Fullerton Building and the College of Medicine, Major Keys also designed this house.
One of Keys’ first undertakings with Keys and Dowdeswell, which he founded in partnership with Frank Dowdeswell in June 1927, would have been the design of the Watten Estate2 cluster. One of the houses, No. 130 (as it was renumbered in the late 1960s), was to serve as Keys’ home; a move that was necessary as he would have had to vacate the government residence he occupied in the Labrador area. Art-deco influences can be seen in the design of the houses. The influence can also be seen in much of Keys’ later work in Singapore, such as in the post 1927 buildings identified above.
A peek inside one of the houses.
The “Wheatley”, as Keys’ had named his home, was described as a “European Compound house” with “modern sanitation, four bedrooms, servants quarters, a garage for two cars, two tennis courts”. The house, comfortable and with a design well adapted for the hot and humid tropics, would however serve as his residence for only a matter of five years from its completion possibly in 1928 or 1929 until 1934 – when Keys moved both home and practice to Shanghai.
Inside one of the four bedrooms.
The house was put up for rent soon after Keys’ move. Together with No. 1263, the other surviving house, it came into the hands of the government after the war. Among No. 130’s post-war occupants was Mr. H. W. Nightingale. Mr. Nightingale, a government official, served as an Acting Secretary for Economic Affairs in the 1950s. A well-known postwar occupant of No. 126 was Justice T. A. Brown. Justice Brown was a High Court judge who held the position of Acting Chief Justice when the Chief Justice went on leave in 1951. He also played a prominent role in the chain of events that would lead to the Maria Hertogh riots in December 1950, delivering the verdict that declared her marriage illegal and restored custody of Maria to her birth parents.
1Frenchman Leopold Chasseriau established the estate in 1872 for the planting of tapioca. This would eventually be sold to the founding interests of the Bukit Timah Rubber Estate in 1895 following which it would be split-up. The Municipality purchased a portion – the catchment for the (MacRitchie) reservoir, soon after, followed by the Bukit Tinggi area being purchased by the Swiss (Rifle Shooting) Club. A significant portion of the estate was also sold to the Turf Club in the late 1920s.
2 While the cluster of houses may have occupied a corner of the former Chasseriau Estate, they acquired addresses connected with the unrelated Watten Estate from the road through it, which was extended to the corner of the former Chasseriau. Watten Estate was a 47-acre estate on which Alexander James Gunn, a one time Secretary for the Singapore Chamber of Commerce, had his residence. Gunn named his residence and estate Watten after his Scottish home village.
3 The grounds of No. 126 was the subject of an archeological dig conducted by Jon Cooper as part of the Adam Park (battlefield archaeology) Project. It is believed that the cluster of houses housed British POWs as an extension to Adam Park POW Camp (which housed POWs put to work on the construction of the Syonan Jinja) in the early part of the Japanese Occupation.
Rather nondescript in appearance, the building at 5 Kadayanallur Street conceals a wealth of little secrets. Last used as the corporate offices of a department store in Singapore, the building has had a chequered past. The building, rich in stories from its use as a hospital before and during the Japanese Occupation, also holds an old lift. Installed in 1929, this beautiful Smith, Major and Stevens vintage lift – complete with wooden panels and sets of collapsible gates – may be the oldest lift now in existence in Singapore.
The rather nondescript looking building at Kadayanallur Street – last used as CK Tang’s Coporate Offices.
The building, which has been described as Singapore’s first modernist building, was completed in 1923 as the St. Andrew’s Mission Hospital (for Women and Children). Designed by Swan and Maclaren’s Harry Robinson, the odd shape of its plan can be attributed to the site that was found to accommodate what would have been a small but very important institution. The first dedicated facility that the St. Andrew’s Mission set up – it had previously run several dispensaries, including one at Upper Cross Street with a small in-patient section – it was established to provide impoverished residents with illnesses living in the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of Chinatown with access to care and relief from suffering.
The inside of the building – the floor where the hospital’s staff quarters were located.
The installation of a lift – retrofitted in 1929 – was considered then to be a step forward in the treatment of children afflicted with a rare, debilitating and extremely painful tuberculosis of the bones and joints. The disease was first recorded in 1923 – the year of the hospital’s opening and in 1926, six children were hospitalised for it. The only opportunity that could be afforded for these patients to gain access to sunlight and fresh air, essential to treatment, was the roof of the building. This – due to movement of the affected limbs of the children being “painful and injurious” – would not have been possible without a lift.
The 1929 vintage Smith, Major and Stevens lift, which I believe may be the oldest now in Singapore, is still – if not for the shut-off of electrical supply – in working condition.
The hospital building was evacuated in December 1941 following an air raid and was never to be used by the mission again. The Japanese ran a civilian hospital for women and children, the Shimin Byoin, in it from April 1942. After the war, the building was used as a medical store. The Mission was only able to reopen the women and children’s hospital in January 1949 after it was able to acquire and refit the former Globe Building at Tanjong Pagar Road (some may remember the SATA Clinic there). More recently, the Kadayanallur Street building (incidentally Kadayanallur Street was only named in 1952 – after the Singapore Kadayanallur Muslim League) was also used as the Maxwell Road Outpatient Dispensary (from 1964 to 1998).
The roof deck that featured in the treatment of children with tuberculosis of the bones and joints.
A rare opportunity may be provided by the Singapore Land Authority to visit the building and also see the lift, through the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of guided State Property Visits, possibly sometime in July. The visit will also give participants an opportunity to discover much more on the building and the area and also of the building’s history. Do look out for further information on the visit and how and when to register on this site and also at The Long and Winding Road on Facebook.
Information on the series can be found at this link.
Do note that there are no further tours to Old Changi Hospital planned.
The idea behind these tours is to permit members of the public to gain access to the otherwise restricted sites to allow history and also alter misconceptions many may have about the sites such as Old Changi Hospital.
Contrary to popular belief, the site – originally part of the Royal Engineers’ Kitchener Barracks – only became a hospital after the war in 1947. That was after the RAF established an air station at Changi, building on an air strip laid during the Japanese Occupation.
Kitchener Barracks was part of the larger POW camp complex in Changi in the early part of the Occupation until early 1943. During that period, a POW hospital was set up in Roberts Barracks – in what is now Changi Air Base (West) – where the Changi Murals were painted.
Kitchener Barracks was vacated when a significant proportion of POWs were moved out of Singapore to work on projects such as the Siam-Burma “Death” Railway and was subsequently used by Japanese personnel involved in supervising the construction of the airstrip.
There are no accounts of torture and in fact accounts of POWs held at Kitchener Barracks tell us that the POWs had minimal contact with the Japanese troops during their time there. Dispatches sent by General Percival to the War Office in London prior to the Fall of Singapore also confirms the fact that there was the hospital at Changi did not then exist.
First of 2018 visits will be to the former Naval Base housing area in Sembawang
Details of Visit:
Date : 2 June 2018
Time : 10 am to 11.45 am
Registration: https://goo.gl/forms/bcdJ8nlccdtBiqSo1 (Limited to 30 persons)
[Registration has closed as all places have been taken up. An email with instructions will be sent to all who have successfully registered through the above link.]
Participants must be 18 and above.
Do note that a unique registration is required for each participant. Walk-ins on the day will not be permitted. There is also a list of terms and conditions attached to the visit as well as clauses relating to indemnity and personal data protection you will need to agree to. Please read and understand each of them.
Do also note that some walking will be required for this visit.
A second series of “Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets” guided State Property visits is being organised this year with the very kind permission and support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). The visits will take place once a month starting from June and will possibly run until December 2018. The series will present an opportunity for registered participants to visit several State properties as well as discover each of the sites’ histories. The series this year will also see the participation of the Urban Sketchers Singapore (USKSG), who will be invited to sketch the properties involved (sign-ups managed separately by the USKSG).
The “Japanese Theatre”, thought to have been built during the Japanese Occupation.
The first guided visit of the series will be held on 2 June 2018. This will take participants into the heart of the former Sembawang Naval Base’s residential complex, set in an area where the base’s first housing units came up. The properties that will be visited each represent a different period of the base’s history: pre-war, the Occupation and the last days of the base. The properties involved are a Black and White house at Queen’s Avenue, a community hall cum theatre thought to have been built during the Occupation at Gibraltar Crescent and a rather uniquely designed block of flats – one of two that came up in the early 1960s at Cyprus Road.
The staircase of a tropical modern apartment block built in the 1960s.
The construction of the Naval Base, which stretched along Singapore’s northern coastline from the Causeway to what is today Sembawang Park, was a massive undertaking. Construction began in the late 1920s and included the relocation of villages, clearing of land – much of which was acquired by the Straits Settlements Government from Bukit Sembawang and donated to the Admiralty. It was only in the late 1930s that the base was completed. Built in response to the post World War I Japanese naval build up, the base was sized such that the entire British naval fleet could be accommodated. The base also boasted of the largest graving dock east of the Suez – the King George VI (KG6) dock.
A pre-war housing unit.
To accommodate the large numbers of British personnel that were needed, first to construct and then later to operate the base (the latter with their families), large numbers of residential units were built. Amenities, such as recreational facilities and schools, were also constructed. Many of these can still be found – spread across large areas of the former base given to housing. These properties and the settings they are still found in, provide an idea of the considerations that were taken by the military facility planners to provide a maximum of comfort and ease living conditions in what would then have been a strange and harsh tropical setting.
Found in the housing area – the “Ta Prohm” of Singapore?
With the pullout of the British military forces in 1971, the base ceased operations. Besides the large number of former residences1, parts of the base are still very much in evidence today. These include some of the base’s working areas – such as the former dockyard (which was taken over by Sembawang Shipyard in 1968) and the former Stores Basin (now used as a naval supply depot and as the wharves of Sembawang Port).
The block of flats in Cyprus Road.
1Some 400 former residences including low-rise flats were handed over to Singapore in 1971 when the British pulled their forces out. Many saw use by the ANZUK forces and later the New Zealand ForceSEA.
Previous Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets visits to the former Naval Base:
Together with 9 other bloggers and thanks to Tigerair Philippines and the Philippine Department of Tourism, I found myself on a dream trip to Boracay in July 2013. Read about the fantastic experience I had at Boracay Island Escapade or on my blog.
Courtesy of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), I had the opportunity to have a 4 day adventure in Hong Kong with 9 other bloggers. To read our collective Hong Kong Travel Blog entries, please click on the icon below:
The Long and Winding Road 