| Oct 2, 2007 |  |
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Over 200 more buildings in Katong area may be conserved |
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| By Tan Hui Yee, Housing Correspondent | ||||
THE rich heritage of Katong and Joo Chiat district will get more protection from the wrecking ball with a further 228 buildings earmarked for conservation status. The buildings include landmarks such as St Hilda’s Church, the Bethesda (Katong) Church and the former Grand Hotel in Still Road South. Three bungalows – in Marine Parade Road, Chapel Road and Joo Chiat Road – have also been selected. The buildings were selected to serve as markers of the area’s heritage. St Hilda’s Church, for example, was built in 1949 and is designed in a simple English parish church style while the former Grand Hotel building was built in 1917 in the ornamented Victorian style with a slight Indian influence. There are already about 700 buildings under conservation orders in the East Coast area, traditional home of Singapore’s Eurasian and Peranakan communities and a haven for food-lovers.
The plan was announced by National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan yesterday at the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) Architectural Heritage Awards ceremony. The URA has told the building owners about the conservation plan. Its final decision will be made after feedback. Conservation orders mean owners cannot demolish the building or make major alterations to structures or facades. But the URA noted that most can be redeveloped to their full economic potential even if conserved. One owner, Ms Lyn Lee, 34, wants the certainty a conservation order would bring. Ms Lee, who owns the Awfully Chocolate cakeshop chain, lives in a pre-war, three-storey shophouse in Tembeling Road, one of a row of 10 houses. She and her husband bought the ageing freehold property for $880,000 six years ago and have spent about $500,000 renovating it into a home for themselves and their three children. They do not intend to move. ‘It’s very important that someday, somebody won’t come and mow down three houses and build a pink-tiled monstrosity,’ she said. Some of her neighbours are considering upgrading the neighbourhood if it is eventually conserved. The 228 buildings proposed for conservation were chosen from about 1,000 buildings in the area that are more than 30 years old. More than 6,500 buildings have been conserved in Singapore. The announcement was bittersweet for interest group Historic Architecture Rescue Plan, which has been lobbying the Government to conserve various properties in the district. One – a 95-year-old Amber Road bungalow – could only be partly conserved. Earlier this year, its developer agreed to build a hybrid apartment block incorporating some elements of the old building, but it plans to tear down its much vaunted crescent-shaped section. Mr Mah told the ceremony guests that Singapore had to strike a constant balance between redevelopment and conservation. Six projects were singled out in the URA awards yesterday for sensitive or innovative restoration work, including the National Museum and Chek Jawa Visitor Centre in Pulau Ubin. Mr Mah also announced the URA would be enhancing various districts next year. These include a 4.9km waterfront promenade from Punggol Point to Sungei Serangoon and a coastal promenade in Woodlands. It will also improve roadside infrastructure in Siglap and Upper Serangoon Road. |
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I’d always been wowed by the remains of the Grand Hotel and when a client approached me for a site to build a boutique hotel with ’suitable character’, I’d approached the owner of the hotel. Am glad to see it on the list. For video news on the conservation of Katong, refer here:
Conservation similarly has an overlap with tourism- with many historied buildings receiving a second lease of life as a hotel. There’s the one in Colombo where Bandaranaike was shot, the hotels which combines socially responsible tourism by giving jobs to artisans and keeping alive an artisanal culture in Nepal, Pakistan and Egypt and the ones which are, well, famous just as hotels in Syria and an eagerly-anticipated re-opening in Turkey.
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Stencil graffiti uses mediums such as paper or cardboard to create an image or text that can easily be reproduced via spray or roll-on paint. This process allows for quick and consistent duplicates, which brings with it benefits such as helping the artist avoid prosecution, especially if political agendas are addressed.
The process of stencilling involves applying paint across a stencil to form an image on a surface below. Sometimes multiple layers of stencils are used on the same image to add colours or create the illusion of depth.
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Long before there was “street art” as we now know it, there was Blek le Rat. He was one of the first graffiti writers in Europe; one of the first people to use stencils to make public art on the street; one of the first—if not the first—to break away from the dominance of New York graffiti style; and one of the first to use icons instead of writing his name. He has been an inspiration to artists all over the world, from JayBadbc to Oseas Duarte to Shepard Fairey to Banksy—whose work is often an homage to le Rat’s iconography.
Could you introduce yourself?
I am Blek, Blek le Rat. I am a French graffiti artist. I was one of the first artists to use stencils for an artistic purpose in Paris in the beginning of the 1980s—in ‘81 exactly. At first, I put rats and I made them run along the wall. I wanted to do a rat invasion. I put thousands all over Paris.
How did you come up with the name Blek le Rat?
Blek le Roc [Blek the Rock] was a comic strip that I used to read when I was a kid. Blek le Roc was a fur trader or a trapper in the USA fighting against the British invasion army during the [sic] Boston Tea Party era. I used to love this comic strip, [which was] actually written and drawn by an Italian guy in the ’60s. When I started to make graffiti I took this name of Blek and I changed “the Rock” to “the Rat” because I used to paint rats in the street of Paris and also because in “rat” you can find “art.”
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I’m not an artsy person. Pencils and paintbrushes are many a swashbuckling artists’ weapon of choice, but in my hands they feel heavy and unfeeling. I do however, appreciate some forms of art, such as stencil graffiti. It’s as cool as art can be, and the fact that many political agendas are addressed through this channel just stirs the rebel in me.
Though I probably would never have the chance to own one of Blek’s masterpieces, anyone who does would be a very lucky person indeed. In the very rare event that storage is needed, Night&Day bar and gallery would perhaps be more than suitable. Nestled in a 1950s Art deco building along Selegie Road, the location of the gallery itself speaks volumes of the urge to break out of the common mould, a complement to the rebellion that is graffiti art.
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Full interview with Blek Le Rat can be found in Swindle Magazine.
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$29m for a piece of Singapore history |
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| Glencaird, the last of four bungalows built a century ago in White House Park, goes to mystery buyer | ||
| THE mystery buyer who snapped up a White House Park bungalow has secured a special piece of Singapore history for his record $29 million purchase price. The 105-year-old Victorian home, Glencaird, was designed in the late 1870s by Regent Alfred John Bidwell, a famous British architect who has been called the originator of the country’s black and white colonial bungalows.Mr Bidwell’s houses are marked by timber elements painted black and the rendered surfaces white, according to Julian Davison’s book, Black And White: The Singapore House 1898-1941.
The book also says that many of these Victorian bungalows were built for the Public Works Department for civil servants and officers during World War I. The Singapore House 1819-1942 by Lee Kip Lin, states that White House Park, a 22ha estate, was granted to Gilbert Angus in 1852. By 1862, it was sold to Reme Leveson & Company. It was later sold to John Fraser, from Fraser & Neave, who built Glencaird and possibly also Cree Hall, which was also designed by Mr Bidwell.
From 1947, Glencaird became the official residence of the Australian High Commissioner before its 1996 sale to Wheelock Properties, which declined to name the new buyer. The bungalow is the last left out of the four built in White House Park estate more than a century ago. It was gazetted as a heritage building in 1991 which means no structural modifications can be carried out. ‘Glencaird is a very important building which has yet to be thoroughly documented,’ said Dr Kevin Tan, president of the Singapore Heritage Society. The 22,000 sq ft bungalow has two living and dining rooms and five bedrooms. In 1997, Argentinian architect Ernesto Bedmar, who headed the conservation efforts at the Goodwood Park Hotel, began restoring Glencaird. Mr Bedmar described it as a ‘challenge’ as he had to ‘modernise and update the look while respecting the original concept’. The restoration included laying parquet flooring, new carpentry, additional beams and columns and building a basement. The huge and imposing staircase was ‘kept intact’ as well, said Mr Bedmar, although modern features such as air-conditioning, a swimming pool and a basement entertainment room were added. Work on the entire Glencaird Residences – which included building 11 other bungalows – was finished in 1999. But Glencaird itself stayed empty until a good enough offer came along, said Wheelock’s chief executive officer, Mr David Lawrence.
THE BUNGALOW WAS THE OFFICIAL RESIDENCE of the Australian High Commissioner from 1947 until its sale to Wheelock Properties in 1996. In this picture (above), the tower appears to have been torn down.
RESTORATION WORK by Argentinian architect Ernesto Bedmar, who headed conservation efforts at the Goodwood Park Hotel, began in 1997. He described the works as a ‘challenge’ as he had to ‘modernise and update the look while respecting the original concept’. The restoration included laying parquet flooring, new carpentry, additional beams and columns (above) and building a basement. Modern features such as air-conditioning, a swimming pool (below) and a basement entertainment room were added. Work on the entire Glencaird Residences was completed in 1999 but Glencaird stayed empty until a good enough offer came along.
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The Straits Times’ Life Section had a coverage of the Mitre Hotel today- given the nostalgia surrounding it, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the local design mags has a fashion shoot on its grounds these few months. The controversial Wu Xiao Kang’s ‘A Dose of Light’ is being exhibited at the Mitre Hotel from next Saturday to Sept 1st.
Snippets of the report below:
From hotel to lodging house
FIRST built in the 1870s, Mitre (pronounced My-ter) was bought by five members of the Chiam family in 1948 for $61,000. They turned it into a hotel and it was patronised by oil rig divers, divers and backpackers in the 1970s and 1980s.
All the original owners have died except Chiam Heng Luan, 93, who also founded the Sloane Court Hotel in Balmoral Road. The descendants of the original five owners have been slugging it out in the High Court for the past 30 years.
Mitre ceased operating in 2002 and is now being run as a lodging house.
Its shadowy and crumbly compound is a place out of time. The main gate is a creaky, retro, tesselated grill gate which is locked at midnight.
Venture into the main lobby and you will pass rows of dusty sofas and chairs that line the graffiti-ed walls. The odd rat scurries away as you gingerly make your way through. There are three ceiling fans, but only one stirs the air, languidly.
The hotel’s quirky dwellers add to the surreal experience. The most famous – or infamous – denizen is Mr Chiam Heng Hsien, 62, a well-spoken man with a shock of white hair and arthritic legs. He spends his nights on a small bed in a large hall behind the bar.
You may catch him making his way up the driveway at night and pushing a market trolley to support his bent legs. Topless.
His wife and two daughters live in a terrace house off Grange Road.
He, like the old building, is a kind of lone ranger.
Mr Chiam, who has a 10 per cent share of the property, is the one who has been holding out against the family’s decision to sell the site. He is the son of the late Mr Chiam Toh Moo, one of the original owners.
But he has lost the long-drawn tussle. While he has spent most of his life as manager and caretaker at Mitre, he has to leave the site at least four weeks before the sale is completed.
Life! caught him last Saturday sitting pensively on the porch. He was wary on the subject of Mitre, but spoke freely on stocks, investments and politics.
He graduated in 1968 with a physics degree from the then University of Singapore, and worked briefly as a civil servant. He took over the running of the hotel in 1975.
It was reported that he refused to allow the sale in 1996 unless he received $21 million. So why did he hold out selling, since he’d be rich after the sale?
He doesn’t reply.
Was it for sentimental reasons? He says: ‘I never think about what I’ll miss. A memory is only a memory – if it’s gone, it’s gone.’
He adds: ‘What else is there to do? Except to try to take some pictures of the place.’
Or, like many other thirsty travellers, you can hit the bar on the ground floor, which is lit by the stark glow of a single fluorescent tube.
Manning the bar is a woman in her 30s who goes by the name of Jesse, Sophia or Vivian, depending on who you are and when you ask her.
The chatty eccentric, who mans the hotel from early afternoon to about 10pm when Mr Chiam takes over, is something of a mystery.
She says she started working here six to seven years ago, but does not say if she is paid and why she works here. On what she would do after this place closes, she says: ‘Find another job, lor.’
And her bartending is erratic: She serves beer at $7 a can only to regulars – others get 7-Up.
Cheap drinks, smelly toilet
AFTER some rounds, those needing a leak need to pick their way past a large hall which looks and smells like an abandoned storeroom.
Broken chairs, a pool table heaped with debris and empty beer boxes litter the place. When you get to the loo, the toilet bowl will convince your bladder to hang on a little longer.
The murky contents of the bowl is a scary black-brown. Maggots crawl inside.
A walk upstairs, up the creaky staircase, leads you to a large hall, empty compared to the clutter downstairs. Bits of the night sky are visible through gaps in the roof.
You flick on the light switch; surprisingly, it works.
One room is locked, and kept for an Australian – a Mr Matthews – who deals in antiques, says Mr Chiam.
Through a chink in the door, you can see a bed covered with clean, white sheets and a suitcase on the floor.
But this is the only vaguely liveable room. The others are empty and in various states of dilapidation.
Most have thin, dirt-grey mattresses and stained sinks.
Is up and ready to be let out.
Units are either 3 or 4 bedrooms- both are roughly of the same square footage and the conclusion I’ve made is that you either choose to have less(and larger) rooms or more(and smaller rooms). Asking rental is $25k. Completely owned by one family, none of the units will be for sale.
Part of the debate amongst the conservationists and other concerned citizens, the extension to Tan Chin Tuan Mansion recently received the approval(?) of Harp’s founder, Mr Terrence Hong:
The head of Harp, Mr Terrence Hong, 26, said: ‘In 10 years, if you want to dismantle the building above the house, it can still be done and the house will be intact.‘(Sunday Times, 24 June 2007)
Photo above is from duckweed, posted on skyscrapercity’s forums.