People's Park Complex () is a high-rise commercial and residential building in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

, situated in Park Road off

Eu Tong Sen Street Eu Tong Sen Street () is a one-way road located in the central part of Singapore in the planning areas of Outram, Singapore River and Bukit Merah. The road starts at the junction of Hospital Drive, Kampong Bahru Road and New Bridge Road, and e ...

in Outram, within People's Park and next to

Chinatown MRT station Chinatown MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange station on the North East (NEL) and Downtown (DTL) lines in Outram, Singapore. It serves the ethnic enclave of Chinatown. Situated at the junction of Eu Tong Sen ...

History

The People's Park Complex was a commercial housing project undertaken by the newly formed Urban Renewal Department of the

Housing and Development Board The Housing & Development Board (HDB) (; ms, Lembaga Perumahan dan Pembangunan; ta, வீடமைப்பு வளர்ச்சிக் கழகம்) or often referred to as the Housing Board, is a statutory board under the M ...

's Sale of Sites programme. The project was the subject of the programme's first sale in 1967. Located at the foot of Pearl's Hill, the site where the People's Park Complex currently stands was an open

public park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to r ...

. It later became the People's Market or Pearl's Market with outdoor stalls which was destroyed by a

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...

in 1966. With a height of 103 metres (338 feet), the 31-storey People's Park Complex building was the first

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre ( Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known colle ...

of its kind in Southeast Asia and set the pattern for later retail developments in

. The shopping centre was completed in October 1970, while the residential block was completed in 1973. Occupying 1

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

in the heart of Chinatown, the People's Park Complex was the largest shopping complex in the shopping commercial belt along

and

New Bridge Road New Bridge Road (; ms, Jalan Jambatan Baharu) is a major one-way road located within the Central Area in Singapore. New Bridge Road starts at the Coleman Bridge to the south of the Singapore River and extends into Chinatown within the Outra ...

2010 fire

On 21 April 2010, a storeroom on the fifth floor caught fire, resulting in a huge blaze and triggering a massive evacuation. No-one was hurt in the incident, but substantial damage caused by soot and water leakage was reported by tenants. The

Singapore Civil Defence Force The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) is an uniformed organisation in Singapore under the Ministry of Home Affairs that provides emergency services such as firefighting, technical rescue, and emergency medical services, and coordinates nati ...

(SCDF) subsequently found that the presence of such storerooms on that floor was not authorized, and was in breach of fire safety regulations.

Residential Lift Breakdowns

The three lifts in the residential block of People's Park Complex have been subject to media attention, due to their unreliability and frequent breakdowns. According to residents, the lifts "malfunction three to five times a month", thus forcing residents to take the stairs.

Architecture

In 1967, following the break-up of Malayan Architects Co-Partnership, William Lim set up Design Partnership (now known as

DP Architects DP Architects Pvt. Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational architectural industrial design firm. It started as Design Partnership in 1967 and was incorporated as a private limited company in 1993. It is a multi-disciplinary design consultancy. It ...

) with Tay Kheng Soon and Koh Seow Chuan. In its first year, the firm was successful with its architectural proposal for People's Park Complex.Robert Powell (2004), ''Singapore Architecture'', Periplus Editions, The People's Park Complex is a large mixed-use development, consisting of offices and apartments above a

podium A podium (plural podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek ''πόδι'' (foot). In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be used ...

of shopping space. The complex was envisioned as "a new nucleus within the whole fabric of the city core", and was designed to revitalise one of the most populated and traditional enclaves in post-independent Singapore. Being a "people's shopping centre", the complex is strategically located in one of the most populous areas in Singapore's central business district. The architecture of the complex scored several firsts in Singapore. Its name as well as the block of flats was the closest to Le Corbusier's ideal of high-rise living, as expressed in his Marseilles

Unité d'Habitation {{Infobox company , name = Moldtelecom , logo = , type = JSC , foundation = 1 April 1993 , location = Chişinău, Moldova , key_people = Alexandru Ciubuc CEO interim , num_employees = 2,750 employees As of 2019 , industry = Telecommunica ...

, both in concept and in form.Jane Beamish, Jane Ferguson (1989), ''A History of Singapore Architecture: The Making of a City'', Graham Brash, The building's main tower accommodates a variety of apartment sizes, and access to them is independent of the shopping centre at the podium. Its 25 levels have been

nickname A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...

d "streets in the air", a development of the Corbusian ideal, and are intended to offer convenient spots for social interaction and intermingling. Design Partnership added verticals to the building's roof, enhancing the visual impact of the residential block. The roof-level common area contains shared amenities, like a

crèche Crèche or creche (from Latin ''cripia'' "crib, cradle") may refer to: *Child care center, an organization of adults who take care of children in place of their parents *Nativity scene, a group of figures arranged to represent the birth of Jesus ...

and open-air play space, built for communal use. The shopping centre incorporates the first "city room" or

atrium Atrium may refer to: Anatomy * Atrium (heart), an anatomical structure of the heart * Atrium, the genital structure next to the genital aperture in the reproductive system of gastropods * Atrium of the ventricular system of the brain * Pulmona ...

in Singapore, a concept that was pioneered by several Japanese architects under the

Metabolist Movement was a post-war Japanese architectural movement that fused ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological growth. It had its first international exposure during CIAM's 1959 meeting and its ideas were tentatively teste ...

in the 1960s. When Japanese architect

Fumihiko Maki is a Japanese architect who teaches at Keio University SFC. In 1993, he received the Pritzker Prize for his work, which often explores pioneering uses of new materials and fuses the cultures of east and west. Early life Maki was born in Tokyo. ...

visited the site during construction, he exclaimed "''But we theorised and you people are getting it built!''". The shops in the shopping mall surround the large internal "city room", which consists of two multi-storey interlocking atriums, where a large number of "turn-over shops" and kiosks are located. The "city room" serves to retain the busy character of Chinatown. The original exterior finish of the People's Park Complex was exposed raw concrete, in keeping with the Brutalist architectural style. This was also manifested in the design of the tower and podium, and the circular

porthole A porthole, sometimes called bull's-eye window or bull's-eye, is a generally circular window used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Though the term is of maritime origin, it is also used to describe round windows on armored vehicle ...

s topping off the residential building. Today, the building's

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

has been painted over in shades of green and maroon.

Activity

People's Park Complex also houses trades which are excluded from the main parts of Chinatown. The sidewalk located outside People's Park Complex is famous for the elderly cobblers who set up makeshift workspaces to repair shoes, a tradition present since the 1950s.

References

;Sources * Wong Yunn Chii (2005), ''Singapore 1:1 City: A Gallery of Architecture & Urban Design'',

Urban Redevelopment Authority The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is the national urban planning authority of Singapore, and a statutory board under the Ministry of National Development of the Government of Singapore. Mission The authority was established on 1 April ...