Docomomo Singapore Statement on People’s Park Complex
Docomomo Singapore chapter is deeply concerned by the announcement that People’s Park Complex has initiated the collective sale process. Designed by pioneer Singapore architects William Lim, Tay Kheng Soon and Koh Seow Chuan of Design Partnership, People’s Park Complex is one of post-independent Singapore’s most important modernist buildings from an architectural, urban and social perspective.
THE FIRST CITY ROOM
Many would recognise People’s Park Complex and the recently-conserved Golden Mile Complex as two modernist masterpieces designed by Design Partnership in the 1970s. The seminal architectural works were conceived based on progressive urban visions expounded in Lim and Tay’s work with Singapore Planning and Urban Research (SPUR) Group.
The two could not be more distinct in appearance - Golden Mile Complex’s terracing exterior is visually complex, while People’s Park Complex exudes restraint and discipline with its pure geometric rendition of the slab-and-podium urban form. Both are characterised by the avant-garde concept of interiorised urban spaces, realised with design intelligence and sophistication. While Golden Mile Complex was conceived as the first block of the ‘Linear City’, with a through linear atrium design that suggests continued connectivity on both ends with future blocks, People’s Park Complex was designed as a big ‘City Room’ – a sheltered urban oasis, people’s park and market square.
People’s Park Complex’s interior connects the four sides of its surroundings centripetally to its “City Rooms” The City Room was conceptualised initially by Lim’s friend, pioneer of the Japanese Metabolist movement and Pritzker Prize laureate Fumihiko Maki as an interiorised public space for both planned and spontaneous events. At the People’s Park Complex, the theory was manifested as two atria, linked horizontally and vertically by corridors, escalators and staircases, vibrant City Rooms that are physically and visually connected to the building’s urban surrounds on all sides through a network of pedestrian circulation and multiple sightlines. In the past, the main atrium at the People’s Park Complex played a crucial civic role in hosting public talks, performances and exhibitions. Such activated atrium spaces are today commonplace in malls worldwide; few realise that People’s Park Complex was the ground-breaking project that materialised the concept of City Rooms and proved its success.
People’s Park Complex under construction – the pilot urban renewal project in the historic district of Chinatown (National Archives of Singapore)
The first Metabolist ‘City Room’ to be materialised (National Archives of Singapore)
PLACEMAKING IN PEOPLE’S PARK
A pedestrian overhead bridge connects the bustling urban streetscape to the City Room within People’s Park Complex. (National Archives of Singapore)
Besides its design merits, the significance of the People’s Park Complex also lies in its exemplary community-oriented urbanism. The success of the City Rooms at People’s Park Complex could be attributed to the ways the architecture interfaces with its surroundings and how it serves as an anchor to a larger urban ensemble of post-independent modernist buildings and public spaces. People’s Park Complex is at the heart of the historic Chinatown district. The site it occupies was formerly the People’s Park Market, a popular open-air bazaar that was razed by a fire in 1966. The shops and eateries of the Market were resettled at the Housing & Development Board mixed-use complex completed in 1968 on the adjacent plot. Known simply as People’s Park (on 32 New Market Road), this is HDB’s first completed podium-tower block. The resettlement freed up the rest of the site for redevelopment. One plot was designated Parcel N in the first Government Sale of Sites, sold and developed as People’s Park Complex. The other plots became the OG (Ocean Garment) Building and the People’s Park Square, completed in the early 1970s.
A tightly knit urban ensemble viewed from People’s Park Square – an exemplar of urban placemaking. (Darren Soh)
Former Dean of NUS School of Design and Environment and award-winning urban designer Heng Chye Kiang regards People’s Park Square as “one of the most successful urban spaces in Singapore”. He attributed this to its liveliness, interconnectedness and the breezy shaded reprieve from the tropical sun and humidity. According to Heng, the interface between the Square and the surrounding buildings is critical to its success. In particular, the interface with People’s Park Complex showcases the sensitivities of the building’s designers. On the elevation facing the Square, opposite the former Majestic Theatre, the building mass of the Complex is recessed to form a monumental porch, akin to a modern interpretation of the verandah. It is also an urban portal connecting one of the two City Rooms to the Square. Along the other facade toward People’s Park, the scale becomes intimate, with a single-storey row of stalls and shops along a covered walkway overlooking the square. Given the sensitive design responses to the urban spaces around it and the porosity of its City Rooms with multidirectional connectivity to the exterior, the People’s Park Complex has evolved to become the key anchor in this “urban ensemble” of exemplary placemaking.
The ensemble forms a part of “Precinct South 1”, which, together with “Precinct North 1” (which included Golden Mile Complex), were the first two areas that kickstarted Singapore’s massive urban renewal programme. The success of this urban ensemble sets the foundation for the subsequent regeneration of Singapore’s city centre.
PRESERVING CHINATOWN’S MODERNIST LAYER
View of People’s Park Complex along Eu Tong Sen Street. (Darren Soh)
It will be an enormous loss to Singapore’s built heritage if the People’s Park Complex is demolished for redevelopment. To do justice to Singapore’s post-independent modernist built legacy and the success story of urban renewal and nation-building, surely it is only appropriate for the first two urban renewal precincts to have at least a key building conserved. The heroic Pearl Bank Apartments, a contemporaneous ‘Precinct South 1’ project, has already been lost to en-bloc redevelopment in 2019.
People’s Park Complex is the remaining modernist landmark commemorating the pilot phase of Chinatown’s urban renewal. The authorities have conserved the pre-war Majestic Theatre and Great Southern Hotel (present-day Yue Hwa Building) in the tightly-knit People’s Park urban ensemble. The conservation of post-independent People’s Park Complex and the neighbouring People’s Park HDB flats would go far in preserving the integrity and place identity of the entire city block, and the richly layered heritage landscape of Chinatown.
The intrinsic architectural, urban and social significance of the People’s Park Complex, in and of itself, deserves to be recognised and conserved for future generations of Singaporeans. As a large concrete megastructure, its rehabilitation and adaptive reuse will be an environmentally sustainable development approach in line with Singapore’s ambitious low-carbon goals, as compared to demolition and rebuilding.
When Golden Mile Complex was undergoing collective sale attempts, the authorities, with decisive foresight, gazetted it for conservation. The subsequent successful sale of the Golden Mile Complex has demonstrated that architectural conservation, urban redevelopment, economic rationale, and cultural values are not mutually exclusive. Docomomo Singapore urges the authorities to follow this visionary precedent and do the same for People’s Park Complex.
