HDB Public Housing 1960 – 1980 | The First Two Decades
Postwar Singapore in the 1950s was not the most pleasant of places to live in, with severe overcrowding, poor sanitation and a high population growth.[1] The Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) that was set up in 1927 to deal with infrastructure works on the island that later included the building of public housing was not performing up to task.
By 1960, the SIT had built a total of about 24,000 dwelling units and housing shortage in Singapore was reaching unmanageable levels.[2]
In 1959, Singapore attained self rule, and on 1st February 1960, the local government formed the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to tackle what was deemed a dire housing problem that plagued the island.[3]
The HDB immediately went to work and by the end of 1962 had built a total of 21,232 dwelling units, building in less than two years just under 3000 units shy of what the SIT took nearly thirty three years to build.[4]
By March 1980, a total of 334,444 units of flats would be under HDB management (including earlier flats built by the S.I,T.)[5], with 67% of Singapore’s 2.4 million people living in HDB flats.
Many of the blocks built by the HDB between 1960 and 1980 have since been demolished but a significant number remain – enough for us to do a comprehensive survey of typology and design as well as study how Singaporeans used to live forty to fifty years ago.
1960 – 1965
(Figure 1) Block 45 Stirling Road
The very first flats to be completed by the HDB were in fact inherited from the SIT in an unfinished state in 1960 (Figure 1). These three blocks of 7-storey flats at Stirling Road in Queenstown were completed in October 1960 and residents occupied them in early 1961.[6] Till today, the three blocks – blocks 45, 48 and 49, remain as rental flats, so the issue of a dwindling 99-year lease is immaterial to the dwellers despite them being over sixty years old.[7] This may very well explain why the blocks are still standing today.
In the HDB’s first five-year building programme spanning 1960 – 1965, the HDB concentrated its building in a few towns and neighbourhoods – Queenstown, Bukit Ho Swee, Alexandra, MacPherson, St. Michael's and Tanjong Rhu / Fort Road.
Today, the oldest flats completely planned and built by the HDB that are still standing exist in MacPherson estate in the form of blocks 12, 13 and 14 Merpati Road (Figure 2). Completed in 1961, they are 2-Room rental blocks and are of a typology that used to be common in MacPherson[8] but are now the only three examples left in the whole of Singapore.
The Bukit Ho Swee fire of 1961 tested both the HDB’s resolve and capability to build not just in quantity but also on time. In fact, the HDB had already started to build in Bukit Ho Swee before the fire and some of these blocks were halfway complete when the fire started.[9] One of these blocks is Block 8 Jalan Bukit Ho Swee, which was completed in 1962, just a year after the fire (Figure 3).
(Figure 2) Block 12 Merpati Road
(Figure 3) Block 8 Jalan Bukit Ho Swee
(Figure 4) Commonwealth Drives flats (undergoing SERS)
By 1962, most of the HDB’s flats in what was formerly known as Queenstown Neighbourhood IV and today known as Tanglin Halt / Commonwealth Drive were completed. These ten storey blocks have become synonymous with Tanglin Halt, earning the name Chup Lau Chus (or ten storey houses in Hokkien) (Figure 4). Sadly, all of these early HDB blocks built by the HDB (and a few remaining SIT ones) at Tanglin Halt will soon be redeveloped after as part of HDB’s largest ever Selective Enbloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) project in recent times.[10]
In fact, the most famous of the Chup Lau Chus have already been demolished. They were blocks 74-80 Commonwealth Drive and their claim to fame is the fact that they adorned Singapore’s One Dollar currency note of the Orchid Series (Figure 5).[11] The seven blocks underwent an earlier SERS programme and were demolished in 2016.[12]
The HDB was also hard at work building in St. Michael’s Estate (today’s Whampoa) and unlike the flats that were built in Queenstown that were later sold to sitting tenants, many of the flats built in St. Michael’s Estate remain as rental flats till today. Blocks 20, 21 and 22 Jalan Tenteram (Figure 6) are three blocks of 2-Room rental flats that were completed by the HDB in St. Michael’s Estate and were initially rented out at $40 a month in 1962.[13]
In 1963, the HDB introduced its very first HDB block with a “child health and maternity clinic” on the ground floor. Up till then, all HDB blocks had dwelling units built on the ground level. This was Block 26 Jalan Klinik in Bukit Ho Swee (Figure 6)[14] and has been erroneously referred to as the first HDB block with a void deck. However, there is no mention of the term “void deck” in official literature and newspaper archives till 1967.
(Figure 5) Blocks 74-80 Commonwealth Drive
(Figure 6) Blocks 20, 21, 22 Jalan Tenteram
(Figure 7) Block 26 Jalan Klinik
Nevertheless, Block 26 is also special not only because it was the first to house a clinic instead of dwelling units on the ground level but also because it is only one of a handful of HDB blocks left standing today with a completely porous metal grilled common corridor parapet wall in a slab block. Most other HDB slab blocks have their common corridor parapet wall finished either entirely or partially in concrete.
Elsewhere in 1963, the HDB completed its first urban renewal project in the city center with the building of Selegie House which was dubbed a “government skyscraper” when it was announced in 1961.[15] Consisting of three blocks of flats the tallest which rose up to 20 storeys in height (Figure 7), Selegie House was the pride and joy of the HDB when it was completed and declared open by founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew on 31st May 1963.[16] Selegie House has its place firmly cemented in public housing history because it was the tallest ever public housing block ever built in Singapore when it was completed.[17] It was also completed in a record time of 18 months and adorned the cover of the HDB’s 1963 Annual Report.[18]
Crucial to the PAP’s re-election in the General Elections of September 1963 were two blocks of 10-storey HDB flats at Cantonment Road. The building of these flats were Lee Kuan Yew’s campaign promise to his constituency of Tanjong Pagar and he once famously said that if HDB Chairman Lim Kim San had not managed to build the flats to some semblance of completion by the time elections were called, he might not have been voted back to office.[19] These two blocks (Blocks 1 and 2 Cantonment Road) have since been demolished but in their place has risen Pinnacle @ Duxton, which, when completed in 2009, ushered in a new era of super high rise public housing.[20]
(Figure 8) Block 9 Selegie House
(Figure 9) Pinnacle @ Duxton
(Figure 10) Block 82 Commonwealth Close
Coming back to Queenstown and specifically Neighbourhood III, the first HDB flats ever built to be sold to the public were balloted in 1964 and it was here that the HDB launched its “Home Ownership for the People Scheme” with some 2068 2-room and 3-room flats offered for sale to the public.[21] 2-Room flats were sold at $4,900 and 3-Room flats at $6,200.[22] Blocks 81, 82 and 83 Commonwealth Close were 16-storey blocks with a mix of 2 and 3 room flats that were part of this initial sale. Block 81 was also where visiting foreign VIPs would be brought in order to have a panoramic view of most of Queenstown from level 16 of the block.[23]
By 1964, much of the Bukit Ho Swee fire site had been rebuilt and Block 22 Havelock Road, the tallest block in the neighbourhood built to a height of 16 storeys was also completed.[24] A surprisingly large number of these flats except the “Emergency Type” that were erected in a hurry after the fire have survived till today.
In the year of Singapore’s independence, the HDB completed a mega block in MacPherson estate in the form of block 37 Circuit Road. It was built in a double T-Shape, essentially a long slab block with two perpendicular wings on either sides. With 570 flats, it was the largest HDB block in Singapore by number of dwelling units at one point in time. Today, it still has the second highest number of flats for any given block.[25]
(Figure 11) Block 22, Havelock Road
(Figure 12) Block 37 Circuit Road
1966 – 1970
(Figure 13) Block 55 Lengkok Bahru
In 1966 with the start of its second five-year building programme, the HDB completed a project in the Lengkok Bahru area of Redhill it named Redhill Extension. One of the blocks completed was Block 55, a three-segment trough-shaped slab block (Figure 13).[26] Along with four other slab blocks (Blocks 56-59) that all have a really interesting geometric minimalist facade design, they remain standing today. All were also never sold to the public, having remained as rental flats since the time they were built till the present day.
Also in 1966, the HDB built its very first housing block with an integrated Hawker Centre, the precursor to all modern void deck coffee shops. The block was Block 50 Havelock Road (Figure 14) and the hawker centre was officially declared open by then Minister for Law and National Development E. W. Barker on 27 March 1966.[27] Block 50 was later also home to Singapore’s second NTUC Cooperative supermarket and the first that was not sited in a standalone building. This supermarket opened its doors to the public on 21 January 1974.[28]
Above all, 1966 was an important year for the HDB as it saw the completion of the first phase of public housing flats in the satellite town of Toa Payoh[29] - the first town that the HDB planned from scratch. All previous towns had contained public housing blocks inherited from the SIT that the HDB needed to either build around or demolish and redevelop but Toa Payoh was the first time the HDB was able to work with a clean slate. Officially, the building of Toa Payoh lasted a total of ten years from 1966 to 1976.
Block 53 Toa Payoh Lorong 5 (Figure 15) was and remains one of the most iconic blocks built in Toa Payoh. Completed in 1967, it was officially used as the VIP block for Toa Payoh and Queen Elizabeth II famously visited its viewing tower in 1972.[30]
(Figure 14) Block 50 Havelock Road
(Figure 15) Block 53, Toa Payoh Lorong 5
(Figure 16) Blocks 102, 103 Henderson Crescent
Announced in 1966[31], the HDB completed its first ever blocks of 4-Room flats in mid 1967, blocks 101-104 Henderson Crescent. (Figure 16) They were the largest HDB flats ever completed at that time. Initially only offered as rental flats, units in all four blocks were later sold to the sitting tenants.[32] Interestingly, these were not the first 4-Room flats built by the HDB. The honours for those go to some 33 units at Selegie House, where they were completed in Block 9 back in 1963. However, in Henderson Crescent, the HDB built its first ever 4-Room only blocks and brought larger HDB flats to the mainstream.
In early 1968, the first HDB blocks in the Rochor Redevelopment Site which the HDB named Precinct N1 were completed. These were Blocks 4, 5 and 6 Beach Road (Figure 17) and they were built over slums and shophouses that had been cleared by the government in their big push to urbanise the area around Sungei Rochor and Nicoll Highway. Interestingly, blocks 1, 2 and 3 were only completed later and the cover of the HDB’s 1967 Annual Report shows blocks 4, 5 and 6 in a near completed state with nothing else around them.[33]
Public housing development in this area would continue into the 1980s in phases with the Crawford Estate north of North Bridge Road completed only in the 1980s. Along the way, the rental flats in Block 18 and 19 Jalan Sultan (Figure 18) were completed in 1974[34] and they have also remained rental blocks till today, with some original residents from over four decades ago still living in them.
(Figure 17) Blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 Beach Road with Golden Mile Complex
(Figure 18) Block 19, Jalan Sultan
(Figure 19) Blocks 81, 82 MacPherson Lane
In Macpherson, the last three blocks of flats in the estate built in the 1960s were completed. They were located across the Pelton Canal from the main MacPherson estate and unceremoniously named MacPherson Estate South (Balance). Sited in what is known today as MacPherson Lane (Figure 19), the three blocks (81, 82 and 83) were selected by the HDB for SERS in 2018[35], which also means they will soon be demolished once replacement flats for the residents are built.
1968 saw the completion of a very significant HDB project known then as the Park Road Redevelopment Scheme but better known today as People’s Park (Figure 20). Block 32 New Market Road is the address of the block today and this was the very first HDB mixed-use project.
In describing the project, then head of the Urban Renewal Department at the HDB Alan Choe said in 1967 “The type of multi-use building envisaged would be one whereby the valuable ground and upper two floors are used for shopping, another few floors above it are used for offices and a void deck will act as a buffer zone to promote cross ventilation and lighten the appearance of the building.”[36]
Comprising a slab block of residential units sitting on top of a three level “shopping centre” with a fourth level void deck[37], People’s Park served as the prototype for all other HDB mixed-use projects that the HDB would eventually build in The Central Area in the following decade. This was also the first time the phrase “void deck” was ever used and probably signified the birth of this architectural feature that has since become ubiquitous with HDB projects.
In 1969, the HDB marked the end of an amazingly productive and busy decade by building the very first point blocks due to the board’s recognition that homeowners were now more and more concerned about privacy as laid out in the HDB’s 1968 Annual Report.[38] These came in the form of blocks 160 and 161 Mei Ling Street (Figure 21). Each block was served by three separate lift lobbies that did not connect to each other and each lift lobby only served four units per floor.[39] Still standing today, these two blocks are the only two of their kind in existence.
(Figure 20) Block 32 New Market Road (People’s Park)
(Figure 21) Blocks 160, 161 Mei Ling Street
(Figure 22) Blocks 26, 28 Bendemeer Road
It wasn’t until 1970 that the point blocks we are more familiar with made their first appearance in the form of blocks 26 and 28 Bendemeer Road (Figure 22). Built as part of Kallang Basin Neighbourhood I, blocks 26 and 28 stand at the end of a linear “shopping centre” stretching from the side of the neighbourhood facing Upper Serangoon Road to the side facing Bendemeer Road. The blocks featured prominently on the cover of the HDB 1970 Annual Report.[40] Curiously, these two blocks had three 3-Room flats and one 4-Room flat per floor instead of the later four 4-Room or four 5-Room flats per floor configuration for point blocks. The layout of the 4-Room flats can be seen in the HDB’s 1969 Annual Report relative to a 3-Room flat within the same block.[41]
1971 – 1975
The start of a new decade for the HDB also led to the birth of its third five-year building programme and the HDB’s move into suburban areas like Whampoa and Kallang Basin. In fact, the HDB had been hard at work reclaiming the swamps along the Kallang River for most of the late 1960s and then building on them. By 1971, the Kallang Basin Neighbourhood I was fully completed.
(Figure 23) Block 34, Whampoa West
This neighbourhood not only included the above mentioned blocks 26 and 28 Bendemeer Road but also Block 34 Whampoa West (Figure 23), Singapore’s longest HDB block ever to be built and still standing today. Boasting a common corridor length of just over 310m, one could complete a 2.4km run in less than 8 laps up and down the corridor.[42] Standing at 12 storeys in height, Block 34 has 46 units on each floor spread over 11 floors.
Although the HDB was the main developer of the government in the 1960s and 70s building for other agencies like the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) and the Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), it must be noted that the JTC also built its own public housing flats in the industrial areas of Jurong and Sembawang. Many of these flats have since been demolished, but a number remain while others were sufficiently well documented before they were torn down.
(Figure 24) Blocks 63, 64, 65, 66 Yung Kuang Road
The most famous of all JTC built public housing blocks must be blocks 63-66 Yung Kuang Road (Figure 24). Towering over Taman Jurong at a height of 20 storeys, the four blocks form a unique and iconic diamond shape around a central courtyard inside which resides a supermarket. The blocks were built all the same time as the Jurong Town Hall which today is a National Monument but their fates could not be more different.[43]
Used as rental flats from the beginning since completion in 1972, the blocks were never sold to the public and in the 1980s when the HDB took over the blocks from the JTC, they developed a bad reputation as the crime-ridden ghetto of Taman Jurong. Things have improved tremendously today of course and thankfully, the four blocks are still standing and collectively, they have become somewhat of an icon in Taman Jurong.[44]
During the COVID19 Pandemic, the four blocks were designated as temporary housing for the migrant worker community in Singapore, removing the workers from their originally cramped confined quarters in their dormitories.[45]
Once the most common of all JTC flats, the 11-storey H-Shaped block comprising of two slabs joined in the center by a common lift lobby that had linkways on levels 3, 6 and 9 were found in Boon Lay (Figure 25), Sembawang and Taman Jurong. Originally built in 1974, the very last of these were located in Boon Lay Drive and they were demolished in 2018 after undergoing SERS.[46]
In 1973, the HDB completed its very first ever block of 5-Room flats in the form of Block 1, Queens Road.[47] (Figure 26) This was a point block of course, and until 1976, 5-Room flats could only be found in point blocks. It must be noted however that not all point blocks built after 1973 contained 5-Room flats. Some, especially in the central area, continued to be 4-Room only point blocks. The response to the HDB launching these large 5-Room flats was overwhelming and many of the flats were oversubscribed.[48]
(Figure 25) Demolition of JTC-built flats at Boon Lay Drive
(Figure 26) Block 1, Queens Road
Also in 1973, the HDB used a foreign builder for the very first time to erect public housing flats. Civil and Civic, a construction company wholly owned by Lend Lease Corporation of Australia was awarded a large contract to build HDB flats in a joint venture startup with local builder Lee Kim Tah.[49] Named Progressive Builders, the JV company built flats using the progressive strength system in Eunos, Ghim Moh and Haig Road estates.[50] The flats in Ghim Moh (Figure 27) were completed in 1975.
Toward the end of 1973, one of the HDB’s experiments bore fruit in the form of 168A Queensway (Figure 28). This was the HDB’s first and last “butterfly block” where two curved slabs would emanate from one central lift shaft.[51] Situated on a hillock, Block 168A towered 20 floors into the air and consisted entirely of 4-Room flats, some 228 of them in fact.[52] The HDB never built a block like this again.
(Figure 27) Blocks 1-6, Ghim Moh Road, built by Progressive Builders.
(Figure 28) Block 168A Queensway
1973 was also the year that Singapore hosted the 7th Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games and the Games Village was none other than Toa Payoh Central. Four point blocks in Toa Payoh Central with a total of 384 4-Room flats were built and furnished for the purpose of being used as athletes’ accommodation. These were blocks 175, Toa Payoh Lorong 2, 179 Toa Payoh Central and 191, 193 Toa Payoh Lorong 4. (Figure 29)[53] They were subsequently refurbished and sold to the public in 1974 at a premium because of the furnishings.[54] [55]
One of the last neighbourhoods planned and built by the HDB in its third five-year building programme was the original Ponggol Estate built between Old Tampines Road and Upper Serangoon Road. Known today as a part of Hougang, this estate including Block 1 Hougang Avenue 3 (Figure 30) was first built in 1975 to house resettled residents displaced from the rural areas around Paya Lebar Airport when the airport embarked on a runway extension project in the early 1970s.[56] It is interesting to note how Ponggol was spelt and also located a distance from what we know today as Punggol.[57]
By the end of 1975, the HDB had comfortably expanded into the suburban areas of Singapore and Singaporeans were starting to move out of the CBD to live in these newer towns. This move out of the CBD was so successful that the government started to worry that the city center would experience a ghost town effect at night and on the weekends. They sought to address this in their fourth five-year building programme of 1976-1980.[58]
(Figure 29) Blocks 191, 193 Toa Payoh Lorong 4
(Figure 30) Block 1, Hougang Avenue 3
1976 – 1980
(Figure 31) Tanjong Pagar Plaza
The HDB’s fourth five-year building programme set out mainly to establish the new towns of Ang Mo Kio, Bedok and Clementi. It also tried to resolve the issue of the CBD turning into ghost towns at night by identifying slums in the city to redevelop into mixed-use developments after the success of People’s Park. Many owners of rundown shophouses were also given the option to relocate their businesses to these mixed-use developments. Tanjong Pagar Plaza was one of these complexes, built in order to bring life back to the CBD.[59]
Tanjong Pagar Plaza was executed in two phases with the first phase of 5 slab blocks sitting on top of a two storey podium block of shops finished in 1976. (Figure 31) Because it was an important project that was situated within the Tanjong Pagar constituency of the Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew himself officiated the balloting exercise for the flats on 15th June 1976.[60]
The other more well known mixed-use complex in the central area was Rochor Centre (Figure 32), where four slab blocks sat on top of a three storey podium “shopping centre”. It was also completed in 1976 after old shophouses were cleared and was meant to be the “gateway to the city” from Bukit Timah.[61]
Rochor Centre became an Instagram social media star in the last years of its life after the government announced that it would be demolished.[62] This announcement came hot on the heels of the introduction of the Instagram App in 2010 and the two hit it off straight away. Ironically, the site was acquired by the government in order to construct the tunnel exit of the proposed North South Corridor expressway, a new “gateway” to the city for the 21st century perhaps. Rochor Centre was completely demolished in early 2019.[63]
Also in 1976, the HDB combined 5-Room flats with other typologies and did so outside of a point block for the very first time. It introduced slab blocks that contained 4-Room and 5-Room flats, and the first of these larger slab blocks were built in Eunos and Ang Mo Kio.[64] Block 23 Eunos Crescent, a 16-storey slab block with 12 4-Room flats and 78 5-room flats was one of these (Figure 33)
(Figure 32) Rochor Centre
(Figure 33) 23 Eunos Crescent
(Figure 34) Lakeview Estate
In 1977, the HDB completed the first housing estate for the middle income in the form of Lakeview estate. (Figure 34) These estates for the middle income were all under the care of the Housing and Urban Development Co (HUDC) which the Ministry of National Development set up in 1974.[65] A total of 22 HUDC estates would eventually be built, of which only a handful remain today because all of the were eventually privatised and many sold collectively on the open market for redevelopment.
The interesting thing about Lakeview Estate is that it was initially meant for the HDB to build “two luxury apartment blocks in Upper Thomson Road for its executive staff”[66] but the HDB gave it up to the HUDC to build its first ‘240 middle income flats”.[67]
1978-79 saw the Jurong Town Corporation complete what would be one of its last housing estates. This estate was located at Pandan Gardens. Consisting of a total of 16 blocks (11 slabs blocks, 3 point blocks and 2 shophouse blocks), the estate is probably the only JTC-built public housing estate to remain completely intact today. JTC flats were designed slightly differently from HDB ones and this particular block - Block 403 (Figure 35), is a 15-storey slab block built in 1978 that contains only 5-Room flats, and some 112 of them.[68] All the slab blocks in Pandan Gardens were completed in 1978 and the three point blocks in 1979. The 5-Room flats were unusual as they came with terrazzo and parquet floors as well as built-in carpentry for the bedrooms.[69]
In the August 1979 Issue of the HDB’s Our Home magazine[70], the HDB shared seven new block and facade designs that would bring public housing into the 1980s. (Figure 36) Some of these designs were one-off but many others would be proliferated widely across Singapore, becoming the new faces of the HDB after 1980.
(Figure 35) 403 Pandan Gardens
(Figure 36) SEVEN NEW FACADES
Text and all images except (Figure 36) © Darren Soh 2021 | Please do not reproduce without prior permission
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