Late morning is quiet in Spottiswoode Park. A few Javan mynas drink at a tiny puddle left by the dawn’s rain. A Lambhorgini in low gear rumbles by. The birds, offended, fly off. On both sides of Everton Road is a riot of colour. I am mindful of my footsteps as I walk along the five-foot walkway parallel to the shophouses.
Constructed over a 100 years, between the 1840s and 1960s, shophouses—commercial and residential buildings with a major Straits Chinese influence—formed the pre-World War II urban fabric of the city centre. For a time they had looked lost, but the city-state is on a mission now to renovate and conserve these windows to the past, and it has done so with great success. While shophouses also belong to the Malayan peninsula and other parts of Southeast Asia, it is in Singapore that they evoke a poignant nostalgia.
In staggering contrast to the gravity-defying glass and chrome structures that dominate the cityscape, shophouses of the city’s centre charm with their sheer effusive creativity. And they show that art and design can forever be contemporary and continually alive.
Singapore clearly doesn’t want to let go of its past. These shophouses are a reaffirmation of its larger, Peranakan (Straits Chinese and Malay) heritage. Amidst the noisy, febrile activity of earthmovers and tall cranes, they remain quaint, multihued pockets of becalming beauty, lining streets like colourful curlicues of icing on the edges of a cake.
Private space
A typical shophouse has a narrow frontage with a double-leafed entrance door and two windows. Usually there are also half-doors— pintu pagar —on the main door frame. This aids privacy while helping ventilation. The windows, which later became more ornate, have iron bars. Some of the larger shophouses have a small courtyard, for instance those on Blair Road or Neil Road. But all shophouses open out to a covered walkway that goes the entire length of the street.
It is known as the five-foot way because of the minimum width required for the walkway. The common walkway connects all shophouses along a street. On the street side of the five-foot way, there are columns that support the higher floors of the shophouse. The colonnade enables passers-by to walk about the street freely, sheltering them from the tropical sun and rain. The walkway became mandatory in Singapore under the Raffles Plan. Intrepid traveller Isabella Bird in 1883 described five-foot ways as “long shady alleys where crowds of buyers and sellers chaffer over their goods”.
A five-foot walkway.
A typical shophouse is a two or three-storied building with shops on the ground floor and living accommodation on the higher floors. They were built orginally as homes for merchants and their families. The Straits Chinese, the original occupants of shophouses, first came to Southeast Asia as traders. In some parts of Singapore, shops still function on the ground floor, although the “shops,” in many instances, are high-end boutiques, yoga studios or restaurants. But most shophouses are now used only as residences—generally of the wealthy and the well-heeled who can afford to maintain these old properties.
The ground floor or the first level—the ruana tamu —is elongated, with another room, generally a kitchen, at the back. A steep wooden staircase leads to the first floor, the tian geap, that has more floor area because of the colonnade. Normally, there are at least three rooms if not four, the last one being a place for the worship of ancestors. Often, the balustrade of the staircase is ornate.
A second level has two or three attic rooms with sloping beams. The feeling of depth—the average depth being about 80 ft—is accentuated by the fact that there are no windows along the side walls that separate a shophouse from its neighbours. Corner shophouses are prized because they are likely to have windows on one side.
The windows are timber-framed and designed in the French or casement style. Some have solid infil panels while others have wooden shutters or jalhousies to allow air and light in. Natural coloured, unglazed terracotta tiles are fixed on the frame. The roof slopes sharply so that rain water runs off.
Merged heritage
The architecture reflects the eclectic Straits style, specifically in the decoration. The Peranakan tradition was a composite one. The dominant impact is Chinese but Malay, Arabic, Indian and, later, European influences are discernible too.
Tourists walking around shophouse districts cannot but be struck by the abundance of colour on these façades—off-white, indigo and ochre, to which were later added rose pink, baby blue and light yellow. Many of the restored houses use bold colours like deep red, purple, brilliant yellow, shades of green and gold.
Façade ornamentation is inspired by several sources: Malay, Chinese and European. European neo-classical motifs include egg-and-dart motifs and ionic or Corinthian capitals of decorative pillars. Woodwork was borrowed from the Malay building style. From Chinese heritage come mythological motifs like phoenixes, butterfly-shaped windows and golden flowers and leaves. Pastel coloured glazed tiles, often with floral or geometric tiles, are Peranakan. A shophouse’s ornamentation once symbolised the prosperity of its owner or the street or locality where it was built. The ones on Emerald Hill Road are a case in point.
Under the conservation programme, the National University of Singapore acquired the Baba House at 157, Neil Road and completely restored it to its original glory. It was once the ancestral home of a Straits-Chinese family. In the Pernakan way of life, the gentleman of the house was called Baba, reflecting a Hindustani semantic influence. The lady of the house was referred to as Nonya, a word of Malay etymology.
Today, some of Singapore’s most beautiful shophouses are preserved on Emerald Hill off Orchard Road, Joo Chiat Koon Seng, Blair Road, Everton Road, Neil Road, Keong Saik Road and Spottiswoode Park. And it is still a Singapore that most people don’t know about.
The writer whiles time away pretending to read and, occasionally, write. His other serious interests are photography and western classical music .
