Singapore Shophouses: Conserving a Landscape Tradition

Singapore Shophouses: Conserving a Landscape Tradition The shophouse has evolved over 100 years (1840-1940) of Singapore's history, and remains a symbol of the city's vernacular architectural tradition. Capturing the architectural traditions of both the East and West, this - once ubiquitous - building has undergone many transformations. Victor Savage looks at the past and present, origins, growth, demise and conservation of the shophouse in Singapore ike many cities in the developing world, the urge to modernize and develop landscape traditions of the western L world as symbols of development has led to the demise of the shophouse in Singapore. At one phase of Singapore's frenzied development, it would seem that its planners and government officials were seized by the demons of destruction to wipe out all historical buildings. Well, almost 70 per cent of the colonial landscape has been eradicated before sanity prevailed. What is a shophouse? No one knows exactly how the term 'shophouse' was first coined. This word is not found in any of the major dictionaries or encyclopaedias. Furthermore, none of the early writers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used the term 'shophouse' specifically although from the descriptions given, these 'dwelling house', 'labour line', 'tenement', 'commercial house' and 'native's shop' fit basically the 'shophouse'. In fact, the earliest reference to 'shophouse' was in the 1946 Annual Report on Singapore (Annual Report 1946:72). 5 Definitions of the shop- be broadly defined as a vernacu- poses or other functions such as house are relatively recent. lar building of two to five associations, guilds, mahjong Based on the criteria of the gen- storeys high; following a basic clubs, illegal gambling dens, eral plan of the shophouse, the floor plan of a narrow frontage brothels and so on. first Singapore Master Plan of and common party-walls; with a The Singapore shophouse 1955 defined the shophouse as versatility of being able to serve shares many basic characteris- a form of housing with a 'narrow many functions such as eco- tics with its counterparts in frontage of 20 feet (6 m) or less, nomic, residential and recre- Malaysia and Phuket Island built in terraces without side ational purposes; lacking in (south of Thailand). This could ventilation to a depth of 60 or 70 basic amenities and modern be due to their close geographi- feet (18 to 20 m)'. facilities such as a flush toilet cal position as well as the fact More recent definitions of system, fire escape, well-venti- that these countries have the shophouse highlight the lated rooms, escalators and lifts; shared similar historical links in many functions of the building. and lastly, it possesses the capa- the colonial era. The diffusion 'It is a common practice in small bility of residential 'involution', of the shophouse to Phuket is a businesses to maintain the i.e. it is able to absorb a huge result of the Chinese labour that ground floor as a shop, godown, number of people by the pro- moved from Penang to Phuket servants' quarters or office cess of dividing and subdividing Many Chinese set up busi- while the owner lived on the its living space into tiny cu- nesses revolving around upper floor or used it as a store' bicles. Phuket's thriving tin-mining in- (Vatsaloo, 1981:12). Kohl Singapore shophouses dustry, hence the strong Chi- (1984:172) uses the term that are built after the Second nese Penang connections in 'shophouse' to indicate the 'es- World War do not follow the Phuket till today. sentially multi-purpose func- same basic plan and building tions of these buildings, combin- structures, and are distinctly The Origins and Spatial ing business areas on the different from those built before Spread of the Shophouse ground floor with residential this period. The term 'shop- The English colonialists' town quarters on the upper floors'. house' is also taken to include plan, the Raffles' Plan (to physi- All these definitions 'terrace shophouse' although cally separate the various racial broadly define the shophouse to this type is mainly used for resi- communities on the island in the a limited extent although none dential purposes. This is be- early 19th Century), is clearly of them totally embraces its cause both are 'one and the illustrated in the figure on the numerous variations. The same in plan, form and stylistic next page which was redrawn shophouse as a vernacular treatment, built in rows sharing from a map by Lt. Philip Jack- building varies from place to load-bearing party-walls and son in 1828 (Fig. 1). The map place in terms of its architec- with units which are connected shows distinctly the segregation tural design, the socio-economic by a continuous covered walk- of the different races and the functions and cultural influ- way (also known as five-foot areas that were allocated to ences. Even in a small island way)' (Vatsaloo, 1981:4). It is them. like Singapore, there is no ho- difficult to generalise that all Following this plan, the mogeneity in the morphology shophouses must have a com- Chinese built their shophouses (i.e. the physical form) of the mercial unit because there are along the streets which were shophouse. some instances where in a row laid out by the administrators in To sum up the various of shophouses, some units are a grid-iron pattern (Fig. 1). Be- definitions, the shophouse can used mainly for residential pur- tween 1826 and 1827, more than 6 SPAFA Journal Vol. 11 No. 1 Figure 1: Jackson's plan of the town (1823) showing ethnic residential areas. (After John Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China, 1828). 200 leases were given out to the which existed before the war Although urban renewal Chinese inhabitants to build on prevailed till the 1960s. has brought about a decline of land situated, predominantly, on In the survey, it was found shophouses within the Central the south side of the Singapore that more than one-third of the Area in the 1960s, this marked River which is the Chinese sec- sample population (i.e. 38.9 per clustering in the city centre as tor in the Raffles' Plan (at Mar- cent) which amounted to 7,262 compared to those areas further ket Street, Philip Street, Telok persons or 2,364 households away can still be seen in the Ayer Street, Church Street, stayed in shophouses (Goh, 1980 Census Report on census China Street, Pekin Street, 1956:63). Within the city cen- houses (Table 1). Kling Street, Circular Road, tre, more than three quarters of The rapid population in- Amoy Street, Cross Street, the households surveyed were crease up to 1931 was mainly South Bridge Road and High housed in shophouses (Goh, due to large scale migration Street (Song, 1967:26)). The 1956:64). This concentration of from China and India. For ex- streets were an important fea- shophouses in the city centre ample, there was an increase of ture because their 'uniformity (Central Area) led Goh (1956: 83 per cent in the Chinese and and regularity' (Clause 15 of 81) to conclude that the shop- Indian population between 1911 Raffles' letter, 4 November house was the most important and 1931 but a steady natural 1822) determined the liner type of dwelling in terms of the increase took the place of migra- shophouse development on number of occupants in the city tion as the main factor of popu- both sides of these streets. area. lation increase after 1945 - a re- As the British colony ex- panded rapidly, so did the Chi- nese population. In 1824, the Table 1: Number of shophouses by area, 1980 Chinese was estimated to be (adapted from C H Khoo, Census of Population 1980, Singapore) around 3,317, i.e. nearly one- third of the total population of AREA 1NUMBER OF SHOPHOUSES Central Area 10,683. By 1840, this figure had North of the Singapore River grown to 17,704 which was Cairnhill area 433 slightly more than half the total Kampung Glam 1,393 Jalan Besar 1,060 population of 35,389 people. River Valley road 379 Most of this Chinese population Rochore area 1,116 lived in the shophouses which Sub-total 4,381 were mainly confined to the South of the Singapore River Chinese area allocated by Anson area 590 Raffles. Havelock Road 355 Kreta Ayer 768 Although no data could be Tanjong Pagar Road 724 found to substantiate the num- Teluk Ayer Street 1,501 Sub-total 3,938 ber of shophouses in the Cen- Total (within Central Area) 8,319 tral Area during the pre-1945 period, this concentration of Outside Central Area Braddel Heights 155 shophouses can be imputed Bukit Batok 157 from the social survey done by BukitTimah 153 Farrer Park 480 Goh Keng Swee (1953/54) on Geylang (east and west) 892 urban income and housing be- Upper Serangoon 278 cause the shophouse conditions Total 2,115 8 SPAFA Journal Vol. 11 No. 1 suit of the 'post-war baby boom' itself, living spaces were divided per cent of the population lived (Blythe, 1951:23). and subdivided into tiny cu- in the Municipal Area of 31 The expanding immigrant bicles which were then rented square miles (80 sq km) (Goh, population in the early twentieth out to the new migrants. This 1956:21). The density of popu- century led to an increase in practice of internal division lation in the Chinatown area in housing demand, and shop- continued right up to the late 1953 was 1,250 persons per houses were built at a very 1950s.

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