Talking of the Fullerton Bay Hotel and the old Clifford Pier – it is not forgotten I’m glad to say even though it is being innovatively used as a hotel now. But back in June 1933 (a hot day as ever in Singapore we can assume) no lesser personage that Sir Cecil Clementi himself (about whom more here), the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Straits Settlements turned up to open the Clifford Pier. The pier, by the way, was named after another colonial administrator Hugh Clifford (more on him here). Both men pictured below and the plaque remembering the pier and the day Sir Cecil opened it.
Sir Cecil in his finest…
Clifford – pretty cool as not many people have had a pier named after them!
Talking of what might become of the Capitol Theatre in Singapore you have to say (as this is Singapore after all) that shopping mall would be top of the list! Hence it is perhaps worth considering the redevelopment of the Cathay cinema when thinking about the potential fate of the Capitol. I used to know the old Cathay before it was redeveloped and loved it then – a terrific 1939 structure that’s now been incorporated into a shopping mall. The facade is protected. The mall is not that exciting to be honest (even by retail park standards!!) though it is a nice arty cinema. Just to show I’m not a complete stick-in-the-mud on preservation I do quite like how this has been done – as you come around the corner from Prinsep Street onto Orchard Road the rounded art deco curves and lovely sand blasted clean stone of the Cathay fair takes your breath away. More details on the history of the Cathay here.
The Cathay and adjoined mall as is now…and as it was….
The car, bottom right, looks suspiciously like a classic Triumph Dolomite but not quite…a free copy of my Old Shanghai A-Z to the first person to tell me the make and model of that car
Talking of Singapore buildings (i.e. Keppel Road Station) who’s future is somewhat vague it’s worth highlighting the lovely Capitol Theatre which seems to be in a semi-permanent closed up state. I noticed that the once impressive sign on the front has been partially dismantled now (see before and now pictures below). The Capitol is a classic 1933 entertainment building of the sort once common in the UK and the colonies but increasingly now disappearing – many old theatres/music halls and cinemas in England have gone or are going and elsewhere too (interestingly Shanghai’s Cathay cinema on Huaihai Road remains as a good example in a city not known for preserving anything). The neo-classical Capitol was one of Singapore’s biggest theatres. The structure suffered some damage – but that’s OK in this case as it was a bomb by the anti-Japanese resistance during the war aimed at killing Japanese soldiers. It was restored and modernised (better air-con etc) as the Shaw Building after the war.
The Capitol a few years ago
The Capitol in early April 2011 – as you can see the sign has been played about with and the backing gone
The Capitol is listed for preservation but remains empty at the moment and you can see the closed up entrance above – here’s a few pics of the building that show it is in good condition and the nicely designed external stairways:
Actually I can’t confirm it, but it has been previously announced that Singapore’s lovely Keppel Road Railway Station (also known as Tanjung Pagar Station or Singapore Railway Station) is to close this July. It seems that the station will be redeveloped (hopefully restored – to knock it down would be a crime and I’m not sure Singapore would do that now, surely they have enough shopping malls?) and trains will go to the far less stylish Woodlands station (where you do immigration if you arrive in Singapore by train). So having to go from KL (where sadly you now board not at the beautiful old Moorish station but at the new Sentral Station) to Singapore recently I took the train. It’s a long ride – leaves KL at 9am and gets to Keppel Road about 4.30-5pm but if you have a day to spare it’s a nice trip – cheap and you can idle a day reading a book and looking out the window. Bizarrely even the coach is faster! So this is not high speed rail but it’s a damn site nicer than either another plane ride or staring out the window at a motorway embankment for hours. And of course there’s the carbon emissions or lack of.
Admittedly the carriages are a little shabby – at least the so-called Premier carriage (not very expensive though) had not been refurbished on my train but the ordinary coaches had new seats but a little less room. In case you’re interested here’s the premier seat and cabin.
And so to the station:
The station frontage – completed in 1932
The booking office still in use
Nice vaulted arches – the B&Q shed thing is a Malaysia tourism board hut and of course not integral to the design!
More vaulted arches and the rather odd Malaysian Swiss chalet shed!
The exterior of the station featuring the four white marble reliefs by the Italian sculptor Rudolfo Nolli (who worked often in Asia and did the decorations on the Fullerton Hotel – formerly the GPO) which are:
A brief detour to South East Asia, but worth it I think. Passing through Malaysia recently I noticed that there was a discussion in the New Straits Times about how the highly successful and popular refurbishment of St. Pancras railway station and the gorgeous St. Pancras Hotel could serve as an inspiration to the long overdue restoration of Ipoh’s Majestic Station Hotel. Like St. Pancras in London, the Majestic is attached to the old Ipoh railway station and has a strong Moorish and Victorian influence via the British Raj – built in 1917 it is known as the ‘Taj Mahal of Ipoh’. The building is not in a bad state at all – ‘faded glory’ is the phrase that comes to mind most readily – verandah rooms do overlook gardens but, reportedly, the service has dropped of and maintenance is not as good as it could be across the 100 rooms.
Now the management says they want to close the hotel and hand back the building to the Malaysian Railway Asset Corporation (RAC). They will then get to decide what to do with it. I have no idea whether RAC is a body we can trust or not with heritage buildings? Let us pray that their decision involves renovation – encouraging to see parallels being drawn to the renaissance of St. Pancras as an inspiration to save the Majestic Station Hotel. It actually sits alongside other excellent buildings in Ipoh -the white neo-classical Dewan Bandaraya (town hall), the High Court and the Saint Micheal’s Institute and Church – all within a 15 minute radius or so.
Here’s some pictures (I’ll skip the rooms, which are not that interesting and basically the problem!)
Edmund Trelawny Backhouse (1873-1944), Baronet, arrived in Peking in 1898 and quickly became the city’s most respected transÂlator, working for both the British Foreign SerÂvice and London Times correspondent George Morrison. He was co-author, with J.O.P. Bland, of China under the Empress Dowager (1910) and Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking (1914). Considered a brilliant linguist and ChiÂnese scholar in his day and the subject of great controversy in the time since, Backhouse’s repuÂtation was posthumously tarnished when it was discovered that much of his work was based upon forged documents. His precise role in the alleged deceptions remains one of the great puzÂzles of Chinese scholarship.
Derek Sandhaus is chief editor of Earnshaw Books, and the author of Tales of Old Peking (2009) and Tales of Old Hong Kong (2010). He lives in Shanghai.
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The top northern portion of the former International Settlement is not much paid attention to these days. North of the former Jewish Ghetto across Zhoujiazui Road (formerly Point Road) is mostly neglected. Outside of the nominal preservation zone of the former ghetto (the most nominal of nominals as we regularly see as bits get lopped of) the old Point Road is one of the least charming Shanghai has to offer; a combination of its straightness and the long spacing between traffic lights makes it more exciting than any F1 track if you are unfortunate enough to be in the back of a taxi trying desperately to make green lights all the way along. Just east of the junction with Dalian Road (Dalny Road) Point Road exited the Settlement into Chinese administered territory. Anyway, along Point Road, a block north and between Lingping Road (Ling Ping Road) and Zhoushan Road (Chusan Road) is Yuezhou Road (formerly Yoochow Road). Along here you can still see some nice 1920s era housing, but hurry up the bulldozers are slated to move in soon.
Yoochow Road was largely residential blocks with retail and commercial units at street level facing. Some blocks around the Chusan Road junction have already gone but there is a nice, and eminently refurbishable block at the junction with Ling Ping Road; blocks that run through to Point Road. Not far from here is the former Medhurst College campus. Anyway, some pics below.
Mid-1920s structures along Yoochow Road with arched entryways and retail premises street facing – as you can see the stone entrances, window frames and roof are all in good condition as is most of the lane housing behind.
As the entryway shows – constructed 1926 AD (I love the little AD flourish!)
However, one block further along Yoochow Road at the junction with Chusan Road things are coming down…
