Art in Everyday Life, Chinatown — Exploring Neighborhoods Where Art Meets Daily Life in Singapore, Part 1
In Singapore, artistic inspiration isn’t found only in museums and landmarks. Discover the city’s aesthetic sense woven into daily life: murals filling every corner of the alleys, buildings in a variety of forms and colors, and shops tucked into residential estates and shophouses.
Words Ko Hyeon
Photos Oh Chungseok
Chinatown
Murals and Shophouses
On the weekend before Lunar New Year, China’s biggest holiday, crowds fill Pagoda Street so tightly there is hardly room to step. A traditional lion dance, performed to drive away bad luck and bring good fortune, is in full swing. Beyond the tourists filming and photographing on their smartphones, the dazzling tower of deities atop Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple, rises into view. It is a scene that hints at how Indians coexisted in Chinatown alongside the Chinese migrants who arrived from southern China.
In the early 19th century, when Singapore began its rapid transformation into a modern city, laborers who had come from southern China settled in the area called Niu Che Shui (牛車水), meaning “ox-cart water.” Chinese immigrants’ commercial activity later spread to Telok Ayer, near the harbor, and Tanjong Pagar, forming the foundation of today’s Chinatown. The back alleys, once alive with the busy lives of those laborers, are now occupied by orderly hawker centers, colorful street art, and lively restaurants and bars.
The element that completes Chinatown’s distinctive look is, without question, the shophouse. Narrow and deep, with a shop on the ground floor and living quarters on the second and third, shophouses are a legacy of the early immigrants. Today they radiate a unique charm in contrast with the skyscrapers of the downtown financial district. Not far from the heart of Chinatown, the Ann Siang Hill area is packed with shophouses that have preserved their original features along a winding hill: pastel facades, tall vertical windows and arched entrances. Design studios, galleries, restaurants and bars now occupy the old shops, and travelers stream in without pause. Neil Road, which stretches southwest of Chinatown, is another street where you can see shophouses in every color. Explore the alleys beyond the shophouses and you will find spaces with strong personalities, such as Grassroots Book Room, an independent bookstore that spotlights Asian culture, and Corner Corner, a vintage jazz café.
Walking through Chinatown, you come to feel that Singapore’s art lives not in grand museums but in the alleys and between the stairways. The murals you encounter most often on these streets are the work of Yip Yew Chong. He worked as an accountant before turning to art full time in his forties, and he has drawn on his childhood memories to create works across Chinatown that capture Singapore’s identity. He sometimes paints an empty chair or leaves generous blank space on a wall, a thoughtful gesture, he says, for travelers who want to take photos to mark their visit. At the corner where Temple Street meets South Bridge Road, a huge life-size mural recreates the outdoor opera stages once common in Chinatown in the 1960s and ’70s, stirring deep nostalgia among locals.
If shophouses housed Singapore’s early immigrants, then from the 1970s the public housing estates of the Housing & Development Board (HDB) both solved the housing problem and changed the city’s culture. Everton Park in Tanjong Pagar is a good place to see this. A first-generation public housing estate, it has a distinctive look created by its brightly colored exterior walls and the laundry poles hung out of every household’s windows. The ground-floor shops, from traditional Chinese dessert stores to workshops and boutiques, still carry on the old shophouse tradition. Nylon Coffee, counted among Singapore’s best roastery cafés, has also held its spot here for more than a decade.
Side Trip: A Public Housing Estate with a Stunning View
To the west of Chinatown, Pinnacle @Duxton, with seven 50-story blocks linked by sky bridges, catches the eye at once. It looks like a luxury condominium, but it is, remarkably, the world’s tallest public housing development. One of the bold structures that make up the city skyline, it has a 50th-floor rooftop open to the public, with sweeping panoramic views of downtown. Pay the admission fee (6 Singapore dollars) at the kiosk on the ground floor of Block G, then board the elevator. The expansive rooftop, connected by sky bridges, is laid out like a park with lawns, modular furniture and sunbeds, making it a good place to spend a leisurely hour or two. Sunset is the most popular time, and because daily admissions are capped at 150 visitors, we recommend arriving early.