Same old brand new landmarks
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 4 Oct 08;
Mr Mah said: “The identity of a city evolves from its history, culture, and collective memories of its inhabitants ... These heritage buildings give our city a distinctive character and lend soul to our urban environment.”
MANY Singaporeans may remember taking their wedding photos at the Look-out Tower at the Toa Payoh Town Park in the past.
Today, the memories will live on not only in picture albums but through the efforts of the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
The statutory board is expanding its conservation programme for buildings and monuments to include heritage structures.
“What makes a place distinctive and elegant are not just the buildings. It could be an elegant tower, a historic bridge, or a beautiful pavilion ... places where we spent quality time with our friends and family,” National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said on Friday.
Six other pavilions and towers will also be kept. They include the Swan Lake gazebo and Band Stand at Botanic Gardens, the observatory tower at Seletar Reservoir Park and the floating pavilion at MacRitchie Reservoir.
Six historic bridges will also be conserved. They include the Elgin Bridge at Boat Quay, the first vehicular bridge to be built across the Singapore River, Cavenagh Bridge outside Fullerton Hotel and the Crawford, Ord and Read bridges. Anderson Bridge, now part of the history-making Singapore Formula One Grand Prix, is also on the list.
“Most of these bridges are over 100 years old and are engineering feats of their time. They act as important landmarks of our rivers,” said Mr Mah at the 2008 URA Architectural Heritage Award presentation ceremony.
Singapore Heritage Society president Dr Kevin Tan applauded the “long-overdue” move. Historical artefacts that lie outside a conservation area tend to be neglected, he told Today, and URA’s initiative will help to “preserve these important iconic structures for our future generations”.
The URA will also conserve four “Black and White” houses at Bukit Chermin, bringing the number of these conserved colonial houses to 29.
Seven restoration projects were recognised at this year’s heritage awards, which are given for work done by owners, architects, engineers and contractors to conserve buildings while catering to modern needs.
The awards went to Sri Temasek at the Istana, film and foodie haven The Screening Room at Ann Siang Hill and five residential projects, which include The Sea View Clubhouse, Tan Chin Tuan Mansion, a black and white bungalow at No 14 Cable Road and a restored double-storey shophouse at No 120 Cairnhill Road.
The fifth residential project is Citylights at No 82 Jellicoe Road. Once a row of 16 motor workshops, the reconfigured 10 units of double and triple-storey pre-war shophouses now anchor a high-rise residential development.
Mr Mah said: “The identity of a city evolves from its history, culture, and collective memories of its inhabitants ... These heritage buildings give our city a distinctive character and lend soul to our urban environment.”
A total of 84 restoration projects have received the annual URA Architectural Heritage Awards since it started in 1995.
Twelve iconic structures
The URA has extended its conservation efforts to cover towers, bridges and structures other than buildings for the first time.
Tay Suan Chiang, Straits Times 4 Oct 08;
LONG-TIME Toa Payoh resident Kenny Leck has seen many changes in the housing estate where he has been living for 28 years.
Neighbours have moved away and old blocks of flats have been demolished to make way for skyscraper blocks.
Yesterday, the 30-year-old bookseller was glad to hear that one landmark in his neighbourhood will be conserved: the 25m-tall Lookout Tower in Toa Payoh Town Park.
Built in 1972, it was at one time a very popular spot for photo taking. Mr Leck said that on public holidays, his family often went to the park to take photographs, posing with the tower looming in the background.
'The tower holds fond memories for residents and it is a good move to keep it,' he said.
He was responding to the announcement that the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is extending its conservation programme beyond buildings, to include structures such as towers, pavilions and bridges.
The structures are: the Botanic Gardens' bandstand and the Swan Lake Gazebo; MacRitchie Reservoir's water intake tower and bridge and its pavilion and bridge; the water intake tower, bridge and weir at Lower Peirce Reservoir and the lookout towers in Toa Payoh Town Park and Seletar Reservoir Park.
The six historic bridges to be conserved are Anderson, Cavenagh, Elgin, Read, Ord and Crawford.
In announcing the extension of the URA conservation programme, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said that what makes a place distinctive and memorable are not just buildings.
'It could be an elegant tower, a historic bridge or a beautiful pavilion. There are many places and landmarks that we can identify with and feel for in Singapore - places where we spent quality time with our family and friends.'
He cited the Lookout Tower in Toa Payoh Town Park, which he called a landmark that many people identify with the estate.
He was speaking at the annual URA Architectural Heritage Award ceremony held at The Sea View Clubhouse at Amber Road. The clubhouse, built in the early 1900s, is a former seaside bungalow that has been restored and is a heritage award winner this year.
More than 6,800 buildings have been conserved under the URA programme since the programme started almost 30 years ago.
The National Parks Board also has its own conservation programme, under which some of the more scenic and significant tree-lined roads in Singapore are protected.
These include Arcadia Road, Mount Pleasant Road and Mandai Road. Mature trees along these roads cannot be cut down.
In June, the Land Transport Authority announced that it is saving the oldest bus stop in Singapore - a bus stop along Old Choa Chu Kang Road that was built in the 1970s.
Yesterday, Mr Mah also announced that four black-and-white houses at Bukit Chermin in Telok Blangah will also be conserved. These were built in the early 1900s by the then Singapore Harbour Board for its senior staff members.
The four houses, together with 25 pre-war colonial buildings that are already conserved at the Southern Ridges, can be developed for future use as hotels, restaurants, art galleries and the like.
Dr Kevin Tan, president of the Singapore Heritage Society, is pleased that the URA is now looking at individual structures for conservation. 'It is a welcome and long overdue move as these structures are important to our historical and cultural landscape,' he said.
Six historic bridges in Singapore gazetted for conservation
Ryan Huang and Greta Georges, Channel NewsAsia 3 Oct 08;
SINGAPORE: The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is expanding its conservation programme beyond buildings.
For the first time, structures such as bridges, towers and pavilions will be conserved as part of Singapore's architectural heritage, and Anderson Bridge is one of six bridges named for conservation in 2008.
The others are the Elgin Bridge at Boat Quay, the Cavenagh Bridge just outside Fullerton Hotel, the Ord, Read and Crawford Bridges.
Also gazetted for conservation are the iconic observatory tower at Seletar Reservoir Park and the floating pavilion at the MacRitchie Reservoir.
The grand Band Stand and Swan Lake gazebo at Botanic Gardens will also be conserved.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said, "Our city is not just a collection of buildings. Iconic new buildings alone do not give a city its unique character. The soul of a city requires more careful nurturing. By preserving the collective memories of our past, we make our physical environment more meaningful."
One major challenge in conservation projects is the loss in redevelopment potential, but seven conservation projects managed to overcome this.
They won the 2008 URA Architectural Heritage Award for restoring heritage buildings to their former glory and giving them a new lease of life.
One of the winning projects is a century-old seaside bungalow, which is currently the clubhouse for the Sea View condominium.
Another winner is the Screening Room, previously the historical two-star Damenlou Hotel within the Chinatown District. It has been transformed into an eclectic film and food haven complete with a screening theatre and a rekindled rooftop under the stars.
The other winning projects are Sri Temasek at the Istana, a row of high-end townhouses transformed from pre-war shophouses at Jellicoe Road, Tan Chin Tuan Mansion, No 14 Cable Road and a shophouse at Cairnhill Road.
Nearly 7,000 buildings and structures have been conserved so far.
Conservation to include structures
Teh Shi Ning, Business Times 4 Oct 08;
CONSERVATION efforts will now extend beyond historic buildings to include heritage structures such as bridges, pavilions and towers, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said yesterday.
Familiar structures slated to join more than 6,800 buildings conserved so far include the Botanic Gardens bandstand and swan lake gazebo, the look-out towers at Toa Payoh Town Park and Seletar Reservoir Park, and the water intake towers and bridges at MacRitchie Reservoir and Lower Peirce Reservoir.
Six historic bridges will also be conserved - Elgin Bridge at Boat Quay, Cavenagh Bridge outside the Fullerton Hotel, and the Anderson, Ord, Read and Crawford Bridges. 'What makes a place distinctive and memorable is not just buildings,' said Mr Mah. 'There are many places and landmarks we can identify with and feel for in Singapore.'
He also announced the conservation of four black-and-white bungalows at Bukit Chermin.
Conservation status prevents the alteration of a building beyond URA's guidelines and, by guaranteeing its future, raises the value of the conserved building.
Mr Mah was speaking at yesterday's presentation ceremony for the URA Architectural Heritage Awards (AHA) 2008.
The awards are presented yearly to owners, architects, engineers and contractors to promote quality restoration of buildings in Singapore with preservation or conservation status. The seven winning restoration projects this year are: Sri Temasek in the Istana grounds, The Screening Room in Ann Siang Road, The Sea View Clubhouse in Amber Road, 14 Cable Road, Tan Chin Tuan Mansion in Cairnhill Road, 120 Cairnhill Road, and Citylights in Jellicoe Road.
Including this year's crop, 84 buildings have received awards since the inception of the AHA in 1995.
- CNA/yt
