Pre-War Tiong Bahru Flats

The Tiong Bahru Flats are currently the only flats from the pre-war housing scheme planned and designed by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) that are still standing today. SIT—the predecessor to the Housing and Development Board—built 784 flats, 54 tenements and 33 shops in the Tiong Bahru estate between 1937 and 1941, right after it was empowered by the Weisberg Committee to build subsidised public housing. 

As the main building type in Tiong Bahru, the flats were regarded as some of the most modern buildings of their time. Not only were they built using modern materials, such as hollow concrete blocks and steel windows, they were also designed in the architectural language of Streamline Moderne. The flats were planned such that residents could enjoy plenty of light and air: individual units had balconies for “sitting out”, light wells were incorporated in the middle of the blocks, and a “grassed playground” gave children an outdoor play space. Langdon Williams, the SIT manager and architect of the flats, proudly claimed that the flats provided “modern comfort” comparable to similar schemes in Britain.

Location: The area between Tiong Bahru Road and Yong Siak road

Architects: Langdon Williams of Singapore Improvement Trust

Year: 1937–1941

Status: Conserved in 2003

 

by Darren Soh

by Darren Soh

Despite the modernist architectural expression, apartment layouts are a further refinement of the deep traditional shophouse plan. Two spatial units — each equivalent to the width of a shophouse — are combined into a single structural bay. Commodious by pre-war standards, the units are served by ample light courts.

by Darren Soh

Key design aspects of Tiong Bahru Estate — such as the emphasis on the street block, skilful resolution of street corners, and enclosure of open spaces to create communal spaces — recall contemporaneous housing projects in continental Europe.

Here, two-storey-high linear blocks with three-storey street-corner ends are designed to flank the main thoroughfares. These street corner junctions act as “gateways”, with delightful Art Deco details such as graceful projecting fins, curvilinear cantilevered balconies, and green glazed fenestration.

by Darren Soh

by Jeremy San

Among the different block designs, Moh Guan Terrace is the most outstanding. The horseshoe-shaped block was the last to be built before World War II. Its distinctive architectural massing provides a spatial and visual anchor to the estate. Sweeping curves of generous balconies in fair-faced burnt bricks dominate the façades. Now a car park, the vast central space encircled by the mega block was designed as a recreational “playing field” with pavilion structures. The formal entrance to this communal areas is aligned along the block’s central axis, signalled by massive pylons.

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Last modified on 4 May 2021. Description by Chang Jiat Hwee, edited by Justin Zhuang.

Adapted from Chang Jiat Hwee, A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonial Networks, Nature and Technoscience (New York: Routledge, 2016), Chapter 4, 152-154.