220-234 Middle Road

Middle Road
Middle road existed in record as early as Coleman’s 1836 map of Singapore. The name Middle road came about because it served as a demarcation between the White colonial civic town and ethnic settlements like Kampong Glam.
In the 1840s, the Chinese arrived at Middle Road and built the first shophouses in the area. These shophouses belonged to the Early Shophouse Style which is characterized by their low height (about two storeys) with either one or two timber windows on their upper storey façade. The adoptions of the Tuscan and Doric architectural styles were also fairly obvious in their minimalistic exterior. These shophouses were also long and narrow with internal courtyards and were linked together by a sheltered ‘five-foot’ pedestrian way at the front.
Although it is a common narrative that the Hainanese was the first group of Chinese living along Middle Road, they only congregated in the region nearer to the old Hylam Street and Hylam Street in the late 1940s. The other parts of Middle road were populated with Chinese of different dialect groups who practised different trades.
In this essay, I will first begin by exploring the diversity of the row of shophouses at 220-234 Middle Road, from the late 1940s till the early 1980s when they became the subject of urban renewal. Following which, I will investigate the social practices, cultural norms and identity associations of the spaces in the area as a forgotten narrative in Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) accounts of Middle Road.
220-234 Middle Road
220-234 Middle Road was once a row of shophouses located at the northern end of Middle Road between Prinsep Street and Bencoolen Street. This row of shophouses had been demolished in the Urban Renewal of Singapore in the 80s, and IOI plaza now sits in its place with a new address of 210 Middle Road. From the 1940s - 1980s, the shophouses belonged to the Chinese from various dialect groups such as Hakka, Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew. The family structures within this row of shophouses were also different, ranging from a nuclear family of 5 people to an extended family of 25 people to a group of 10 Majies, who were women that worked as domestic servants and had taken a vow never to marry. These complexities and differences led to deeper and more dynamic community that once called Middle Road home.
Retail of Shophouses: Diversity in trades and their evolution into sign craft
From the late 1940s to the late 1960s, the row of shophouses bustled with the activities from the diverse trades. 232 Middle Road sold stationeries to students from the nearby schools like Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, 230 Middle Road tailored suits for businessmen commuting to work via Middle Road while 226 Middle Road sold sundries to housewives around the vicinity.
However this changed in 1970, when the Registry of Vehicles (ROV) opposite introduced the standard license plate and made it mandatory for all registered vehicle to be affixed with one. This resulted in an increase in demand for vehicle license plates which turned sign craft into a lucrative business to venture into. Most of the owners along this row of shophouses intuitively converted their businesses into sign craft businesses. The lack of regulation on car parking along the road further facilitated such a trade as the automobile owners could easily park along the shophouses to get their license plate changed.
Most of the sign craft businesses that still exist today originated from Middle Road during the 1970s. The Registry of Vehicle had since been renamed Land Transport Authority and its old building had been demolished and now Sunshine Plaza sits in its place. Some sign craft shops can still be found in Sunshine Plaza however this evolution of trade has completely been ignored by the state’s narrative on Middle Road.
“Infopedia,” accessed March 2, 2017, http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2013-11-29_160454.html.
Five foot way of Shophouses: Extension of space for petition writers and the mama shop
Along the storefront of 232-200 Middle Road, a small area was rented out to petition writers. These petition writers were mainly engaged by the Chinese-educated vehicle owners to write legal documents like the transfer of vehicle ownership in English which were submitted to the ROV. As they were operating at the front of the shophouses, the stools they provided for their customers often spilled over into the five foot way. The petition writers remained in their attached shophouses till the 1980s when URA’s Urban Renewal also demolished the ROV.
The five foot way served a slightly different purpose for 224 Middle Road. The primary function of its first-level commercial was a coffee shop. However, due to its corner condition, it had space to accommodate a mama shop which is a general provision shop on the adjacent side facing away from the main road. This mama shop came into existence by carving a void out of the wall to serve as shelves for the display of products ranging from cigarettes to newspapers. Patrons of the mama Shop stood along the five foot way to browse the display or to engage in conversation with the shopkeeper. When the night falls, the shopkeeper will close up and set up a makeshift bench along the five foot way which he will sleep on for the night. The five foot way in a way became both the extension of the mama shop’s operations and the living quarters of the shopkeeper.
In the context of these two shophouses, the five foot way definitely provided more than what URA described as “a sheltered environment for passage”. Beyond serving as an informal extension space, it had become a space so intertwined with the daily routines of the people living and working alongside it.
Courtyards of Shophouses: A social and operational space
Shophouses are known for their internal courtyards or airwells that open directly to the sky and this is no different in the shophouses along Middle Road. In URA’s conservation description of these courtyards, only its utilitarian nature of providing “natural ventilation and lighting to the interior of the shophouse” is highlighted. There is a failure in mentioning the myriad of activities that had happened within its confines. In the case of 230 and 234 Middle road, it was in these courtyards that gave rise to a sense of community and identity in the neighbourhood.
The residential on the second storey of 230 Middle Road was home to what the Chinese referred to as majies. These were a group of 10 retired majies that shared lodging as they could not afford the hefty expense of living alone. The courtyard area on the first storey of the shophouse was the dining area for the majies. It also doubled as a congregation space for housewives from around Middle Road to keng gai, Cantonese for chit-chat, in the late afternoons and evenings. It was in this courtyard that the women of the community bonded. On occasions, they would even bring along with them their younger children that will inevitably pick up Cantonese, even if they are of a different dialect, as a result of communicating with the majies.
The large courtyard space of 234 Middle Road, where the coffee shop is located, provided a space that favourable to roast and dry coffee beans due to the abundance of sunlight and ventilation. The aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans that permeated through the courtyard into the streets was a familiar identity to the occupants of the surrounding shophouses.
The neglect in portrayal of personal accounts by URA results in the diluted narrative of the spaces as serving no other purpose beyond its utilitarian function.
Leftover spaces around Shophouses: The makeshift dwelling
Makeshift houses can be found along the back of 222-226 Middle Road and at the side of 220 Middle Road. This was largely due to the presence of a leftover open cemented space around the area. This space was overtime turned into makeshift housing by erecting a few simple wooden partitions and zinc roofs. Some of these makeshift dwelling served as an extension to the families that had grown too large to live within the same shophouse or was too poor to afford another house. Others were erected to make an additional income by subletting the makeshift houses for a lower rent.
This resulted in a village-like atmosphere in the makeshift houses, with the occupants not only residing in these houses but also operating their business there. It was in these makeshift dwellings that the Chinese community spirit was the most evident. Many of the sons of the shophouses courted and then eventually married the daughters that lived in the dwellings.
Again, the spontaneous use of space around these shophouses in the past has been ignored and even removed by the state through Urban Renewal.
These narratives of the tight-knit Chinese community along 220-234 Middle Road definitely illustrate a livelier neighbourhood than what is presented by URA. Urban Renewal was a very unfortunate event that had removed this row of shophouses in the 1980s and replaced it with IOI Plaza. Even at the adjacent plot where the buildings were spared from Urban Renewal, URA merely referred to the conservation area as “13 units of two-storey shophouses mainly of the Early and Transitional Shophouse styles that include the landmark David Elias Building and the former Middle Road Hospital”.
As the state strips the narrative of buildings down to their physical form, it is important for the people to always remember the need for consideration of the untold narratives of the people that once occupied the space.
---- “Conservation Portal -,” accessed March 2, 2017, https://www.ura.gov.sg/Conservation-Portal/Explore/History?bldgid=SHST .
---- Ibid.
---- s.v A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English. Accessed March 2, 2017. http://singlishdictionary.com/singlish_M.htm .
“The Shophouse,” 2017, accessed March 2, 2017, https://www.ura.gov.sg/uol/conservation/vision-and-principles/The-Shophouse .
---- Urban Redevelopment Authority, Accessed March 3, 2017, https://www.ura.gov.sg/services/download_file.aspx?f=%7B85B57C4B-BC18-47D5-B1D5-6254D10562D1%7D .

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