A very good afternoon to our hosts from Yueh Hai Ching temple,
The Ngee Ann Kongsi,
My Parliamentary colleagues,
Friends from the embassies,
Colleagues from URA,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
I am glad to join you at the presentation ceremony for the 2014 Architectural Heritage Awards at this historic 粤海清 (Yueh Hai Ching) Temple. This Taoist temple where we are now, was established by the Teochew immigrants who came to Singapore in the early 19th century. Look around you, without this tentage you will see it nestled amidst the modern towering skyscrapers of the Central Business District, this temple, like many other heritage buildings in Singapore, is a good visual reminder of our history and where we came from. The contrast of past and present also demonstrates how far we have as a city. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the descendants of the Teochew immigrants who established this temple many, many decades ago, now work in the highrise offices around this place, and they might not even realise.
As Singapore turns 50 next year, I am encouraged to see these physical markers of our history being cherished, protected and painstakingly restored.
This year is also the 20th year that the URA is celebrating the quality restoration of our conserved buildings through these Awards. It is heartening to see how standards have risen over the years. Just last month, Yueh Hai Ching Temple won the prestigious UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation. I would like to congratulate the team behind this temple’s restoration. This is a very proud accomplishment, both for the team and for Singapore. It follows in the pioneering footsteps of 2001 Architectural Heritage Award winner, the Thian Hock Keng Temple, and last year’s Award winner Hong San See Temple, which were also recognised by UNESCO.
In fact, there are common threads that run in all three award winners that I just referred to. For instance, the Ngee Ann Kongsi engaged Dr Yeo Kang Shua, the architectural historian who worked on Hong San See Temple, to also be a consultant for Yueh Hai Ching Temple. The associations behind all three temples also recruited skilled craftsmen from China to help in the restoration work. Evidently, many more of us share the belief that pride and care are needed for the restoration and enhancement of such precious treasures from our past, so that they can continue to be appreciated by us and by our future generations.
Our other award winners this year have also contributed significantly to our architectural heritage. Those of you who have strolled along Neil Road recently might have noticed two similarly striking blue houses. One of this year’s winning submissions was inspired by its neighbour 157 Neil Road, otherwise known as the NUS Baba House, to recover its historic colour tone. The NUS Baba House was restored by the URA back in 2006 to demonstrate the latest best practices in restoration, and it seems that such efforts do have a ripple effect. We hope that this will be the start of a virtuous cycle of restoration in Blair Plain and beyond.
When the restoration of heritage buildings is handled well, it can have a transformative effect on the neighbourhoods around these buildings. The five shophouses at Townshend Road, now collectively known as J8 Hotel and one of this year’s winning submissions, retain what we affectionately call a “mama store” – a traditional street-side activity that helps to keep the street “alive” and recalls the area’s past. Their new use as a heritage boutique hotel has also helped reinvigorate the surroundings, attracting more visitors and businesses to the area.
We do what we can in terms of hardware but what truly brings a restored building to life is how people engage with it, identify with its past, and continue to make it part of their present lives and community. In Kampong Glam, for instance, stakeholders and businesses along Haji Lane worked with agencies, such as the URA and LTA, last May, to close the road off to traffic on Fridays evenings and weekends and make it a pedestrian-only street. Since then, shopkeepers and visitors alike have been enjoying the laidback atmosphere and street activities amid the conserved shophouses. A new precinct association, One Kampong Gelam, was formed in June this year, and has added to the vibrancy and richness of the historic quarter. This is still a work in progress, and I hope that the Kampong Glam community and conservation community will continue to give One Kampong Gelam and the URA all the support that they need to sustain the right balance between celebrating tradition and evolving the landscape at the precinct for the future.
Other historic districts have made similar strides. I am sure many of you here enjoyed the Mid-Autumn celebrations and decorations brought to you by the Chinatown stakeholders last month. I also recently read about the app introduced by the Little India Shopkeepers and Heritage Association, which visitors can do a self-guided tour through Little India and the many fine conserved buildings there.
Individuals and communities play a very important role in telling and re-telling the stories that bring historic buildings alive and make them part of our collective heritage and history. Buildings are buildings. Heritage is when people tell the stories about the place - stories from their forefathers; stories from their grandparents; stories of their present. My URA colleagues were very happy to have former NMP Ms Faizah Jamal support their festival programming in July this year by leading a walk for the public to understand Kampong Glam. Faizah is one of the few who have chosen to move back into their old homes in Kampong Glam. She braved the heat during Ramadan to share hidden stories of her hometown with other Singaporeans. In fact, when I joined MND last year, she took me on a four-hour walking tour to see every nook and cranny of Kampong Glam. She was so passionate about it, telling me about her family, neighbours and friends, and the life she had in that area. Through the sharing of personal memories and the retelling of stories passed down through the generations, we get a more intimate and textured sense of how buildings around us were used, the roles they played, and how they were valued by individuals and communities.
And even outside our historic districts, groups like My Community and the Tiong Bahru heritage volunteers have been bringing Singaporeans together through initiatives such as heritage trails and festivals to celebrate and better appreciate their estates and communities. Such activities help to turn our housing estates into our homes because of the stories we share of the place.
Our conservation programme in Singapore is relatively young. In the span of 25 years, we have managed to conserve close to 7,200 buildings and structures. Given our small size and very limited land, it is our collective responsibility to make the best use of this collection of heritage buildings – by protecting and restoring them painstakingly and investing in them in the right way, so that their true, intrinsic value can be unlocked for society as a whole. I am glad that our restoration standards have matured as a result of us having more heritage specialists in the field. Without their historical and technical knowledge, and certainly without enlightened and enthusiastic building owners, we would not have so many well-restored heritage buildings in Singapore. But more can and should be done to allow to people to enjoy and appreciate our built heritage. The Architectural Heritage Award winners have set a very good example – I encourage more to be trendsetters, pioneering new ways of treating and looking at old buildings that are sometimes forgotten or taken for granted.
The URA, in partnership with the Singapore Heritage Society, has been organising “Cakap Heritage” sessions since the start of this year to encourage more Singaporeans to tell their stories. At these sessions, people literally cakap [Malay word for talk] or talk about their experiences of certain historical neighbourhoods. We know the stories at the national level and the community level, but tell us the stories of your parents and grandparents to bring the place alive. I heard that the first session on Chinatown drew quite a few of our seniors, who were delighted to contribute their childhood memories of the Kreta Ayer New Year market and ‘Phoenix’ Shoe Shop on South Bridge Road. I hope to see more of such ground up efforts, which celebrate the stories of our people in the community and allow for inter-generational story-telling and interactions.
And it is not just our pioneers who have a role to play in documenting our buildings’ past and present lives. For the second year running, students from the School of the Arts have contributed a video documentary on one of last year’s AHA winners, the Lorong 24A Shophouse Series. The piece shows that young eyes can appreciate and capture the wonder and beauty of our historical gems. I am also happy to learn that since the launch of the URA’s online “My Conservation Portal” last year, Singaporeans from all walks of life have been coming forward to post their personal stories of the conserved buildings – we welcome more of these stories.
This afternoon, we recognise three remarkable examples of outstanding restoration, and the people behind them. The winning projects are: (i) the Yueh Hai Ching Temple, a masterfully and meticulously restored temple; (ii) a vintage terrace house lovingly reinterpreted into a modern home along Neil Road; and (iii) five shophouses brought together as a tasteful addition to the Townshend streetscape. This brings the total number of projects that have been given the Architectural Heritage Awards since 1995 to 120.
I would also like to commend the team behind No. 271 Tembeling Road, which is given a Special Mention for the sensitive treatment of the conserved property. Through reinstating the rear courtyard, they have created an efficient, naturally-lit home that showcases shophouse living at its best.
Please join me in congratulating this year’s award winners. On behalf of the URA, I would like to thank the owners, developers, professionals and contractors of these outstanding projects. Your passion and dedication have produced meaningful, long-lasting results that are of the highest standards and relevance to the conservation movement and to our community.
Conserving and restoring our buildings is only the first step. How they are then brought to life – being regarded and incorporated into people’s daily lives – determines whether they will continue to be relevant and important. We are limited or inspired by what we know. So, our role as individuals and communities must be to contribute by telling and retelling the stories of these buildings and places that are important to us as a collective, tell these stories to our people, to the next generation.
Thank you.