Photo Gallery

Fuk Tak Chi Temple (bult 1824, 1997 onward as museum)

Fuk Tak Chi is the oldest temple structure in Singapore. The entrance gate and the front chamber are built according to the formal style of the old magistrate courts in China. This symbolized the power of the temple and its authorities in mediating disputes.

In July 1994 the temple ceased to function, and the management was relocated. It's not clear if these steps were fully voluntary. By 1997 the government funded a restoration effort that involved bringing in expert Chinese craftsmen from Southern China to carry out parts of the restoration. The restoration lasted 18 months, and Fuk Tak Chi reopened as the Fuk Tak Chi Museum.

As a museum, Fuk Tak Chi is part of a larger urban planning initiative known as "Far East Square". This involved the restoration of 61 conservation buildings around a single city block. Instead of restoring each building in isolation, the roughly rectangular area bounded by the buildings was roofed over with steel and glass, creating an air-conditioned mall-like atmosphere. The design intent was to:

...create a unique and vibrant commercial centre to showcase the historic nature of the area within the setting of a 21st century city complex. This was done through the juxtaposition of the traditional shophouses against the backdrop of the glass and steel structures of the new architecture, in essence creating an environment where the past and present "co-exist" (Yip, et al., 181).

To facilitate business within the "mall", the rear facades of many of the shop houses were opened up, and side walls were tunneled through to create larger floor areas.

The project appears to be successful in a commercial sense--there's plenty of visitors to the square. However, the fact that certain functioning buildings were converted to different uses (and their tenants removed, in the case of Fuk Tak Chi), coupled with the unharmonious modern glass-and-steel network used to roof the mall, leaves this approach to conservation highly problematic. It also creates unintentional irony. If we are meant to juxtapose the past and present in our mind's eye with the beauty of the old shophouses set against the bare steel and glass of the modern world, how can the present not but come up short?