Top 10 Things to See and Do at Tiong Bahru, Singapore

Introduction: You’ve probably had a cup of coffee from one of these Top Great Cafes in Tiong Bahru and Telok Blangah of Singapore. A cup of piping hot coffee always hits the spot, then why not take a stroll to the Tiong Bahru Market along Seng Poh Road for the best local delicacies to perk up your weekend. But we digress. Whether you’re on the lookout for the killer brunch menu or craving for European Cuisine, pop by these Top Great Cafes in Tiong Bahru and Telok Blangah of Singapore.

A unique outlet located in the trendy Tiong Bahru neighbourhood, PS.Cafe Petit is a quaint location inspired by the traditional French cafes of yesteryear. This outlet was also our first to feature artisanal pizzas and exceptional curated retail wines within its retail offering, which it still offers today. Visit PS.Cafe Petit if you’re looking for a venue that offers an extensive range of wines from across the world, freshly baked loaves of bread and cakes, as well as delicious takeaways.

Location: No. 41, Blk, 78 Guan Chuan St, 160078

Opening Hours:

• Weekdays :10am–10:30pm (Last order at 10.00 pm)
• Weekends : 9am–10:30pm (Last order at 10.00 pm)

Price of Admission: No Entrance Fee

Contact: 

Phone number: (+65 6708 9288)

Islandwide Delivery: (https://order.pscafepetit.com/)

Deliveroo: (https://deliveroo.com.sg/menu/singapore/tiong-bahru/ps-cafe-petit-tiong-bahru)

Grab: (https://food.grab.com/sg/en/restaurant/ps-cafe-petit-tiong-bahru-delivery/SGDD07206)

Foodpanda: (https://www.foodpanda.sg/restaurant/v4es/ps-cafe-petit-tiong-bahru)

Website: Website Link Here

Introduction: While Tiong Bahru was planned with plenty of green spaces between its blocks, there were no initial plans for a landscaped recreational garden. For a time, the area near the Community Centre at Eu Chin Street had, in the 1960s, been planted with various plants and shrubs in the manner of a garden, but it was only in 1972 that a landscaped garden at Seng Poh Road was planned.

The space where Seng Poh Garden is now located was an open grassy area which residents used for their morning exercise and gatherings. Returning to his old estate, Member of Parliament for Tiong Bahru and former resident Ch’ng Jit Koon (b. 1934) was anxious that the estate’s green spaces be given greater prominence. To this end, he asked Sarawak-born sculptor Lim Nang Seng (1916–1987) – who had already established himself as a leading sculptor in Singapore – to do something ‘as soon as possible’.

As Ch’ng’s commission was urgent, Lim chose an abstract form depicting a girl doing a sort of joyful harvest dance. He sculpted the 1.2-metre high sculpture in a car park in Orchard Road and finished it within two weeks. Made of concrete, the sculpture cost less than $2,000 at the time. The Dancing Girl sculpture was unveiled by then Minister for Interior and Defence Lim Kim San (1916–2006). The sculpture drew mixed reactions. Some residents loved it while others thought it too abstract, saying that it looked more like a swan about to take flight. Lim Nang Seng was not upset by these comments, saying that since swans were auspicious birds, it was fine if residents thought that it brought prosperity to the estate. The Garden underwent a $250,000 renovation lasting six months in 2007.

Location: 78 Guan Chuan St, Singapore 160078

Price of Admission: No Entrance Fee

Contact: NIL

Website: Website Link Here

Introduction: After the Second World War, SIT built several blocks of four-storey flats between 1948 and 1954, which can be seen around Lim Liak Road and along Seng Poh Road northwards toward Tiong Bahru Road and Boon Tiong Road. The design of these post-war flats in Tiong Bahru was done by SIT’s Senior Architect Lincoln Page and Robert FN Kan, the first locally-born person to be appointed assistant architect and town planner in SIT. Page and Kan favoured the International Style of design which was inspired by mechanical simplicity and structure. One important characteristic of the International Style is the use of boxes to carve out the interior space of the building. Lines are clean and simple, giving the building a modern yet functional look.

The International Style emerged in the 1920s as a reaction against historicism (a theory that each period of history has its own unique beliefs and values and can only be understood in its historical context) and the ostentatious decorative aspects of the Art Deco movement. Among its leading practitioners were Le Corbusier (1887–1965), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) and Walter Gropius (1883–1969). Like the pre-war Streamline Moderne, practitioners of the International Style adopted a machine aesthetic, which emphasised abstract, undecorated surfaces reminiscent of machines, and the edict that form follows function. Their designs, which favoured heavy use of concrete, steel and glass, were boxier than the pre-war flats and presented a stark, almost austere, aesthetic that critics have labelled as ‘ugly’, ‘sterile’ and even ‘inhuman’. However, Page and Kan avoided a completely boxed design for these blocks by infusing the external staircases with luscious curved landings and round portholes, reminiscent of the older flats in the estate.

Although the SIT architects were deeply influenced by Western architectural styles like Streamline Moderne and the International Style, they were also very sensitive to local conditions and modified their designs accordingly. For a start, the architects were very aware that they were designing flats for the tropics where intense heat and tropical rainstorms are common hazards. Taking a leaf from the highly successful shophouse style, the SIT architects retained several familiar features in their modernist designs. Some of these architectural elements were five-foot ways, back lanes, the shophouse, spiral staircases and the kitchen airwell.

Location: Tiong Bahru

Price of Admission: No Entrance Fee

Contact: NIL

Website: Website Link Here

Introduction: Early geographers and town planners of Singapore saw the Singapore River as a valley between two high points: Fort Canning and Pearl’s Hill, and thus named two roads on either bank of the river, River Valley Road. Naturally, this proved rather confusing. In 1858, the Municipal Commission decided to rename the former River Valley Road that leads towards New Bridge Road by the foot of Pearl’s Hill. Specifically, the stretch from the junction of Kim Seng Road towards Upper Cross Street was renamed Havelock Road, while the stretch from the junction of Kim Seng Road to New Bridge Road was renamed Outram Road. This was done to honour the two British heroes of the Indian Mutiny: Lieutenant-General James Outram (1803–1863) and Lieutenant-General Henry Havelock (1795–1857), who had put down the Indian Mutiny the year before.

This hilly area near the junction of Jalan Bukit Merah and Outram Road had long been a military area. It was first settled when the 35th Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry built their barracks at this junction in 1827. Members of this regiment were Sepoys – Indian soldiers employed by the East India Company – and the area became known as Sepoy Lines. The Sepoys occupied this area till the 1860s when they moved to Tanglin Barracks where the Dempsey Road and Dempsey Hill eateries are now located. In 1873, the Singapore General Hospital relocated to Sepoy Lines. As the Sepoys had by this time relocated to Tanglin Barracks and to Fort Canning, the hospital was able to use the buildings that previously housed the troops.

Location: Outram Rd

Price of Admission: No Entrance Fee

Contact: NIL

Website: Website Link Here

Introduction: Tan Tock Seng (陈笃生) was one of Singapore’s most important early pioneers. Born in 1798 in Malacca, he moved to Singapore in 1819 at the age of 21, shortly after the British arrived. Starting out by selling fruits, vegetables and poultry, he soon put together enough capital to set up a shop at Boat Quay. Tan, who was Hokkien, learnt to speak English and got on well with the European traders. He entered into a partnership with John Horrocks Whitehead (1810–1846), a prominent trader from the firm of Shaw, Whitehead & Co, and it was largely due to their joint speculation in land that Tan became immensely wealthy.

Tan owned large tracts of land, including more than 20 hectares at the site of the former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station. He also owned another plot of land that stretched from Connaught Drive to High Street and up to Tank Road. Tan and his brother Tan Oo Long also owned a nutmeg plantation. Tan’s close connections with the local community made him a natural leader and his tact and ability to resolve disputes among the Chinese endeared him to the British.

In 1844, seeing the plight of the locals on the island, Tan contributed $5,000 towards the construction of a Chinese Pauper’s Hospital on top of Pearl’s Hill which was to take care of the ‘diseased of all nations’. Construction of the hospital took three years but after it was completed, it stood empty for two more years due to a lack of funds to equip the hospital and employ staff. In 1849, the first patients were admitted to the hospital. The hospital moved to premises located at the junction of Serangoon Road and Balestier Road in 1861. In 1903, this tract of land was acquired and the hospital moved yet again, to its current location off Moulmein Road.

Tan Tock Seng died in 1850 and was buried in an unknown location. Indeed, a newspaper report documenting his funeral simply stated that his cortege journeyed to a ‘burial place’. Tan Tock Seng was survived by his wife Lee Seo Neo (1807–1877).

The land where the tombs are now located was acquired by Tan Tock Seng’s son, Tan Kim Ching (1829 – 1892), in 1877, and this is where the younger Tan chose to bury his wife, Chua Seah Neo, when she died in 1882. It was quite possible that at this time, Kim Ching made the decision to exhume his father’s remains and re-inter them at the same Outram Road site, right next to his own wife’s tomb. In 1969, the tombs were threatened with exhumation when the government widened Outram Road to cope with increased traffic. Appeals from Tan Tock Seng’s descendants to safeguard the tombs were successful. But in the 1980s, the tombs were forgotten, until they were ‘rediscovered’ in 1989. Since then, descendants of Tan Tock Seng have been tending to the tomb and a major sprucing up of the site was carried out in 2009.

Location: 254 Outram Rd, Singapore 169051

Opening Hours:

• Open 24 hours

Price of Admission: No Entrance Fee

Contact: NIL

Website: Website Link Here

Introduction: The idea of setting up a organisation to organise activities for the community emerged among Tiong Bahru’s residents shortly after the war. In July 1948, Lau Yew Hock, a prominent member of the Tiong Bahru community and Secretary of the Singapore Chinese Importers and Exporters Association, proposed the establishment of a community centre. The Singapore Free Press reported on 26 July 1948 that at a meeting held at the Outram Road Church Hall, residents unanimously resolved that “a community centre is most desirable to further the moral, cultural, physical and advancement of the residents of Tiong Bahru”.

An Interim Working Committee was formed and a month later, a blueprint for “a system of local self-government for a mixed community” was prepared for the approval of the residents of Tiong Bahru SIT Estate. Among other things, the Tiong Bahru Community Centre was to be established to “train its members to be useful and responsible citizens by: (a) promoting friendship among themselves, irrespective of race or creed; (b) promoting the physical, intellectual, social and moral development of its members; and (c) teaching or interesting its members in the pursuit of some vocation.”

However, these plans did not take off until a few years later. In July 1951, a community centre building was established at Eu Chin Street at the cost of $20,000 and was officially opened by Duncan Robertson. The Community Centre proved very popular and within six weeks of its opening, 13,000 members had signed up. The Centre was very active, organising regular film shows, weekend dances and entertainment for its members and residents.

Did you know?
The original Tiong Bahru Community Centre at Eu Chin Street in 1951 was in fact a converted stand-alone air-raid shelter. It is still there today.

Location: 67A Eu Chin St, Singapore 169715

Opening Hours:

• Daily 10am–6pm

Price of Admission: No Entrance Fee

Contact: +65 6223 0748

Website: Website Link Here