Chap Lau Chu: The Re-Opening of Commonwealth Drive (Tanglin Halt) is a project that playfully engages themes of popular memory and urban space.
The 10-storey flats, otherwise known as Chap Lau Chu in Hokkien have been officially empty since February 2014 and face an uncertain future.
The flats were constructed at Tanglin Halt Road in 1962, making Tanglin Halt one of Singapore’s earliest, urban neighbourhoods. They serve as reminder of a heady season of Singapore’s growth and progress.
The flats were also built along the former KTM railway—the “umbilical chord” that until recently linked island Singapore to mainland Malaya. Daily life at Chap Lau Chu was punctuated by the sights and sounds of the trains. The railway also gave Tanglin Halt its name as trains used to ‘halt’ at the Archipelago Brewery Company (currently IKEA) in Alexandra Road.
In 2008, the Chap Lau Chu became part of an en bloc redevelopment scheme. All commercial businesses have now evacuated the space and a majority of residents have since moved out.
The resident Karang Guni man, Mr Chua, is the central agent of our photographic and performance initiative. He is representative of a rich informal economy and community life along the KTM railway line and the adjacent Chap Lau flats. He is also one of the persistent presences on the estate and insists, despite the impending closure of his living quarters, on hanging around until the end.
Mr Chua has significantly altered our romanticised and jaundiced presumptions about the tearing down of the en bloc flats. His resilience and humour inspired us and he quickly became a partner in the formulation of a satirical approach to an event that has been lamented as one more loss to modern Singapore urban heritage. He is now at the forefront of our project as he helps us to recycle and reinvent typical Singaporean assumptions and constructions.
Indeed Mr Chua right now, by virtue of his tenacity is Karang Guni King of Chap Lau—a spatial-temporal no-man’s-land.
The 10-storey flats, otherwise known as Chap Lau Chu in Hokkien have been officially empty since February 2014 and face an uncertain future.
The flats were constructed at Tanglin Halt Road in 1962, making Tanglin Halt one of Singapore’s earliest, urban neighbourhoods. They serve as reminder of a heady season of Singapore’s growth and progress.
The flats were also built along the former KTM railway—the “umbilical chord” that until recently linked island Singapore to mainland Malaya. Daily life at Chap Lau Chu was punctuated by the sights and sounds of the trains. The railway also gave Tanglin Halt its name as trains used to ‘halt’ at the Archipelago Brewery Company (currently IKEA) in Alexandra Road.
In 2008, the Chap Lau Chu became part of an en bloc redevelopment scheme. All commercial businesses have now evacuated the space and a majority of residents have since moved out.
The resident Karang Guni man, Mr Chua, is the central agent of our photographic and performance initiative. He is representative of a rich informal economy and community life along the KTM railway line and the adjacent Chap Lau flats. He is also one of the persistent presences on the estate and insists, despite the impending closure of his living quarters, on hanging around until the end.
Mr Chua has significantly altered our romanticised and jaundiced presumptions about the tearing down of the en bloc flats. His resilience and humour inspired us and he quickly became a partner in the formulation of a satirical approach to an event that has been lamented as one more loss to modern Singapore urban heritage. He is now at the forefront of our project as he helps us to recycle and reinvent typical Singaporean assumptions and constructions.
Indeed Mr Chua right now, by virtue of his tenacity is Karang Guni King of Chap Lau—a spatial-temporal no-man’s-land.
