It is a public holiday in Singapore and drizzling rain has given way to sticky, hot weather, but this has not dissuaded visitors at Tanjong Pagar station. In the mid-morning sun, families and couples walk along the railway tracks. Young children are particularly eager to totter over the old steel slats. Almost everyone is taking photographs — whether with a selfie stick or digital single-lens reflex cameras.
Jenny Goh, a 57-year-old mother and entrepreneur, is among the early visitors.
“If you don’t take photos then when it’s gone, it’s really gone,” Goh said.
She has brought her grown-up daughter with her to see the station from which, as a child, she used to take the train to Malaysia to see her relatives. When the service stopped running in 2011, Goh was among the crowds who witnessed the final train pulling out of the station. Malaysia’s Sultan of Johor was behind the wheel.
As Singapore looks back on its first 50 years of independence, heritage is increasingly part of the national conversation — and with its art deco and neoclassical architecture, Tanjong Pagar station is one of the city-state’s most distinctive buildings.
However, the station is also at the center of a debate about the extent to which Singaporeans should be involved in future planning decisions in the traditionally “top-down” city-state.
Plans are under way to redevelop the station as a multifunctional community space. The original architecture is to be retained, but facilities such as an auditorium and art gallery (plus a state-of-the-art, underground MRT station) are to be added. Furthermore, the 24km stretch of former railway line is envisaged to become a linear park: already dubbed the “Railway Corridor,” the park would be almost 10 times longer than New York’s High Line.
Even before the plans for redevelopment were announced, Singaporeans were already making use of the old railway line in an unusually informal way. After the majority of the tracks had been returned to Malaysia, a long swathe of wilderness was left behind. Joggers, cyclists and nature enthusiasts started to explore; artists came to perform.
For Singaporeans, this exploration was a novelty in a city-state where most green spaces are manicured and public space is highly regulated.
“We don’t have a lot of green spaces and this is one of the few that’s not a polished, designed park. This is as ‘rural’ as you can get in central Singapore,” said Stella Gwee (魏愛玲), cofounder of placemaking consultancy firm Shophouse & Co.
“The Railway Corridor had lots of noise on the ground,” said her colleague Adib Jalal. “There was a lot of ground-up interest, with groups like the Nature Society and the Heritage Society involved. Just by the fact that the railway line passes through so many neighborhoods, each one feels it has a little piece of ownership.”
However, Goh has more mixed feelings.
“You have to sacrifice some things for the future,” Goh said, pragmatically.
She plans to pay more visits to the station before the end of this year. After December, the station is to be closed for construction and it does not plan to open again until 2025.
Singapore has long been known for its efficient urban planning and regulation of public space. It is not a nation where you see graffiti: a few years ago, a 26-year-old artist was sentenced to community service after she was caught stenciling roads and pasting stickers in public.
All public protests must be held in the same, designated place: Hong Lim Park.
However, in recent years the Singaporean government has begun to encourage community activities to “enliven” public spaces and get people interacting. The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) recently launched “Our Favourite Place,” a funding initiative for people to carry out creative projects in public spaces.
“The ultimate goal of good urban planning is to create a city that citizens love,” said Tan See Nin (陳時彥), senior director of planning at the URA. “The way to do this is obviously through community participation, so that people have a stake in what is planned and developed in the city and their neighborhoods.”
“[However,] in a city-state like Singapore, how much more to conserve is always a dilemma and has to be balanced against the demand for land to meet the various needs of the nation,” he added.
Inside the bright, cavernous ticket hall of Tanjong Pagar station — which opened in 1932 when Singapore was part of British Malaya — the walls are adorned with the vintage letters FMSR: Federated Malay States Railway. There are also murals depicting the trade, commerce and agriculture on which Singapore’s founding wealth was built.
“They are rubber tappers,” more than one parent explains to their child, pointing to a mural of workers toiling among the trees.
To these children, such images of Singapore must seem fantastical.
They were born into a modern city-state, complete with efficient public transport, clean streets, shiny malls and neighborhoods tiled with high rises. The Federated Malay States no longer exist: instead, there are two neighboring nations with a strictly controlled border. In many ways, Singapore and Malaysia are now a world apart.
Perhaps this is why Tanjong Pagar station has taken on such resonance for Singaporeans. Currently opened only for public holidays and special events, crowds come in their thousands: an estimated 92,000 people have visited in the past two years alone.
To the government, the station is not just a beautiful heritage building; it is a point of national pride. Until 2011, this entire stretch of railway belonged to Malaysia — and since Tanjong Pagar is located in the south of the island, Singapore had to endure a strip of foreign land running right through it after becoming independent from Malaysia in 1965. This led to some kinks in the immigration system.
“As long as you were on the train, you were on Malaysian soil,” said Mahen Bala, a filmmaker and researcher who is documenting Malaysian railway history. “I remember waking up as the train went across the causeway [into Singapore] and you would see the queue of cars lining up for customs, while you could just go straight by.”
Gwee recalls going to the station because it was a place you could still get Malaysian food.
“People would go to the train station to eat because the food was good. It was one part of Singapore that did not feel like Singapore — you would feel like you were in Malaysia without going to Malaysia. The satay was one of the best,” Gwee said.
Down on the railway tracks at Tanjong Pagar station today, two blue signs have been erected: one over an old hydraulic buffer, the other next to an upright control lever. Each sign politely reads: “As these are important heritage artifacts, we appreciate if you refrain from touching. Thank you for your understanding.”
However, it seems that Singaporeans are eager to engage fully with their heritage these days; visitors ignore the signs and reach for the lever, clasping it as they pose for photographs. After all, this is their history, too, and despite some reservations, most here seem optimistic about Singapore’s modernizing approach to its heritage.
“More and more people sense an energy and vibe, and that energy cannot be created from a top-down approach,” Gwee said. “It has to be sustained organically. To do that, you need to inspire people to be engaged with public spaces as well.”
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