The shophouses on Ann Siang Hill, the tallest geographic point in Chinatown, are today home to fashion boutiques, trendy bars, and posh restaurants, but before ownership of the hill passed into the hands (and namesake) of Chia Ann Siang, the hill had two prior owners who also named the hill after themselves.

Charles Scott was the first to occupy the hill. He ran a clove and nutmeg plantation on it after tapping an underground spring to form a well and thereafter called it Scotts Hill. After a series of crop failings, however, ownership of the hill passed to John Gemmill, Singapore’s first auctioneer and banker, who renamed it Gemmill’s Hill. A Malay college and high school relocated to the top of the hill and a Cantonese burial ground at the base of it (which was later exhumed and used for land reclamation). In 1894 the land was sold to Chia Ann Siang, a Melacca-born timber businessman. The once-cultivated hill gave way to shophouses and recreation centers constructed to serve the Chinese community.

Most of the buildings you see today were built between 1900 and 1940 and were once home to remittance houses and clan associations visited by immigrant and often illiterate Chinese. They found support above the hustle and bustle of Chinatown below, got help finding jobs, and could send back money to their relatives in China.

By the 1980s, Ann Siang Hill and Chinatown in general were in decline in both attractiveness and usefulness to rapidly modernizing Singapore. To reinvent and revitalize the historic yet now crumbling and vermon-infested area, the Urban Redevelopment Authority in 1989 gave conservation status to Chinatown which Ann Siang Hill is a part of.

Targeting tourists and Singaporeans alike, today you will find hidden parks and fascinating alleyways full of beautifully conserved shophouses. Ann Siang Hill remains true to its heritage while at the same time is hip and happening.

Photography by PaperTastebuds.com

In the 1860s, three quarters of the shipping business went through Boat Quay. The shape of the river at this bend resembled that of the belly of a carp fish – which in Chinese tradition is where good fortune resides. A chaotic orchestra emerged between the moored bumboats and the sun-tanned coolies who would carry over springy gangplanks gunny sacks filled with everything from rice, silk, opium, spices and coffee. Walking up the river you would have seen shipping offices, supply shops and warehouses housed in many of the same buildings you see today.

By 1983, the cargo passing through Singapore had moved to the new high-tech, highly-mechanized container terminal at Pasir Panjong. Boat Quay ceased being the heart of entrepot trade in the city-state and quieted down as the area faced pollution and squatters. The government embarked on a massive clean up project of quays along the river in the ’70s and ’80s and in 1989 the Urban Redevelopment Authority designated Boat Quay for conservation. The role of Boat Quay shifted from accommodating trade to accommodating tourism. Adaptive re-use of the shophouses brought restaurants, bars, and small shops in contrast the blandness of the Central Business District right next door. The road along the river has become a pedestrian mall and although not the site of hectic maritime commerce Boat Quay retains being one of the most expensive and economically important pieces of land in Singapore.

Conducive to living as well as commerce, shophouses are long, typically two- to four- story structures, attached to each other and often connected to the street by a continuous covered five foot way which protects customers and passerbys from the scorching tropical sunlight. The idea behind their construction was to faciliate retail trade on the ground floor with ancillary offices and residences on the upper floors. Shophouses are commonly found in Singapore, Malaysia, southern Thailand, and elsewhere throughout Southeast Asia, but their architectural style is not indigenous. Their presence is a multicultural mélange of Eastern and Western elements spread to the region by the mercantile activity of centuries past.

Shophouses in Asia can be found in old town centres. As trade prospered in the 19th century up and down the coastal cities of the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea, what were once small fishing villages or tin mining towns grew into bustling port cities whose land near their urban epicentre became scarce and expensive. Immigrants, colonialists and traders each contributed to a unique urban architectural style where business and home weren’t afraid to meet. Shophouses became a standard home form for such urban families and continues to be part of the region’s rich urban heritage.