Lau Pa Sat literally means "Old Market", also
known as Telok Ayer Market ; it is a historic building located within the
Downtown Core in the Central Area of Singapore. It is currently a food-center.
There are several shops inside the market such as a 24 hours Cheers Store, a
shoe repair shop, a tailor and a laundry store. In the evenings on the weekend
a live band plays at the stage in the middle of the market.
Heading there is slightly difficult, thus do navigate
with GPS with coordinates: 1°16′50.2″N 103°51′01.2″E as the beautiful building is sinking amongst
the tall high rise modern buildings.
The market remains one of the oldest Victorian design
structure in the South-East Asia and one of the first structure built in
pre-fabricated iron in Asia. It is also the only remaining market left that
served the residents in the central district of early Singapore.
In the early nineteenth century, Telok Ayer Market was a
simple wooden building, located on piles just over the waters of Telok Ayer Bay
from which the market derived its name. The Malay name Telok Ayer means
"water bay", and the then coastal road Telok Ayer Street was located
alongside the bay before land reclamation work started in 1879.
Lau Pa Sat means "old market" in the vernacular
Chinese of Singapore. Lau means old; pa sat is the Hokkien pronunciation of the
Persian loanword bazaar (market) which is pasar in Malay. The original Telok
Ayer market was one of the oldest markets in Singapore; a new market was later
built along Ellenborough Road, and that market became known to the locals as
the "new market" (Pasar Baru or Sin Pa Sat), while the Telok Ayer
Market in turn became known colloquially as the "old market" or Lau
Pa Sat. Because of its Victorian iron structure, the market is also referred to
in Malay as pasar besi (market of iron).
While walking on the way to Lau Pa Sat, we encounter bronze statue that is street art installation, titled "Living World Series" by Ju Ming.
Born in the 1938. Ju Ming is a Taiwanese sculptor who
attained fame in Taiwan in the 1970s, and in New York in 1983. Ju Ming was
trained as a woodcarver, apprenticed to Lee Chin-chuan as a teenager. He
developed skill in applied it to a range of media, including bronze, Styrofoam,
ceramics and stainless steel. In 1959, he moved back to Tung Hsiao and opened
his own studio with apprentices, creating a successful crafts business, which left
him dissatisfied. He became more artistic and tried innovative techniques. Ju
married Chen Fu-mei, also from Tung Hsiao, three years later.
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I just love a history of anything... so if you are interested to read more about Lau Pa Sat; I copy pasted from Wikipedia here with images:
Lau Pa Sat means "old market" in the vernacular
Chinese of Singapore. Lau means old; pa sat is the Hokkien pronunciation of the
Persian loanword bazaar (market) which is pasar in Malay. The original Telok
Ayer market was one of the oldest markets in Singapore; a new market was later
built along Ellenborough Road, and that market became known to the locals as
the "new market" (Pasar Baru or Sin Pa Sat), while the Telok Ayer
Market in turn became known colloquially as the "old market" or Lau
Pa Sat. Because of its Victorian iron structure, the market is also referred to
in Malay as pasar besi (market of iron).
The old Telok Ayer Market at the seaside as designed by
George Drumgoole Coleman at Telok Ayer Bay. Details of an 1847 painting by John
Turnbull Thomson. The fish market extension is visible behind the main market.
The first market built in Singapore, a fish market, was
located on the south bank of the Singapore River near the north end of the
Market Street. On 4 November 1822, as part of his general plan to remodel the
town, Stamford Raffles issued an instruction to relocate the fish market to
Telok Ayer. The construction of the Telok Ayer Market started in 1823 under the
supervision of police officer Francis James Bernard at a site on the southern
end of Market Street on Telok Ayer Bay. The market, a timber-and-atap
structure, opened in 1824. It was built on the shore that partially extended
out to the sea so that waste may be washed away by the tides, and produce may
be loaded or unloaded directly from boats via jetties leading to the market.
However, the building was not well-constructed – the timber piles on which the
building rest on was not sturdy enough, and needed to be replaced soon after
completion. Its atap roof also did not comply with building regulations and was
therefore replaced with tiles, but had to be replaced with atap again in 1827
regardless of fire regulation as the structure was not strong enough to support
a tile roof and was in danger of collapse. The building was repeatedly repaired
but by 1830, the structure was judged to be in an "extremely unsafe
state" and needed to be rebuilt. A temporary market was erected in 1832
while a newer building awaited construction.
The construction of a new market, designed by architect
George Drumgoole Coleman, commenced on the same site in 1836 and it was
completed in 1838. Coleman produced an octagonal building with ornamental columns
at the entrance. The building had twice the area of the older market, and was
formed of an outer and inner drum, with the colonnade of the outer drum letting
in light but also providing shelter from the sun and rain. This building was
built on two octagonal rings of brick piers, which supported a structure 125
feet in diameter, and an inner drum 40 feet in diameter. As with the previous
structure, it suffered from its exposure to the monsoons and the sea, and soon
after its construction, concerns over its safety were voiced, and the market
needed to be repaired. In 1841, the market was extended on one side of the main
building under the supervision of contractor Denis McSwiney with the erection
of a new fish market. This new structure was a long open shed, and it was later
further extended to run roughly parallel to two sides of the octagonal market.
The extension would help protect the main market by serving as a breakwater to
reduce the force of the swells and surf from the east. Despite the concerns
raised over its safety for many years, it stood for over 40 years until it was
demolished when land was reclaimed on Telok Ayer Bay. The prominence of the
market on the waterfront made the building a landmark of early Singapore.
The distinctive clock tower of Telok Ayer Market.
In 1879, land reclamation work on Telok Ayer Bay to
create the land on which Robinson Road is now located began. The newly
reclaimed land, on which the current market now sits, was declared to be ready
for use in 1890, and construction of a new market was initiated. The market was
certified as completed on 1 March 1894, and Market Street was extended to the
new location. The new building, which covers an area of 55,000 square feet, was
designed by the Municipal Engineer James MacRitchie (also design the MacRitchie
Reservoir). MacRitchie adopted the octagonal shape of Coleman's original
design, and used cast-iron pillars to support the building. The cast iron work
cost £13,200, and was shipped out from Glasgow by P&W MacLellan, who had
also supplied the iron for the Cavenagh Bridge in 1868. The great cast-iron
columns which support the structure bear the maker's mark of W. MacFarlane and
Co., also of Glasgow. The iron structure was erected by Riley Hargreaves &
Co. (now United Engineers) at a cost of $14,900, while building contractor Chea
Keow laid the foundation for $18,000. This building, which is the current one
still standing, was placed close to the waterfront and served as a general market,
but linked by a bridge to a fish market built over the sea. However, further
land reclamations in the 20th century meant that the octagonal building is now
some distance from the shoreline.
As food court
By the early 1970s, the area around Telok Ayer
Market—Shenton Way, Robinson Road, Cecil Street and Raffles Place—had transformed
into a major commercial and financial district of Singapore, and a wet market
was no longer considered suitable for the area. In 1972, the market was
converted into a hawker centre. However, the historical and architectural value
of Telok Ayer Marker was recognised, and it was gazetted as a national monument
on 6 July 1973.
In 1986, the market was closed to allow construction of a
new Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line which runs underneath the building. The
building was taken apart and its cast-iron supports put into storage. Once the
track-laying project has finished, the Telok Ayer Market was reconstructed in
the late 1980s.
In 1989, the market was officially renamed Lau Pa Sat,
the vernacular name most Singaporeans used to refer to the market. The old
market reopened in 1991 as a festival market, a supposedly modern food court
catering to office workers and tourists. The owner was the Jumabhoy family's
Renaissance Property (part of now defunct Scotts Holding). The grandiose food
court was opened with a lot of fanfare and wide media publicity. But it soon
became a flop, business dropped a few weeks after it opened, due largely to
poor ventilation (no air conditioning). Lau Pa Sat was later taken over in 1995
by Kopitiam, another food court operator.
A major renovation of Lau Pa Sat, costing $4 million and lasting 9 months, began on 1 September 2013. The layout of the stalls was reconfigured in the renovation, reducing the number of stalls but increasing the seating. Better ventilation with eight industrial ceiling fans was also installed. It reopened on 30 June 2014.
The market is the only remaining one left that served the
resident in the central district in early Singapore. The other four being the
Orchard Road Market, Rochor Market, Clyde Terrace Market popularly known as
Beach Road, demolished in 1983 to make way for now currently Gateway Building
and Ellenborough Market, nicknamed Teochew Market where the surrounding area
was populated by Teochews, near the New Bridge Road.
Architecture
The intricate roof and column structures of the Lau Pa
Sat are typically Victorian.
Lau Pa Sat's unique, octagonal, cast-iron structure was
designed by James MacRitchie, who adopted George Drumgoole Coleman's original
octagonal shape for the older market. The cast-iron structures were crafted by
Walter MacFarlane & Company, an iron foundry in Glasgow, Scotland.[9] The
use of cast iron for the structure, as well as for decorative reasons, is
typically Victorian and popular in Britain after the building of Joseph
Paxton's Crystal Palace. Slender columns
are topped with composite capitals supporting trusses with filigree-like
infills. The cast-iron archways and fretted eaves brackets are good examples of
the craftsmanship of the day.
A lantern is placed at the center, allowing daylight to
illuminate the interior. The lantern is topped by a clock tower installed in
1991, and there is a set of ringing chimes producing Chinese, Malay and Indian
melodies. The 23 bronze Dutch carillons are struck by a jacquemart (figure of a
bell striker) dress like a coolie.