Ander's Reflections

What surprised me the most about the civic district trail was the amount of history –all found within a small area. From the statue of the founding father sir Thomas Raffles over the chopsticks to the Arts house. The diversity of the historic monuments are vast. From Neo classical and neo palladian designed buildings to monuments saluting the multicultural Singapore. I have been walking around parts of the area we covered before but without taken notice of all the history it covers. You can easily miss some of the monuments if you are unaware of their existence. Who would have known they had a cricket club in downtown Singapore? As a newcomer to this city, I sure did not.

I was also mesmerized by the many functions the buildings have had over the years. The Arts House used to be a parliament building, the cricket club was used as a teahouse for Japanese officers during the WW2 and there are plans making the old Supreme Court a cultural hub. Singapore is a small country and I guess this also reflects in the need of preserving its history. I found many of the buildings in surprisingly good shape, which indicates a lot of money and government focus spend on keeping them so. The area is city planning at its best with parks and buildings supplementing each other in a well thought way. 

If I were to compare with my homeland capital of Copenhagen I must say that the history before Thomas Raffles is somewhat non existing. You cannot find any building predating the 1800s. But this reaffirm what I already know about Singapore –it is a new country. And the british (Thomas Raffles) have had a lot to say in its newer history but they may have also deleted the preexisting history?