Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Finally,
we arrived at our last location, the Arts House! Yay! The afternoon heat was
sweltering and increasingly unbearable. Thankfully, we took a quick respite in
the fully air-conditioned Arts House and in the meantime, taking our time to
explore the different rooms and the art exhibits along the Corridors of Time. It
was especially fun to explore the Chamber and mimic what the members of parliament
would do whenever they had parliamentary meetings. Heh heh heh… Sadly, we were
not allowed to take photos in the Arts House and as such, we could not present
to you the fun side of ours! Who says history students are dry and boring? We are hardworking students who learn and play at the same time! :P
Here
comes the fun facts! The Arts House, formerly known as the Old Parliament
House, is located at the Empress Place. This building is probably the oldest
surviving structure and government building in Singapore. The main building and
the annex building were gazetted as national monuments on 14 February and 26
June 1992 respectively.
Constructed
between 1826 and 1827, the Parliament House was originally designed by G. D.
Coleman as the home for a Scottish merchant, John Argyle Maxwell. Although it
was meant to be a residential building, it was never used for that purpose
probably because of the 1822 Raffles Town Plan which designated the area (where
the building was located) for government buildings. As such, on 1 September
1829, Maxwell sold the building to George Gerald de H. Laurent and John Cockrell,
serving as a new courthouse. The East India Company purchased the building in
1841 and a new courthouse extension was enlarged to accommodate more people, namely,
the prisoners and Jurors. Because of the noises from the nearby boatyard and
blacksmith shop, the courthouse moved out.
The
building served as a Supreme Court until 1939 where the (currently) old Supreme
Court building was completed. (Check out the blog post on the old Supreme
Court!) It then served as a government storehouse and as the office of the
Department of Social Welfare before becoming semi-derelict. In 1953, the
building was renovated and opened in 1954 by then governor, Sir John Nicoll, as
a new Legislative Assembly House.
It was
known as the Parliament House on 5 June 1959 when the People’s Action Party
(PAP) became the ruling power of a self-governing Singapore. It served as the
parliament house until 1999 before a new parliament house building was
constructed. Today, it is known as the Arts House – a place for both performing
and visual arts. Definitely charming!
Our
group also discovered a bronze monument, the Elephant Statue, somewhere behind
the Arts House. It took us quite a while to look for it as none of us knew that
there was a statue erected behind the Arts House. The Elephant Statue was in
fact, a gift to Singapore by Thailand’s King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) to
commemorate his 1871 visit. It is indeed significant of this particular
monument as it marks the first visit by a Thai monarch. The pedestal, where the
Elephant Statue is mounted on, bears description in 4 different languages
(Siamese, Jawi, Chinese and English) of how the king was thankful for the warm
hospitality by the people of Singapore during his visit between 16 to 23 March
1871. It is certainly an eye-opener! Bet some of you might not know about the
existence of this Elephant Statue too! If you do, that is great! J
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