Art Deco Shophouse

Five-foot walk ways

As we proceed on with our trail , we stumbled upon one of the most unique features of the shop-houses in the Balestier region which was the five foot walk way. These walkways were first put into practice by Raffles in 1822 under the Town planning where he stipulated that bricks and tiles should be used for these common walkways with a certain required depth and width in order to help reduce fire risk.Over time the locals begin to call these walk ways five foot walk ways due to the width of these walkways being about 5 foot wide.
We decided to put this to the test.
                                         

ArtDeco shophouses 

Art deco is commonly  associated with symmetrical geometric shapes and bright colours with a mix of subtle elegance and glamour. It is a style that took popularity during the 1920s in Europe and through the British came into the local scene with mutliple shophouses using such a style as the core inspiration for their designs.This shophouse that is located directly opposite the Gor Chor Tua Peh Kong Temple is one such example of this type of architecture in our country.The vertical "fins"on the building allows it to stand out from the other buildings surrounding it by increasing the elegance of the entire building. Such artistic beauty is really showcases the rich intertwined culture that Singapore has.It is but a shame that not enough effort is put into promoting such a culture to modern day Singapore as many do not know the richness of the artistic culture that Singapore once had.It is a fear that overtime such a culture may just disappear.



As we departed from these shophouses we couldn't help but admire the forward looking ability of the leaders of the past in wanting to ensure the safety of the residents by building wider pathways using non flammable materials by law to prevent the cluttering of potential escape paths.This law was needed due to the frequent fires occurring in the past and the adequate resources to put out these fires whenever they occurred.

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