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Fancy a walk along the quaint shophouses of Katong this #SundayFunday?
Quite possibly one of Singapore’s most colourful street, you might stop right in your tracks when first catching sight of these shophouses in pink, turquoise, green, yellow and more along Koon Seng Road in the Katong area.
Some of these picturesque two- to three-storey shophouses are in distinct Peranakan styles or ornate eclectic Chinese styles. Largely influenced by the Peranakan culture, many of the shophouses were built between the 1840s and mid-1900s, with a hybrid of Chinese, Malay, and Indian influences, with esoteric Portuguese, Dutch and Indonesian traces. It is this eclectic mix that makes many of these shophouses so eye-catching.
While the Katong neighbourhood is known for its food & beverage establishments, modern cafes, and vibrant shophouses today, the area used to be along the actual beachfront of the natural coastline. Some remnants from that bygone era include pastel “stilt” houses, or single-storey terrace houses that were built on raised ground, overlooking the sea before reclamation in the 1960s moved the beach to distance away.
Walking along these shophouses, you may find one common architectural feature: five-foot ways. While these passageways make for a nicely-framed IG shot today, they had a more practical purpose in the past. Originally intended as shelter from the rain and sun, these corridors quickly became the meeting ground for small-scale traders and bartering locals. Think of all your everyday needs and this is exactly where you’d find them, from shoe cobblers to makeshift barber shops. Even fortune tellers and medicine men lingered around five-foot ways in their search for new customers.
With so many beautifully preserved examples around today, these pastel-hued shophouses that we see around us continue to define Singapore’s adaptation to change.
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