Typology of Shopping Centres in Singapore: Golden Mile Complex as a Case Study

For a week in September 2023, I headed to Singapore for the Australian Youth Band’s international tour as a band member. Between the three performances (a combined concert with the Republic Polytechnic Wind Symphony, a gig at the Universal Studios Sentosa, and a special concert at the Singapore Botanic Gardens), we had time for sightseeing, and I had a chance to explore different aspects of central Singapore.

Apart from the abundance of greenery, high-rise buildings (both commercial and residential) and (often louvred) glazing facades, what caught my eye was the typology of shopping centres. Based on the observation of the hot and humid environment and the large grain of the urban spaces in the central area (large blocks with wide roads), my initial impression of the shopping centres was that they offer people the convenience and comfort of walking through the urban space as fine-grained circulation network, staying away from the hot, humid or rainy outdoor environment.

However, after learning about the districts such as Little India, Chinatown and numerous other places where diverse cultural or ethnic communities gather and run businesses (thanks Grace, for the detailed info & recommendations of projects to visit!), I began to understand the typology of ‘shopping centres’ more as a vertical/stacked neighbourhood of local, often culturally specific businesses rather than a conglomerate of international brands with a hint of luxury. While I had thought about the limited land area as one of the pragmatic factors that formed shopping centres as vertical community places, I could see there is more to their context.

After returning to Melbourne, I undertook a little research into the social context that may have influenced Singapore’s typology of shopping centres.

Case Study: Golden Mile Complex

As a case study, I selected the Golden Mile Complex (formerly the Woh Hup Complex), also known as Little Thailand. Built in the 1970s, this 16-storey mixed-use building (apartments, offices and shopping/food/services) was one of the first nation renewal projects led by the government¹. The three-storey podium’s shopping/food/services floors encompassed 360 shops at the time of opening with a ‘street’ through the atrium, creating an internal environment designed to “encourage human interaction and intensify public life”³. According to Zhuang, the Golden Mile Complex took part in the wave of shopping centres opening in Singapore in the early 1970s. It was a shopping centre designed to accommodate local living. However, the demographic of the visitors, tenants and residents primarily consisted of construction industry professionals at an early age.

The shift to a more ethnically/culturally oriented identity came in the mid-1980s when the place began attracting more (often affordable) authentic Thai establishments. More Thais worked at the Golden Mile Complex or in nearby areas, many of whom were construction workers or migrants who were reminded of their home country by the experience at the Golden Mile Complex.

The association of specific ethnic or cultural groups to a complex, often due to the availability of employment within the shopping centre, suggests that economic activities provided by the shopping centre form a significant part of the everyday life of the public – the visibility of, and invitation to the relatable cultural lifestyle within the shipping centre might have contributed to an intimate sense of belonging as a unit of community.

Thoughts on the typology of shopping centres

This theme on shopping centres in Singapore made me wonder whether the ongoing trend in the proliferation of high-end international brands in the major cities worldwide is really what urban spaces need. The qualities of unique ethnically associated shopping centres in Singapore, such as the visibility and authenticity of cultural activities offered by members of specific communities, the relevance to everyday life (being embedded in the cityscape), and the ability to build relationships with other visitors, workers and occupants, all accommodated by the architectural shell of the shopping centre, appear to enable more resilient and characteristic urban space.

Reference:

1. Tan, Kevin S Y. “Traversing the Golden Mile: An Ethnographic Outline of Singapore’s Thai Enclave.” Urbanities: Journal of Urban Ethnography 8, no. 1 (2018): 19.
2. Ho, Weng Hin. n.d. ‘Golden Mile Complex — Brutalist Building in Singapore’. Docomomo Singapore. Accessed 28 September 2023. https://www.docomomo.sg/modernist-100/golden-mile-complex.
3. Zhuang, Justin. n.d. ‘Golden Mile Complex: Five Decades of an Architectural Icon’. Accessed 28 September 2023. https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-19/issue-2/jul-sep-2023/golden-mile-complex/.