Old Building, New Functions

Posted by noelbynature under Heritage Sites and Trails, Museums/Heritage Galleries, Reflections
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The Asian Civilisations Museum is hands-down, my favourite museum in Singapore, but it was not until when the ACM took over the Empress Place that I ever stepped into the building. So I was fascinated to read from The Wondering Wanderer about what the Empress Place Building was used for before the museum.

I’m sure the older readers would remember - I certainly have no recollection of the Empress Place Building being used as the National Registration Office:

The building, built by the colonial masters of Singapore, was constructed over a period of half a century, commencing in the mid 1860s, and served as the seat of the colonial administration for a time. In the 1970s and 1980s it housed the National Registration Office, and it was here that I had my Identity Card replaced at the age of 18. My parents must have made visits to the various departments that were housed in the building, including the passport office, where we would get both our restricted and international passports renewals processed, as I remember stepping into the offices on several occasions, as a primary schoolboy, being greeted by the rows of wooden benches and the large numbers of people waiting to be served. At the entrances and on the walls, there were of course the posters of a forgotten era – what springs to my mind are the posters that must have been there that suggested that males with long hair would be attended to last, and those which promoted the stop at two policy.

The Wondering Wanderer writes more about his memories at the Asian Civilisations Museum building, and the adjacent Esplanade in his post here.