We’ve all heard about convenience foods, such as instant noodles and RV dinners, but what about convenience architecture? The Nissen Hut is a building shaped like a half-cylinder designed to be portable and erected quickly by a few men. It was invented by the British military and used quite extensively in World War II.
Not surprisingly, there have been more than a few Nissen Huts in Singapore. Chun See blogs about where these huts still exist in Singapore:
My earlier articles about the Nishat at Bras Basah Road caused me to wonder how many of these Nissen huts are still in existence in Singapore. In case you do not know, a Nissen Hut is “A prefabricated building of corrugated steel in the shape of a half cylinder, used especially by military personnel as a shelter. It is named after its inventor, Lt Col. Peter Nissen (1871-1930), a British mining engineer.”
Mention Nissen hut and my mind goes back to the early 1970’s when I was an undergraduate at the University of Singapore. At that time, there were some Nissen huts at the Bukit Timah campus. Although I attended classes at the Engineering Faculty at Prince Edward Road, I had on a couple of occasions been inside these Nissen huts. I remember there was one (or more) near to the Cluny Road entrance.
Chun See’s post shows us five Nissen Huts in Singapore that were still around in recent times, although some of them have since been demolished. You can find out more about the Nissen Huts here.
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