Peranakan Place (also known as Peranakan Place Complex), formerly known as Peranakan Corner, is a row of six two-storey shophouses facing Orchard Road, built around 1902 at the intersection of Emerald Hill Road and Orchard Road in the planning area of Newton in Singapore. It forms part of the Emerald Hill Conservation Area within the Orchard district in central Singapore.
In 1895, it became the pilot restoration and development project conducted by the Urban Development Authority (URA). It is now used as a commercial building that contains a variety of developments. The shophouse is an iconic South-East Asian design that was popular in the 1960s and has experienced a revival due to the growing focus on historical preservation. The entrance is on Emerald Hill Road at the Orchard Road junction.
History
Origins of the land
From 1836 to 1900s, the Emerald Hill estate was held under successive, single ownerships. William Cuppage, one of the early European settlers in Singapore was the first legal owner and occupant of the land, and after his death, it was his son-in-law, Edwin Koek. It was later in 1900 that two enterprising business men, Seah Boon Kang and Seah Eng Kiat subdivided the land into 28 building lots and sold most of them. And that was how Emerald Hill and where Peranakan Place would eventually begin. Prominent late architect and conservationist Lee Kip Lin in his publication Emerald Hill: The story of a street in words and pictures (1984) reckoned that around 40 percent of the occupants in the 1930s were Peranakan, noting its popularity as a place of residence.
Pedestrianising the intersection
Before the 1980s, Emerald Hill Road was then linked to the main Orchard Road. In the early 1980s, proposals were put forth to consider the conservation and integrity of the Emerald Hill buildings. This led to the subsequent pedestrianisation of the road in 1981 starting from the intersection at Orchard Road. The overhead gantry of the now defunct Area Licensing Scheme (ALS), was removed with this road closure (the ALS was started in mid-1975 to control the traffic entering the downtown area and has now been replaced by the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP)). On the ground level, the existing tarmac road was replaced with pre-cast concrete paving blocks, and the back lanes tiled. In August 1985, the Urban Redevelopment Authority designated the Emerald Hill site as a conservation area, and with the setting-up cost of $2.2 million, restored 6 two-storey shophouses facing Orchard Road. They renamed the pilot restoration project Peranakan Place.
The beginnings of Peranakan Place
The URA awarded the tenancy en bloc to a group of individuals on 28 November 1984. The authority said that it decided to lease en bloc the preservation project to ensure that the various aspects of Peranakan culture and the centre's activities would be well coordinated.
The group of individuals formed a company named Peranakan Place Complex Pte Ltd hit upon some new and exciting ideas for both Singaporeans and tourists to make Peranakan Place, formerly called Peranakan Corner, an authentic showpiece of Peranakan culture. The renaming of the place was a unanimous decision agreed on by both parties, according to the authority. Peranakan Place was deemed more suitable because it denoted something larger and more established than a mere Corner. Instead of a display centre for cultural activities, the group set up a traditional Baba coffee shop or kedai kopi, complete with laksa, mee-siam and satay stalls, set amid marble-topped tables and aged advertisements of Milo. A coffee shop extension also allowed diners eating outside in an arbour-like alley to enjoy the landscaped Emerald Hill Road with its coconut and banana trees.