People’s Park Complex

When People’s Park Complex was completed in 1973, it was reportedly Singapore’s tallest residential building and the first mixed-use development of its kind in Southeast Asia. Designed by Design Partnership, the 31-storey brutalist structure rose on the site of the old People’s Market, a sprawl of outdoor stalls destroyed by fire in 1966. The land was the first parcel sold under the Urban Renewal Department’s Sale of Sites programme in 1967, making the complex an early symbol of Singapore’s post-independence urban renewal. Its design stacked a 25-storey residential block atop a six-storey podium of shops and offices, a tower-and-podium form that would become ubiquitous across the city. The shopping centre, completed in 1970, featured Singapore’s first shopping mall atrium. Through the 1970s, it was the largest shopping complex in the country and a popular venue for public events, exhibitions, and trade fairs. Today, its once-bare concrete is painted green and yellow, and its shops trade in electronics, textiles, and traditional Chinese goods. The complex proved that Singapore could stack an entire neighborhood vertically and still call it community living.