Where is bras basah complex

To the students of the sixties and seventies, it was the go-to place to get the necessary school textbooks and study guides to Shakespeare, poetry and science. The bookshops at Bras Basah Road probably had its best days in the sixties, when there were strong demands of textbooks from regional countries such as Indonesia and Brunei.

The most popular textbooks were those of English literature, history and science. Although the demands from overseas had considerably waned by the seventies, the bookstores continued to have their businesses boosted by the local market. The old Bras Basah Road shophouses were later demolished. When the Bras Basah Complex was built, it was designed and designated to be a book centre. The early batches of tenants were contractually obliged to sell books.

Some of the shops, however, later switched to selling of watches, leisure goods and others. But a shrinking market and declining interest in Chinese books in the eighties changed its fortune.

To revive the public interest, Shanghai Book Company initiated a series of exhibitions and book fairs, such as the Bilingual Book Fair in and an exhibition of Chinese bookmarks in But its final chapter eventually arrived in the late s, when Shanghai Book Company was embroiled in internal disputes between its local and China shareholders.

In February , Bras Basah Complex lost yet another of its long-time tenant in Kaiming Enterprises, when the year-old stationery shop closed due to dwindling business and a retiring owner. Established in , Kaiming Enterprises had supplied stationery to the local and Malaysian markets in the past decades. In the eighties and nineties, numerous exhibitions, art galleries and cultural performances were held at the atrium of the Bras Basah Complex.

This was due to the sudden rains that sometimes affected the cultural events such as Chinese painting exhibitions or instrumental performances. Another event that drew the crowds to the Bras Basah Complex in the eighties was the popular xinyao Singapore Chinese folk songs concerts and competitions. Local xinyao singers with their new releases of songs and cassette albums often attracted hundreds of fans, largely made up of students and young adults, that filled up the entire atrium.

With the decline of xinyao in the nineties and s, the complex had not witnessed such spectacular scene until , when a two-hour xinyao reunion performance had almost 1, fans turned up. Standing for more than three decades, the Bras Basah Complex has seen some tremendous changes in its surroundings and neighbours, even as it has stayed largely unchanged.

Victoria Street was widened and changed in the eighties from a one-way to a dual-carriageway road. The site is now occupied by the new National Library building. The book and printing companies have been facing a slowing down in their sector.

I used to enjoy browsing through the bookstores along Bras Basah Road back in the s, during which time i also frequented the National Library and MPH. Back in the s, i spent most of my after-school hours going through books in the bookstores along Bras Basah Road, the National Library across and MPH as well. So book-crazy i was! Is this the same row of shops that use to have wedding dresses for hire? Had a lot of great memories of the place.

Jason's Market Place. Cold Storage Bugis Junction. Cold Storage Pomo Centre. About this property. Transaction Data. Sale Rent. Transacted Prices. Insufficient recent transaction data available. Q1 '20 1 6. Q4 '20 2 5. Q1 '21 1 9. Q2 '21 1 8. Apply online for pre-approval. Talk to our loan expert directly. Nearby Projects. Required field. Accept Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Many of the original occupants were book merchants who relocated from demolished shophouses that lined up Bras Basah Road.

Even before the construction of Bras Basah Complex, students already flocked to the many bookstores that operated from the shophouses. Bras Basah Bugis by Fable.

It is Bras Basah Bugis — basically the most artsy culturally alive central space in Singapore. The longest-standing professional bilingual theatre group in Singapore. Error loading image! Singapore's first independent contemporary arts centre.