Katong Shopping Centre: Singapore’s Brutalist Mall

Walk into Katong Shopping Centre and the women behind the glass meet your eyes, look down, then look up again. They sit in rows in matching shirts: pink here, yellow through the next door, green a little further along.

Almost the entire ground floor seems to be occupied by employment agencies. Families come here to hire domestic helpers from the Philippines, Myanmar and Indonesia, among other countries. Live-in help is common in Singaporean and expat households: cleaning, cooking, looking after children or older relatives.

A helper lives in her employer’s home. Finding a job here also means finding the household she will live in, and the people she will share her days with.

The agencies line one corridor after another. They are open on Saturdays and Sundays too.

The building with the round windows

I have lived nearby for years, and loved the architecture from the start. Heavy concrete, deep shadows, those round windows: splendid brutalism. In older photographs, with the upper facade still grey, it looks even better to me. These days it is blue and yellow.

The upper facade projects out over the floors below, with huge circular openings running around the corner. Underneath are slender columns, recessed shopfronts and walkways at different levels. From the pavement you can look down towards some businesses and up towards others.

It opened in 1973, and was Singapore’s first air-conditioned shopping centre.

Back inside, a broad staircase leads up beneath the old KATONG sign. The lettering has survived too.

The ghostbusters

The most conspicuous business here is GHOSTBUSTER: feng shui masters and exorcists. They have several units in the centre, so business seems to be going well. There used to be a big screen on the facade showing unsettling ritual videos. I no longer see those playing.

At the entrance is a whole cabinet of curses. More precisely, objects labelled as having been used in curses: needles, dolls, dead snakes, with accounts of who planted what and where it was found. There is a lot to examine. They even gave me a book about the company’s history and services. I am sceptical about the claims, but the display is quite something.

Niche businesses

The International Left-Hand Calligraphy Association teaches Chinese calligraphy using the left hand. Now that is a niche.

There are still tailors where you can have something mended or made to measure, though I seem to see fewer of them over time. Dusty, old-fashioned suits hang in the windows.

There are plenty of barbershops too. Old, lived-in places that people have plainly put some care into.

One salon is called Inner Hair. Where does that grow, exactly? And how do you look after it?

The raider camp outside

Outside, food stalls and awnings have attached themselves to the building like a raider camp from Fallout. An assortment of roofs, stands, refrigerators and potted plants, all apparently held together with whatever was available. People sit, eat and smoke. It looks temporary, which probably means it will be there for years.

The dumplings I miss

Inside are two food courts. The newer one is a perfectly respectable, bright room with neat counters. There used to be a stall selling wonderful Shanghai-style pan-fried xiaolongbao. They reminded me of chebureki, the fried meat pastries I know from home. With the right sauce, they were food of the gods. For some reason, the stall closed.

Katong Delicious Chicken Rice

The older food court is where people queue for Katong Delicious Chicken Rice, now also known as Katong Mei Wei. Whenever I see it, there is a long wait and barely a free table nearby.

Chickens hang above the counter, with rows of little side plates beside them.

Those little plates hold achar: pineapple, onion, cucumber, chilli and carrot in a sweet-and-sour vinegar dressing. Achar is part of Peranakan and Eurasian cooking in Singapore, among other traditions. Here it comes with generous chunks of pineapple — something sharp and crunchy alongside the chicken and rich rice.

This may annoy its fans, but I do not like the chicken rice there. I find it dry, and the rice tastes odd to me. It is famous, people love it, and the queue is right there to prove it. I would still rather have the fried dumplings back.

While it is still here

I have heard several times that Katong Shopping Centre is going to be demolished. Plenty of shops are already shuttered, but people are still cutting hair, sewing clothes, hiring helpers, chasing spirits and queuing for chicken. I would hate to lose the building and all this life inside it. I wish someone would repair it, find new uses for the empty spaces and keep it. I really do like those round windows.