A bus trip with Dr Lai Chee Kien

Sat, 27 September 2014, 7.30am – 1pm
Meet: Jurong East Library, front entrance
SHS members: S$25 per person
Non-members: $40 per person
Limited to 40 participants.
To register, please email
shs.secretary@gmail.com

Once known as cynics as “Goh’s Folly”, Jurong’s real heritage extended beyond its original designations, altered landscapes, and future makeovers. From the 1960s, Singapore’s main industrial district was an alternative to Ebenezer Howard’s planning ideas, as the world’s only “Garden Industrial Estate” that actively created and imagined greenery and recreational areas interspersing work areas of different intensities, rather than zoning them neatly. The Bird Park, Jurong Hill Park, Chinese and Japanese Gardens, reservoir and lake areas, alongside many well-planned recreational areas and JTC housing estates and amenities, made Jurong a unique site of labour from those in the rest of the world, with greenery as attributive and functional relief, in its planning and intended for its workers and residents.

Join architectural and urban historian, Dr Lai Chee Kien, as we explore Jurong’s industrial and green heritage. Starting from the old Jurong Hill, we shall travel past Pandan and Teban Gardens, and visit Pandan Reservoir as well as Jurong Hill Park, witnessing the trees planted by foreign dignitaries and view Jurong Island from the tower. From there, we will past through factory areas and visit Boon Lay Gardens. If time permits, we might visit the former Nanyang University and finally conclude our tour at Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle. The bus will return to the starting point at the Jurong East Library.