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Chinatown station

Located next to People's Park Complex in the heart of Chinatown, Chinatown station was designed to reflect the oriental culture and commercial vibrancy of the area.

In designing Chinatown station, the architects had to take into account the density of the built-up space around the station and the need to preserve the character of the heritage shophouses along Temple, Terengganu, Pagoda and Mosque Streets. One particular challenge was the design of the Pagoda Street entrance. To preserve the unique ambience of this narrow street, the architects built a pavilion-style transparent roof that rises above the existing shophouses while allowing natural light into the station.

The station runs under the busy intersection of Eu Tong Sen Street and New Bridge Road, and is wedged between two rows of buildings. During construction, work was confined to a narrow, compact space. The depth of Chinatown station is comparable to the six-storey Yue Hwa Building close by. The building of Chinatown station included the restoration of the Garden Bridge whose new features include a small stage, a foot reflexology path and additional seating areas.

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Tan Swie Hian was the Cultural Medallion Winner for 1987 and he is described by the famous Chinese painter, Wu Guan Zhong, as 'an outstanding son of the Yellow Emperor'.

His works at Chinatown station, entitled "The Phoenix's-Eye Domain" are made up of a wall mural telling the story of early Chinese immigrants in Singapore and a poem in three sets of rhyming couplets describing this journey.

The mural, a richly-coloured, resplendent work with a phoenix as its centrepiece, is located at the concourse level. The poem, which comprises of two seven- character couplets and a forty-character couplet respectively, is presented as floor calligraphy at the concourse and platform levels. The poetry is a footnote to the mural and the mural is an illustration of the poem.

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Tan Swie Hian chose the phoenix as a transcendental symbol for the unflinching spirit of the early settlers. The mural shows the phoenix flying to Singapore, soaring over the waterfront at Telok Ayer. Adorning the body of the phoenix are five Chinese characters standing for Virtue, Righteousness, Civility, Benevolence and Credibility. They are the five core values that uphold the spirit of man.

Another section of the mural shows the phoenix in full glory, surrounded by hundreds of birds of various species. This, according to the artist is an auspicious sign denoting the prosperity of Singapore. The final section of the mural shows the phoenix and the birds merging in a spinning spiral of universal energy; a commentary on the never-ending cycle of life.

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Tan Swie Hian's mural portrays the coolies not as downtrodden workers but as well-built men in triumphant poses.

The artist worked on the murals for months and completely by hand. Eschewing the airbrush, he achieved the luminous colour gradation of his works by rubbing oil and acrylic paints directly onto the canvas, without first diluting them with painting medium as is customary. This sophisticated treatment of colour proved to be a challenge to reproduce when his work subsequently went into production in the United Kingdom. After extensive trials, the specialist company in Birmingham used a seven-colour process to ensure that the final artwork in vitreous enamel achieved as close a colour match as possible to the artist's originals.

Swie Hian's poem, written in semi-cursive calligraphy script, presented other challenges. The literacy form employed by the artist is the couplet, comprising a pair of complementary verses aligned side by side. Adjacent characters in both the verses are perfectly matched in meaning and metre. The work is a complex synthesis of visual symmetry, linguistic precision and calligraphic excellence.

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Swie Hian worked in ink on rice paper. The characters were later scanned into a computer and reproduced on granite slabs of 1.2 metres square. Individual characters in calligraphy were cut out using water jet from granite slabs in a lighter shade of grey. The cut-out characters were then inlaid in granite slabs of a darker tone with the same characters hollowed out.

The creation of Swie Hian's works is but the first step in a longer journey. More meaningful to the artist will be the way commuters respond to his works. It gives him joy to think that his calligraphy is on the same earth on which his forefathers first set foot in Singapore, dreaming of a better life.

Artist: Tan Swie Hian
Born: Indonesia, 1943
Education:
- Bachelor of Arts (English Literature), 1968
  Nanyang University, Singapore

next: Clarke Quay station

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