In this Singapore Tiong Bahru walking tour, creator heyloukiu walks through Singapore’s oldest and most characterful housing estate — a neighbourhood of streamline Moderne art deco blocks from the late 1930s where curving stairwell towers, slot windows, and cream-painted facades give the streets a genuinely distinctive visual identity that stands entirely apart from the glass-and-steel Singapore of Orchard Road and Marina Bay. The walk takes in the 1930s SIT flat buildings that are among Asia’s finest surviving examples of pre-war public housing architecture, passes the Tiong Bahru Market hawker centre, and wanders the indie café and bookshop strip that has made this one of Singapore’s most-loved local neighbourhoods.
About This Walking Tour
Heyloukiu’s Tiong Bahru walk is a neighbourhood tour of the most personal kind — the kind of video that shows you not the headline attractions but the actual texture of a place where people live their daily lives. The walk circulates through the estate’s distinctive street grid, pausing on the curved facades of the original Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) blocks — buildings with round stairwell towers, wide internal staircases, and ground-floor sheltered walkways (the “five-foot ways” of the Straits Settlements tradition) that give the street level a human scale entirely absent from later Singapore public housing. The Tiong Bahru Market and Food Centre appears in its early-morning incarnation — the most atmospheric time to visit, when hawker stall operators are setting up and the regulars are claiming their usual seats. The video moves through the quieter residential laneways of the estate, past street murals commissioned in the neighbourhood’s regeneration years, and into the stretch of Yong Siak Street where Books Actually (Singapore’s most beloved independent bookshop), the Tiong Bahru Bakery, and a cluster of independent coffee shops have established the neighbourhood’s contemporary cultural identity without overwhelming the residential character that makes it worth visiting in the first place. The video succeeds in capturing what is genuinely rare: a Singapore neighbourhood that feels like a village.
Highlights of Tiong Bahru
The SIT flats — the curving modernist housing blocks built between 1936 and 1941 — are the architectural heart of the estate. Walk the full circuit of Guan Chuan Street, Kim Pong Road, and Lim Liak Street to appreciate how the curved forms interact with the tropical light and the lush planting of angsana and tembusu trees. The Tiong Bahru Market and Food Centre on Seng Poh Road is a two-storey wet market below and hawker centre above; specific stalls here have operated for over 50 years and maintain cult followings for their char kway teow, bao (steamed buns), and chee cheong fun. The bird corner on Jalan Membina is a traditional Singaporean institution: elderly birdkeepers hang the rattan cages of their prized Shama thrushes and Mata Puteh white-eyes on outdoor stands, letting them sing in company. This practice of competitive birdsong is one of old Singaporean culture’s most charming traditions. Yong Siak Street and the surrounding blocks contain the concentration of independent cafés, a natural wine bar, a florist, and Books Actually — the bookshop that has done more to champion Singapore literature than any other institution.
A Brief History of Tiong Bahru
Tiong Bahru’s name derives from Hokkien Chinese — “tiong” meaning “death” and “bahru” the Malay for “new” — a reference to the Chinese cemetery that occupied this area before colonial-era urban development cleared it. The Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), established by the British colonial government in 1927 to address housing shortages, built its first public housing project here between 1936 and 1941. The architects drew on British garden city principles and the streamline Moderne style — itself inspired by American and European modernism — to create a scheme of curved low-rise blocks, communal courtyards, and sheltered walkways that was genuinely innovative for public housing anywhere in Asia. The estate survived the Japanese occupation of Singapore (1942–1945) largely intact. Post-independence Singapore’s Housing Development Board (HDB) built higher and denser in every other part of the city, but Tiong Bahru’s SIT blocks were gazetted for conservation under the Urban Redevelopment Authority in the 1990s, protecting both the facades and the ground-floor commercial use. The neighbourhood’s gentrification as a café and arts destination accelerated after 2010 but has remained relatively measured compared to similar processes elsewhere in Asia.
Practical Tips
MRT Tiong Bahru Station (East-West Line, EW17) is a five-minute walk from the heart of the estate. The entire neighbourhood is compact enough for a 90-minute circuit on foot; add another hour for a proper hawker centre breakfast and a browse of the bookshops. Singapore has no meaningful seasons — year-round warmth and humidity mean early mornings are the most comfortable time for walking. The hawker centre and market are busiest from 7 to 10am for breakfast; the café strip is at its liveliest from mid-morning through the afternoon. The area is entirely flat and very walkable, with plenty of shaded five-foot-way arcades to escape the midday heat. Bring cash for the hawker stalls; a full breakfast here costs around SGD 5–8.
Watch & Explore More
Tiong Bahru shows a side of Singapore that surprises many visitors — subscribe to @walkingtoursvideoscom for more walking tours across Southeast Asia and the world. For the contrasting glass-and-waterfront face of Singapore, see our Singapore Chinatown and Marina Bay walking tour; for another Southeast Asian city with extraordinary pre-war heritage, our Penang George Town walking tour is an essential companion.