First Branch Library First Car Factory Largest Istana
The over 100-acre land on which the Istana stands was fi rst bought by Governor Harry Ord, for his Government House in 1869, from Charles Robert Prinsep who owned the nutmeg plantation on the land. The Istana is the offi cial residence of the President.
First Istana
In 1824, after signing the treaty that ceded Singapore to the British, Sultan Hussein Shah was given around 23 ha of land. The fi rst Istana Kampong Gelam was believed to be a wooden structure built on stilts around 1829. In 1835 Sultan Hussein’s son, Sultan Ali, commissioned a new palace to be designed in the Palladian style which had been introduced by the British. The palace grounds extended all the way from Victoria Street to Beach Road with a beach front.
First Public Swimming Pool
Mt Emily Swimming Complex, opened some- time in the 1930s, was the very fi rst public swimming pool. It was converted from an old reservoir, which supplied water to Kandang Kerbau Hospital. The swimming complex was demolished in 1983.
Oldest Public Swimming Pool
The Queenstown Swimming Complex, which opened in 1970, is the oldest public swimming pool still in operation.
In 1941, Ford Motor Works built the fi rst motor car assembly plant in South-East Asia. It became the headquarters of the Japanese occupation and was the site of the historic surrender of the British to the Japanese on 15 Feb 1942. The building has been gazetted as a national monu- ment, and converted into a World War II exhibition gallery and repository named Memories at Old Ford Factory.
Largest Conservation Centre
The Heritage Conservation Centre, a four-sto- rey building on Jurong Port Road, houses over 100,000 artworks and artefacts for the Asian Civilisation Museum, the National Museum of Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum. Among these are 7,500 sculptures, installation works and paintings considered as Singapore’s national art collection. The facility, specially built for the storage and conservation of arte- facts, is the fi rst of its kind in South-East Asia.
Largest Underground Storage Space
The Underground Ammunition Facility at the Mandai Quarry was developed and managed by DSTA. It has about 300 ha of storage space and was completed in Jul 2002.
World’s Largest Airport
When Changi International Airport was of- fi cially opened on 29 Dec 1981, it was the world’s largest airport and had the world’s largest column-free hangar at 20,000 sq m. It was built mainly on reclaimed land.
First Underground Oil Storage
JTC is currently building the Jurong Rock Cavern at subterranean depths beneath the seabed of Banyan Basin on Jurong Island. The underground caverns have a potential storage capacity of close to 3 million cu m and could save an equivalent of 60 ha of surface land use. It will store liquid hydrocarbons like crude oil, condensates and gas oil. Development works began in end 2006 and the fi rst cavern is expected to be ready for use in 2010.
Largest Art Storage Space
A S$70 million storage facility is being built near Changi Airport. To be completed in 2010, it off ers 22,500 sq m of storage space, equivalent of fi ve football fi elds, giving art collectors here and the region a place to park their pieces.
First Family Service Centre Only Working Fireplace
A cottage built on Pulau Ubin in the 1930s by then Chief Surveyor, Langdon Williams, as a holiday retreat, still has a working fi replace. The cottage is now being used as the visitor centre for the Chek Jawa Wetlands.
The fi rst Family Service Centre which off ers social services in the heartlands, opened in Macpherson in 1976.
First Town Hall And Clock Tower
The fi rst town hall was built in 1862. In 1901, construction for a neighbouring building began in memory of the late Queen Victoria and offi cially opened in 1905 as the Victoria Memorial Hall. The town hall was also reno- vated, thus creating a unifi ed appearance by 1909. In 1906, the signature clock tower was added. It is now known as the Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall.
The Queenstown Community Library located at Margaret Drive was the fi rst full-time branch library built by the National Library in its plan to decentralise home reading services. Opened in May 1970, it pioneered several fi rsts amongst branch libraries, including becoming the fi rst fully air-conditioned branch in 1978, computerising its loan services in 1987, and lending video cassettes in 1997.
First Library
The fi rst library was started in 1844 at Singapore Institution (predecessor of Raffl es Institution). This library served mainly the school’s teachers and students and it also off ered admission to the public. For a monthly subscription of 25 cents, the public could borrow the books. In 1887, it moved out to Stamford Road under the name Raffl es Library, and in 1960 changed its name to the National Library.
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