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10 · Global Traditions

Southeast Asian Shophouse

c. 1840–1960

Narrow terraced rows of two or three stories, shops at street level, with a continuous covered walkway in front.

Look for

Arcade Modular repetition Pilaster Stucco wall
Chinatown, Singapore, Singapore, Singapore: an example of Southeast Asian Shophouse architecture
Chinatown, Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. Photo: Bob Tan, CC BY-SA 4.0
Kampong Glam, Singapore, Singapore
Kampong Glam Singapore, Singapore · Robert Sim, CC BY-SA 4.0
Phuket Old Town, Phuket, Thailand
Phuket Old Town Phuket, Thailand · Mussi Katz from Israel, CC0
Jonker Walk, Malacca City, Malaysia
Jonker Walk Malacca City, Malaysia · Renamed user 8acf31ebc6096374fac7208a57c76440, CC0
Shophouses on Magazine Road, George Town, Malaysia
Shophouses on Magazine Road George Town, Malaysia · Vnonymous, CC BY-SA 4.0

what it is

Southeast Asian shophouses are narrow terraced buildings of two or three stories, with a shop on the ground floor and living space above. Neighboring houses share side walls, and the upper floors extend over a covered walkway in front of the shop doors, called the five-foot way (kaki lima in Malay). Plans are narrow and deep, with inner courtyards for light and air. Facades carry the decoration of their period: classical columns and moldings on early examples, and Art Deco and Streamline Moderne ornament on those of the 1930s.

Examples include the terraced shophouses of Pagoda Street in Chinatown, Singapore; the restored rows on Haji Lane and Arab Street in Kampong Glam, Singapore; the main streets of Phuket Old Town in Thailand; Jonker Walk in Malacca City; and the shophouse streets of George Town, Penang, both in Malaysia. Unlike the stilted timber houses and stone temples of traditional Southeast Asian architecture, shophouses are attached townhouses lining a street, built for trade.

how to spot one

Arcade A row of arches carried on columns or piers (thick square supports), often forming a covered walkway along a building. Arcades are common on Roman, Romanesque, Renaissance and Spanish Colonial buildings. Modular repetition A facade built from one identical unit, such as a window and its frame, repeated in a regular grid. It is common on postwar buildings made of precast (factory-made) concrete panels. Pilaster A flat column projecting slightly from a wall, with the same base, shaft and capital (decorated top) as a freestanding column. It is usually decorative and is common on Renaissance, Georgian and Neoclassical buildings. Stucco wall A wall coated with stucco, a plaster of cement or lime, sand and water, finished smooth or textured. It is common on Spanish Colonial Revival, Mission Revival and Mediterranean Revival buildings.

Also look for

Decorative tileworkTransom windowCarved wood ornamentCourtyard

history

The form grew out of Stamford Raffles's 1822 town plan for Singapore, which he had founded in 1819. It required each house to have a verandah of fixed depth, open at all times as a continuous covered passage, and it limited shophouses to three stories. Seventeenth-century accounts of galleries in Batavia (Jakarta) may be an earlier precedent, though scholars debate the link. Terraced shophouses on Pagoda Street in Singapore's Chinatown were built from 1843, when land titles were issued. The type spread through the Straits Settlements and, by the mid-19th century, to Thailand.

Disputes over hawkers using the covered walkways led to the Verandah Riots of the 1880s in Singapore, and ordinances in the late 19th and early 20th centuries required similar walkways across Malayan towns. In the 1920s and 1930s Art Deco ornament was applied to otherwise typical shophouses. Later shophouse-type buildings of the 1950s to 1980s used International and Brutalist designs, and Singapore's 1960s Land Acquisition Act led to widespread demolition. Conservation followed: Chinatown became a conservation area in 1989, and UNESCO listed Malacca and George Town in 2008.

where to find it

Singapore's Chinatown and Kampong Glam, George Town in Penang, Malacca's Jonker Walk and Phuket Old Town, with the Pagoda Street terraces and Haji Lane rows as typical streets.

easy to confuse with

Angkor Wat, an example of Southeast Asian Southeast Asian Timber houses on stilts and stone temple mountains, under steep roofs with soaring horn-like gable tips. Sixth Street, an example of Commercial Vernacular Commercial Vernacular The American Main Street block: brick fronts with big glass storefronts below, regular windows and a decorated cornice above. Chrysler Building, an example of Art Deco Art Deco Jazz-age glamour: towers stepping back as they rise, strong vertical lines, and zigzag or sunburst ornament.