Curved white 1930s walk-up flats with porthole windows and spiral staircases, one block built over a WWII air raid shelter.
What Tiong Bahru looks like
Curved three and four storey blocks line the estate in white painted plaster, their corners rounded into balconies rather than squared off. , the first of the group, sits at an angled front where Tiong Bahru Road enters the estate, built in 1936. Round porthole windows interrupt the stair towers, and the open stairwells spiral upward in orange paint against white walls, their landings finished in terrazzo.
Ground floors carry small shops and kopitiams under the same curved frontage, with roller shutters painted to match the walls above them. Air wells cut through the centre of each block, so the stairwells stay lit and ventilated without air conditioning. A few streets over, blocks built after 1948 trade the curves for straighter lines and bigger windows, the same white paint carried across both phases.
Between the blocks, car-free footpaths run under rain trees and coconut palms, bicycles chained to the railings and laundry strung from poles on the upper floors. Each block shows its own green number plate at the corner. , rebuilt between 2004 and 2006 with Art Deco detailing to match the estate, stands at the corner of Seng Poh Road and , its curved red roofline visible above the hawker stalls.
Shot in Tiong Bahru
Tiong Bahru Social Club used the real air raid shelter beneath as the set for its Complaint Centre. More than a hundred extras filled the shelter's corridors for the film's complaint line and cat chase scenes.
Tiong Bahru Social Club, 2020
The Block 78 air raid shelter
Played the Community Complaint Centre, near future
The shelter sits in the semi basement of Block 78, converted from a children's play area into blast proof storage ahead of the Second World War and sized for about 1,600 people across 1,500 square metres. The production used its corridors as the fictional Complaint Centre, with extras filling the space for the complaint line and cat chase scenes.
What Tiong Bahru can double for
French Concession in Shanghai, China
Several French Concession apartment blocks borrow the same maritime Art Deco look, with rounded balcony corners under horizontal banding and the occasional porthole window. The upper floors along Huaihai Middle Road near Shaanxi South Road keep their original curved balconies. Most of these buildings run six to eight storeys, so a tight frame on one rounded corner reads closer to Tiong Bahru's two to four storey blocks than a wide shot does. Try searching rounded corner apartment blocks now.
Berea in Durban, South Africa
Durban's beachfront Art Deco apartments share the same ocean liner styling, and Cheviot Court on the Berea Ridge, built in 1934, uses a Streamline Moderne directly comparable to the aeroplane flats nickname here. The Durban blocks run five to six storeys with bolder paint and more applied ornament than Tiong Bahru's plain white walls, so a ground level corner works better than a full elevation. Try searching ocean liner Art Deco now.
Miami Beach's hotels along Ocean Drive are the same Streamline Moderne family as the estate's own aeroplane flats, with the same rounded corners and horizontal banding, a porthole window here and there. The pastel paint and palm landscaping give it away quickly, along with any hotel signage in frame, so this works only for a tight shot on an unpainted or repainted corner. Try searching porthole windows rounded corners now.
