CATHAY TOWN : AN ENTERTAINMENT HUB & FANTASY

Abstract

During 1950s to 1970s, film production industry in Singapore was considered to be at the prime age. This brought the popularity to a worldwide level with the public from America and Asia regions in getting to know Singapore through film. The rising reputation allowed Singapore to be an entertainment hub at that time. During the heyday of local film production, Cathay Organisation was one of the companies that signaled the film production era. Cathay Organisation had built their own film production studios, cinemas, bowling centre, hotels and restaurants. It was presented to the public as the figure of an entertainment mogul. Following the Industrial Revolution, ideas and models were presented by the city planners like Baron Haussmann and Ebenezer Howard as solutions for solving the urban issues such as overcrowding, poor sanitary and disease outbreak, and social issues such as abandonment of child, crime, alcohol abuse and prostitution. One model which had been implemented by the capitalist was Model Company Town. A company town is a settlement built and operated by a single business enterprise. Cathay Organisation had created a similar model company town in Singapore during the golden age of the film industry. However as compared to the model company town which was a Eurocentric model that was designed for utopian aspirations. It has some relevance to the way Cathay Organisation had implemented in Singapore namely urban planning of Cathay Town, architectural planning of the town and spatial planning of the individual buildings. The image of Cathay Town was different to the typical model company town. Model company town was a model with the image for achieving the capitalistic gains whereas the Cathay Town was mainly for entertainment purposes. However, the model failed as the social context and urban planning after Singapore gains independence, it did not provide suitable conditions to allow for the manifestation of the town. It appears that there was intersection between the economic agenda and identity agenda in Cathay Town. The workers lived on-site due to the work commitments where their lives were governed by Cathay Organisation. It is argued that the fantasy of leisure was brought to another level as the workers lived out such fantasies which indicate that the economic agenda and identity agenda may prove to be compatible. This paper makes evident that the architectural ideology of Cathay Town that Cathay Organisation had implemented during the golden age of local film production and current urban planning in Singapore. The Cathay Town was a failure since the urban planning during that period of time did not support the concept of the entertainment town. The failure of the Cathay Town was also served as a mark of local production for Singapore as the shift of the orientation in the conception of identity of a nation.