The Holland Village we love is fading. But there are lessons we can learn from its constant change

I never thought I’d feel nostalgic for a car park. These ubiquitous Singaporean landmarks – of which we have too many and not enough at once – aren’t exactly known for their character or charm. 

This particular open-air car park, though, was conveniently located at the heart of Holland Village, a buzzing neighbourhood I grew up patronising from young. The parking lots were plentiful and wide. And it was very popular, as car parks go; I felt like I hit the jackpot every time I managed to get a lot on a weekend. 

Objectively speaking, the car park was nothing special. But it was always there, whether I was actually looking to park or simply walking by on the way to Lorong Mambong's pubs. And so I expected that it would always be there – a reliable and constant fixture in the background of every memory I made, even as both Holland Village and I evolved over the years. 

Then the car park got replaced by another uniquely Singaporean icon: The shopping mall.

Mixed-use development One Holland Village, whose retail wing opened in December last year, is hard to miss. Flanked by shophouses along Lorong Liput and Lorong Mambong, the three-storey mall stands out, and not just due to its height.

Marketed as an “outdoor concept pet-friendly premium lifestyle destination” on its developer Far East Organization’s website, the contemporary establishment boasts airy podiums and urban greenery, apparently designed to complement Holland Village’s existing bohemian appeal. But anyone who remembers the former car park, its flat ground providing an unobstructed view and a feeling of spaciousness, wouldn’t quite say the conspicuous building integrates into its surroundings. 

When I visited One Holland Village for the first time in April, I was struck by how modern everything looked – and how sad it made me.

CONSTANT CHANGE, CONSTANT LOSS

I don’t remember when the Holland Village I knew started fading away.

Perhaps when the closure of Cold Rock Ice Creamery unceremoniously upended a part of my youth in the early 2010s. Or when Raffles Medical Group built a low-rise shopping mall next to Chip Bee Gardens in 2016 in a major injection of “vibrancy” or commercialisation into the neighbourhood. Or as late as 2022 when Fosters Restaurant moved out from its iconic corner spot along Holland Avenue. 

What I do know is we lose places bit by bit, then all at once. With Holland Village, legendary newsstand Thambi Magazine Store’s closure earlier this month was the much-needed reality check that the neighbourhood's OG identity was on its last legs.

Its owner Sam's unyielding love for magazines didn't just jolt a nation into confronting our equal lack of passion for heritage preservation. The fact that Thambi was based in Holland Village, rather than any other neighbourhood, also seemed to hold significance. The popular expatriate enclave, known and loved for its old-timey charm, was "suddenly" at the mercy of modernisation.

I heard this sentiment again on Monday (May 13) when I visited old school party shop Khiam Teck along Holland Avenue after learning that it was closing end-June. One of its owners, after pointing to Thambi’s closure a week prior, left me with five poignant words: "Holland Village totally change already."

At the risk of sounding flippant, Holland Village is no stranger to transformation. It was first developed as a military village in the 1930s, with businesses mainly catering to British soldiers and their families. Chip Bee Gardens, built to provide more military housing in the 1960s, enhanced the expat spirit.

Then, following completion of the Buona Vista public housing estate in the early 1970s, the local residential population grew, along with businesses catering to local needs, like Holland Road Market and the Eng Wah open-air theatre. Shops at the Holland Road Shopping Centre, however, continued to cater to expats. 

By the late 1980s, Holland Village had cemented its reputation as a haven for foodies, drawing young and old, Singaporeans and expats, from all over the island. Holland Village MRT station, which opened in 2011, further increased footfall to a neighbourhood once mainly accessible by bus or car.

We just haven’t quite minded Holland Village’s changes, until the casualty was something and someone that we realised we couldn't afford to lose.

GENTRIFICATION IS "NOT INEVITABLE"

Loss is never easy, even when we see it coming, such as party shop Khiam Teck's closure due to a steep decline in customers. It can trigger the most visceral emotions, like outrage.

As a result, an uprooting of heritage is often, perhaps misguidedly, synonymous with the bogeyman that is gentrification. 

But gentrification is “just a term” used to describe the process “whereby things change because of many reasons, like economic, social, cultural reasons”, said heritage practitioner Dr Yeo Kang Shua. 

These shifts affect the “social capital of residents”, pushing certain demographics out of an area and changing a place’s character. And it happens "all the time".

Dr Yeo, an associate professor of architectural history, theory and criticism at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, added that gentrification only turns problematic when the process happens too fast that people “cannot react to things and they get pushed out”, for instance, due to rising rent.

To that end, Dr Tan Shin Bin, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, noted that while redevelopment may increase demand for housing in the area, and by extension, housing sale and/or rental prices, gentrification is "not inevitable".

She pointed to measures like targeted housing subsidies to prevent "large-scale displacement of existing lower-income residents" and similar subsidies for select tenants – although the latter comes “with the expectation that ‘keeping the charm’ will increase footfall to the neighbourhood and thus enhance the overall economic vibrancy of the area”.

PEOPLE MAKE A PLACE

In my opinion, however, making rent an automatic scapegoat is the easy way out.

While we can't deny the adverse impact of skyrocketing rent, it’s far easier to only blame ludicrous landlords or a faceless force for chasing away our beloved hangouts than to recognise that people make a place – and that anyone who holds a neighbourhood dear has some agency in retaining its essence. 

When Thambi was set to shutter, a friend bemoaned the loss but admitted she hadn’t bought magazines in years. She simply liked knowing the newsstand existed in the background of her life. 

Similarly, the imminent closure of party shop Khiam Teck would mean losing “a feeling of familiarity”, another friend said, even as she acknowledged she had no idea how the shop had survived for so long. 

Like it or not, sentimental value is measured by economic viability in Singapore. And the individual consumer plays a part.

Take mom-and-pop shops for example. Dr Yeo illustrated that buying groceries from these traditional trades makes them “part and parcel of our daily lives and our environment”. If we change our social patterns and the way we shop, though, “they will die a natural death”, he said. 

Moreover, capping rent is not a viable long-term solution if the main reason for the decline of heritage businesses is “lacklustre demand due to broader changes in lifestyles and consumer preferences”, added Dr Tan, pointing to the convenience and affordability of ecommerce platforms. 

Admittedly, I stopped visiting Holland Village as much several years back. I didn't like how I noticed some newfangled feature every time I visited, as though the neighbourhood had betrayed my memory of it by simply keeping up with the times.

After all, nostalgia’s rose-tinted glasses have a way of warping memory. The thing we're desperate to hold on to might not even be the shop or person or car park per se, but what their existence meant to us. A longtime landmark gives a sense of comfort – the knowledge that permanence is possible in an ever-ephemeral urban landscape – even though it often takes its jarring absence to realise the significance of its once-familiar presence.

But just like how the places we love aren't obliged to stay the same, neither are we resigned to soulless modernisation. In land-scarce Singapore, the face of Holland Village will continue changing, but its soul doesn't have to if we keep returning to create new memories. Over 90 years of transformation is proof that modern never has to mean mundane. 

In hindsight, the Holland Village I knew started fading away when I started fading away. Although change began before I recognised it as loss, I coped with change the way I cope with loss: I ignored it until I couldn't.