Speech by Minister Lawrence Wong at the Launch of Festival at the Fort

Feb 3, 2018

I am very happy to join you this morning to launch our inaugural “Festival at the Fort”, and to share with you some of the enhancements we are planning for Fort Canning Park. 

Our parks and gardens are recreational spaces for all of us to enjoy, and many of our parks also have interesting stories that are intertwined with Singapore’s history. Of these, the Fort Canning Park is probably the most historic.  

Its significance dates back to the 14th century. At that time, Singapura was a prosperous port, where Malay, Chinese, and Indian traders would meet to conduct their business. 

Fort Canning Hill, being on high ground, provided a vantage point for the rulers of Singapura. So naturally, it was here where they set up their seats of power. It is believed that a royal palace was established on this very hill, which was known as Bukit Larangan, or the Forbidden Hill. There was a spring located on the west side of the hill – Pancur Larangan, or the Forbidden Spring.

In fact, a Yuan dynasty traveller Wang Dayuan who had visited Singapore and had gone back to China, wrote about his visits, and he described a distinct settlement on a high point. He called it Ban Zu, but it is believed to be a transliteration of the Malay word pancur, and it is believed that the description of this settlement is the settlement in Fort Canning.

The palace and the spring are unfortunately not with us today, but you can still visit a keramat or shrine that was named after the last king of Singapura – Sri Sultan Iskandar Shah or Parameswara. He spent just 3 years as king of Singapura. This was because Singapura was invaded by the Majapahit empire at the turn of the 15th century. When Singapura fell, he fled to Johor and founded Malacca. 

The settlement in Singapura waned as Malacca took over and became the leading port in the region. If things had continued in the linear fashion after that, Singapore would have been on a secular decline and Malacca would have been going up as the leading port. 

But as it were, history took a turning point in 1819, because of the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles, and our port status became elevated and then Singapore went on a different trajectory. Raffles also recognised the significance of this hill.  He built his house on it and the hill came to be known as Government Hill, and his house also became the residence of subsequent colonial governors.  

By the late 19th century, the hill was used primarily for military purposes. This is how the name, Fort Canning, came about. During World War II, this was where the British directed the defense of Singapore. Some of the bunkers and facilities built within the hill are still around and you can visit them.

Fort Canning is really an integral part of our history – of the long history of Singapore, way before independence. We want to ensure that its stories continue to be remembered.  This is why we have plans to enhance Fort Canning, and I will share some of the highlights of these plans with you.

First, we want to make this place much more accessible. Because anytime you ask somebody what is your impression of Fort Canning, they will tell you that it is very hard to get to, that it is very difficult to access. It is not so easy to access.  

So we will be improving the connectivity of this park. We will build connectors to link the park to nearby nodes. For example, we are planning covered escalators which will bring visitors from Fort Canning MRT station to the hill top, and from Stamford Green to Fort Canning Park.  

We will also look at enhancing access from nearby developments, which includes adding potentially pedestrian crossings from the National Museum to the park, and from the upcoming Park Mall which is undergoing redevelopment – from that mall a connection to the park as well. These are all enhancements that we are looking at that will potentially make it easier to access the park.

Second, we will enhance the area around the Foothills at River Valley to create more family-friendly green spaces. This used to be called “King George the Fifth Jubilee Park”, it was named to mark the 1935 silver jubilee of King George the Fifth and Queen Mary. In the 1970s, it was incorporated as part of Fort Canning Park. We will enhance this area. We will introduce family-friendly amenities like new play areas, an event lawn, and a landscaped theatre for art and cultural events, all set in a garden environment. The existing buildings at the Foothills will be retrofitted potentially for gallery spaces, F&B options and various kinds of programming.

Third, we will restore some of the park’s heritage landscapes. Part of Armenian street will be pedestrianised and we will turn that into a park. In fact this area was originally part of Singapore’s first experimental botanic garden set up by Raffles in 1822. It is quite historic too. It was here that Raffles experimented with nutmeg seeds brought over from Bencoolen, to see if they could be grown as an economic crop. We will bring back some of these elements. The plantings will feature economic plants and spices integral to the spice trade in the 1800s.

Existing trails will also be enhanced to bring history to life. We will make use of augmented reality technologies to create a more immersive experience.

Fourth, we will repurpose the Fort Canning Centre, which is where we are now. This will be the space for the main exhibition for the Singapore Bicentennial in 2019. I am sure that the team is already working hard at repurposing this space for the exhibition. 

Beyond the exhibition, the space can be used for all sorts of things. We will look at how we can reconfigure the space, connect the building with the outdoor greenery, and potentially the space can be used in the future for a whole range of programming and activities. 

This brings me to my last point, which is that we will need better and more proactive programming, all year round in Fort Canning. Fort Canning has hosted many popular events. Many of you would have attended Shakespeare in the Park, Ballet under the Stars, the Rockestra concerts, here in Fort Canning at the lawn outside which is a beautiful setting for events. But these tend to be ad-hoc, we have it occasionally, once or twice a year, and there are too few of them. 

We will do more active year-round programming in Fort Canning Park. In doing so, we will not just do it within NParks, but we will also want work with partners in the area, there are many partners to work with, including the students from SMU, LASALLE, and NAFA, where we can do much more activities and programmes here together.

We hope that all of these ideas and plans will enliven the park and bring greater vibrancy to the area.  We also seek your views, on how we can fine tune our plans, and make it even better, and your ideas and feedback on what new programmes you would like to see. The plans are all showcased here, please give us your feedback, let people know about the exhibition here so that more Singaporeans can come and share with us their ideas. 

Finally, in conclusion, it gives me pleasure to open this inaugural “Festival at the Fort” to celebrate the rich history of Fort Canning Park. I hope the festival will encourage even more Singaporeans to visit Fort Canning, never mind that it may not be so accessible now, it will get better later. But even today we have the MRT station already open. With the festival this time, we hope more Singaporeans will come with their family and friends, enjoy the park, and also to appreciate its historical significance, and importantly, visit the exhibition here and share with us your ideas so that together, we can make Fort Canning even better for the future. On that note thank you very much, have an enjoyable weekend.