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W H A T
CHIJMES, a popular tourist location, houses many classy restaurants, cafes and bars that locals frequent. This includes TONKATSU by Ma Maison, Toast Box, BERLIN and many more. It also holds various events such as weddings and parties.
However, CHIJMES was not always that way. It was once a Catholic convent, and was used in that way for 132 years along with the Caldwell House.
Originally known as the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), the chapel was constructed in 1904 and the Caldwell House in 1840 - 1841.
The CHIJ was a premier girls’ school established in 1854 by an order of French Catholic nuns, and was originally located within a self-contained city block at Victoria Street.
It consisted of English language primary and secondary schools, a Chinese medium school called St Nicholas Girls’ School, an orphanage, nuns’ quarters, and a chapel.
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©️ sn infocomm 2017
Now, the chapel is a multi-purpose hall, known as CHIJMES Hall, while Caldwell House is an art gallery.
The complex was gazetted as a national monument on 26 October 1990, and fortunately, careful restoration work has preserved much of the original structure of the convent and the chapel.
After almost five and a half years of construction and conservation work, what was once the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus and the source of education for generations of Singapore girls has been converted into a plaza of theme retail and food and beverage outlets with ample outdoor spaces and courtyards, cloistered walls and long, covered walkways.
This haven in the city hub of Singapore, now known as CHIJMES, is a S$100 million project unrivalled for its location and unique ambiance.
THE
HISTORY
OF
CHIJMES
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HOW DID IT COME ABOUT?
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HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT
T O W N
C O N V E N T
In 1851, on behalf of the Apostolic Vicar of Malaya, Father Jean-Marie Beurel, priest of the Good Shepherd Church, was sent to Paris to recruit teachers.
He approached the Institute of the Charitable Schools of the Holy Infant Jesus of St Maur, which was an order of well educated and socially conscious nuns.
In October 1852, the order sent a group of nuns, led by Reverend Mother Mathilde Raclot, to Asia to establish the first Infant Jesus schools.
In February 1854, Mother Raclot and three companions travelled to Singapore, where they moved into a purchased house from a magistrate’s clerk, H. C. Caldwell.
The house was on the corner of Victoria Street and Bras Basah Road, and became known as the Caldwell House. This house formed the beginnings of the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ).
Despite the initial austere living conditions, the sisters commenced lessons for two classes of students within 10 days after their arrival.
Later, the school soon expanded and became known for providing education of a good standard.
The school provided education to not only girls, but boys too.
Boys were also educated at the Convent between the 1910s and 1930s, although this practice ended after the Japanese Occupation.
The boys studied at the school from age six, leaving at age 10 to complete their education at St Joseph’s Institution, which was across the street.
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T H E
O R P H A N A G E
In 1855, the convent acquired the house adjacent to the Caldwell House.
This house became an orphanage for children who were unwanted, came from poor or broken homes, or abandoned due to superstitious beliefs.
Single mothers or women who could not afford to keep their babies often left them at the orphanage’s side gate, which came to be known as the “Baby Gate” and “Gate of Hope”.
Those abandoned children were often female, Chinese, and suffering from poor health. Many died after being abandoned, with some already dead upon arrival. Those who survived learned vocational and domestic skills and received a free education at the school.
Later, in 1983, as the convent schools moved out of Victoria Street, the orphanage cum convent closed.
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B O A R D I N G
H O U S E
Over the years, the convent steadily acquired adjacent plots of land that became part of the growing complex.
In 1860, the convent bought land that had belonged to Raffles Institution.
In 1892, aided by contributions from the government and wealthy benefactors, a boarding house was built on the Stamford Road side of the complex.
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T H E
C H A P E L
By the 1890s, the simple chapel, constructed in 1855, become inadequate for the expanding school and orphanage.
In 1898, a new Gothic chapel was designed by Father Charles Benedict Nain, who was a priest from the Church of St Peter and St Paul and a trained architect who also designed the distinctive wings of St Joseph’s Institution.
Father Nain gained influence from the Gothic revival and by the churches in his native town of Farges, France.
Finally, the chapel was completed in 1903 and consecrated on 11 June 1904.
C H I N E S E
M E D I U M
S C H O O L
Classes were started for the Chinese speaking girls at four bungalows rented from Hotel Van Wijk, which was also known as Hotel Van Dyke.
In October 1931, the convent bought the hotel and demolished it. A new block of classrooms was built in 1933, and this block became Victoria Girls’ School, and was later renamed St Nicholas Girls’ School.
Following the collapse of a room, this block was subsequently deemed unsafe. It was later demolished.
In a 1951, a new building designed by Swan & Maclaren was completed.
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©️ sn infocomm 2017
R E L O C A T I O N
O F
S C H O O L
&
D E V E L O P M E N T
In the 1960s, there was talk of developing what was known then as Raffles International Centre (Raffles City now stands there).
By the early 1970s, the government was considering this in along with plans to develop a mass transport system.
Eventually, in 1983, the government acquired the land from the convent, and the schools were allocated new sites.
On 3 November 1983, mass was held in the chapel for the last time. After that, it was deconsecrated for non-religious use.
By December, the primary and secondary schools had vacated the site and moved to their new premises, where they began operations the following year.
At the original convent site, the secondary school building was demolished in 1984 to build the MRTC headquarters. Despite originally indicating that it would undertake the restoration of the site, in March 1990, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) put up the site for sale.
In order to preserve the ambience of the buildings that were remaining, the URA gazetted Caldwell House and the chapel as national monuments in 1990, and designated the entire complex a conservation area with high restoration standards and strict usage guidelines.
The buildings underwent extensive restoration works before the complex was reopened in 1996 as CHIJMES.
Pronounced “chimes”, the name incorporates the initials of the original school, while echoing its history as the site of a chapel and schools.
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A R C H I T E C T U R E
Within the CHIJMES complex, the three main buildings include the Caldwell House, the orphanage and the chapel.
Caldwell House was built between 1840 to 1841, making it the second oldest building in Singapore and the oldest building within the CHIJMES complex.
It is one of the surviving examples designed by architect G. D. Coleman and said to be similar to Tollygung House in Calcutta, which is also designed by Coleman.
The front of the two-storey building extends in a semi-circle, creating a distinctive profile.
The nuns received visitors in the parlour on the ground floor and did their sewing, reading and writing upstairs for many years.
The upstairs lounge originally contained a large octagonal wooden table that now resides at the LASALLE College of the Arts.
Till now, the room features an original wall inscription which reads "Marche en ma presence et sois parfait", French for “Walk along with me and be perfect”.
The interior of the upper floor, which used to be the dormitory, features a grand gallery with large Doric columns which support a vaulted timber ceiling.
The centrepiece of the CHIJMES complex is the Gothic chapel with its flanking linkways, which was renamed CHIJMES Hall.
This building exterior features flying buttresses and a five-storey spire. The carved letters on the chapel façade stand for "Iesu Homine Salvator", which is Latin for “Jesus, Saviour of the World”.
Each of the 648 columns of the building and linkways have unique, intricate carvings of tropical birds and plants on them.
The chapel interior features delicate stained glass windows that were produced in Bruges, Belgium.
These windows were produced by Jules Dobbelaere, who was considered the finest stained glass craftsman in late 19th-century Europe.
The glass panels depict scenes from the Bible as well as the 12 apostles. Below a cross-vaulted ceiling, the floor of the chapel is laid with multi-coloured terrazzo tiles.
The chapel originally contained wooden pews imported from Toulouse, France.
