If you’ve walked past Raffles City in the past few weeks, you may have seen a strange sight: half a giant curry puff, tall enough for a man to enter. And next to it, an equally large slice of crimson cake.
Tasty as they look, these colossal confections are more than just a monument to the joys of pastry. Dreamt up by artist Jaxton Su for this year’s Singapore Night Festival (SNF), they’re also a homage to the Red House, an iconic bakery of yesteryear.
We speak with Su and with celebrated watercolour artist Ong Kim Seng, who knew the bakery in its heyday — when it was a meeting point for now-eminent Singaporean artists.
The Red House: a history
When Su was invited to contribute to SNF, he started by researching the Bras Basah-Bugis precinct where the festival takes place. The Red House caught his eye as a little-known site in the area’s history.
During the 1960s, the Red House (not to be confused with the Katong bakery of the same name) graced the intersection of Bras Basah Road and Victoria Street, where the Carlton Hotel now stands. Also known as “George Baker’s Cafeteria and Confectionery” or “Baker’s Bakery and Confectionery,” it served up pastries and affordable set meals, and was frequently patronised by local artists as well as students from nearby schools — St. Joseph’s Institution (SJI), Raffles Institution (RI), and the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ).
This history is relevant to this year’s festival theme: the Art of Play. Drawing from the fact that the Bras Basah-Bugis precinct housed some of Singapore’s earliest schools and continues to host key educational institutions today, the 15th edition of SNF explores themes of childhood and play through light projections, programmes, food and retail experiences, and installations such as Su’s Red House Cafe.
Su tells us that there is not a lot of information available about the original Red House Bakery, but that his sources included local blogs that post about places in Singapore. Indeed, a quick trawl of the Internet turns up comments waxing lyrical about the chicken pies, curry puffs, and chocolate eclairs once sold there, with one commenter even asking for help in replicating the taste of their cream puffs.
Heartwarming as these fond recollections may be, the scantness of these online records also serves as a sobering reminder of how quickly cities change and memories of places fade, especially if not preserved in formal histories and archives.
A meeting place for artists
Besides being part of Singapore’s food and social history, the Red House also played a surprising role in our art history, as it was frequented by luminaries such as the watercolourists Lim Cheng Hoe and Ong Kim Seng.
Cultural Medallion awardee Ong Kim Seng (b. 1945) is one of Singapore’s most notable watercolour artists, known for his paintings of the streets, shophouses, and cityscapes of past and present Singapore. He recounts how, as part of a group sometimes called the “Sunday Painters,” he and his fellow artists would congregate at the Red House early on Sunday mornings. These included Ong Chye Cho, Chia Wai Hon, and other names now inscribed in the annals of Singaporean art history.
Over a light breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee, the artists would chat about paintings from the previous week, upcoming exhibitions, and personal matters. They would also discuss where to paint that day. Perhaps at the Singapore River? Or the kampongs at Pasir Panjang?
Before they set off, Chia’s brother Chia Yeow Pong would also collect money from the artists for the day’s lunch. The artists who owned cars might give a lift to the others, while Ong, who was “just a kid” then, would follow on his bike.
Ong mentions that the group used to meet at Lim Cheng Hoe’s house at Amoy Street. But, he explains, it was “not too nice” for such a big group to cram into Lim’s personal home — hence the switch to the Red House. This anecdote highlights the importance of the bakery as a “third place,” identified by the American sociologist Ray Oldenburg as a place other than home or work. Third places like parks, libraries, and cafes play crucial roles in facilitating social interactions and building vibrant communities.
The Red House may have closed its doors long before many of us were even born. Yet, if you’ve ever whiled away a morning at a neighbourhood coffee shop, or spent an afternoon gossiping with friends over cake and tea, you’ve experienced the utility and charm of similar spaces today. Su connects the Red House’s history as a meeting place for students and artists with his experiences of contemporary cafe culture, and aims, in Red House Cafe, to create an artwork where people can come in and hang out too.
Behind the scenes
Su’s installation consists of three key elements (the curry puff, cake slice, and picnic mat), paying homage to some of the items on the Red House’s menu. Formed from “simple geometric shapes — the triangle, circle, and square,” the work is designed at a scale meant to grab people’s attention even against the massive Raffles City mall. Every Saturday, visitors may enter the cake slice to play the classic card games Snap and Happy Family, redesigned by illustrator Moppyart. And every night, lights installed in the giant pastries give them a cheerful glow.
Of course, Su conceptualised various iterations of Red House Cafe before arriving at its final form. Initially, he intended to make the installation from clear acrylic, a material with which he is more experienced. However, it proved difficult to achieve the scale he wanted with acrylic, or to avoid “unsightly gaps” — prompting him to switch to a translucent fabric instead.
It ended up a happy compromise, as the lighter, softer effect of the fabric felt closer to the texture of the pastries. “It’s my first time trying out this material,” says Su, “but I quite like it … It also brings a certain quirkiness and sexiness to the artwork.”
Representing the past
Viewers who are more familiar with Su’s futuristic, sci-fi inspired works that address themes like technology or alienation may find the cheery nostalgia of Red House Cafe surprising. But Su has also had a long engagement with community and mural art, which allows him to explore the place histories of Singapore. Over the years, he’s painted various nostalgic scenes — from street hawkers plying their trades to a rattan craftsman hard at work — across the walls of the city. And in doing so, he picks up some of the key subjects favoured by previous generations of artists.
Speaking with us, Ong emphasises the important role the arts — whether music, dance, literature, or visual art — play in recording the history of a country. “For example, certain areas that have long been demolished and [are] gone. If an artist were to record the scene, people would say, ‘This is where that building stood.’”
Though the Red House and other buildings like it are no longer standing, young artists like Su remind us that our ever-changing cityscape has a colourful and poignant history. And these buildings still loom large in the memories of those who experienced life in them.
“The Red House was where, now, the Carlton Hotel is,” Ong recalls. “Even if I close my eyes, I can still see the Red House there.”
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The Singapore Night Festival runs until 7 September 2024, boasting art installations, performances, programmes, and food and retail experiences. Find out more at nightfestival.gov.sg.
Header image: Jaxton Su, Red House Cafe (2024). Image courtesy of the National Heritage Board.
Erratum: A previous version of this article erroneously stated that Oh Chai Hoo was present at the Red House gatherings; in fact, it was Ong Chye Cho.
