Kampong Glam: Singapore's Malay-Arab Heritage Quarter Under Conservation

Sultan Mosque (Masjid Sultan), Kampong Glam, Singapore. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Kampong Glam is one of four ethnic quarter conservation areas gazetted by Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority and the most historically layered in terms of the intersecting Malay, Arab and Bugis communities whose physical presence shaped its built fabric. The area's western boundary is roughly North Bridge Road; to the east it extends past Jalan Sultan; to the north it reaches Baghdad Street and Pahang Street. At its centre sits the Sultan Mosque compound and the former Istana Kampong Glam, now the Malay Heritage Centre.

Origins and Settlement History

Kampong Glam takes its name from the gelam tree (Melaleuca cajuputi), which was once abundant along the shoreline in this part of the island. Under the 1822 Raffles Town Plan, the area was designated for settlement by the Malay community, including the royal household of Sultan Hussein Shah who had ceded Singapore to the British East India Company in 1819. The Sultan was allocated a sizeable estate on which the Istana Kampong Glam was constructed in the 1840s.

Arab merchants — predominantly from the Hadhramaut region of present-day Yemen — settled along the streets east of the Istana from the 1820s onward, establishing trading houses, shipping agencies and charitable endowments. The streets named after Arab origins (Arab Street, Bussorah Street, Muscat Street, Baghdad Street) remain as evidence of this settlement pattern. By the late 19th century, Bugis traders from Sulawesi also had a significant presence in the area, concentrated further north toward the Rochor River.

The Istana Kampong Glam and Malay Heritage Centre

The original Istana Kampong Glam was built on land allocated to Sultan Hussein Shah following the 1819 treaty. The building that stands today is a reconstruction dating from the 1840s, built under the tenure of Sultan Ali Iskandar Shah. After the royal family's estate passed into government hands in 1904, the building served various institutional purposes before being acquired by the state.

Following restoration works in the early 2000s, the Istana compound opened as the Malay Heritage Centre in 2005. The NHB-managed institution houses permanent galleries on Malay culture, history and the development of Kampong Glam, as well as the surrounding landscape of mature trees and the small pavilion building that once served as a secondary structure within the royal compound. The Istana itself, a two-storey stucco building in a hybrid Malay-Palladian style, is among the few surviving examples of formal Malay palace architecture in Singapore.

Sultan Mosque

Sultan Mosque (Masjid Sultan) at North Bridge Road is the centrepiece of the conservation area and one of Singapore's most recognisable religious buildings. The mosque in its current form was completed in 1932, designed by colonial architect Denis Santry of Swan and Maclaine in an Indo-Saracenic style characterised by its large central dome, flanking smaller domes and ornate Moorish detailing. It was gazetted as a National Monument under the Preservation of Monuments Act in 1975 — one of the earliest such designations in Singapore.

The mosque serves an active congregation and continues its role as the principal Friday prayer venue for the Malay and broader Muslim community in the area. Works affecting the National Monument are subject to approval by the National Heritage Board's Preservation of Sites and Monuments division, separate from but complementary to the URA's conservation framework for the surrounding precinct.

Arab Street and the Textile Quarter

The commercial core of Kampong Glam runs along Arab Street and its side streets — Bussorah Street, Haji Lane and Baghdad Street. Arab Street's ground-floor retail units have historically traded in textiles, batik fabrics, basketry, carpets and leather goods, a specialisation that persists in modified form today alongside food and beverage, fashion and lifestyle retail.

Haji Lane, parallel to Arab Street, has undergone a well-documented shift from residential and light commercial use to an independent boutique retail and cafe strip. The street's shophouses — most dating from the 1920s to 1940s and characterised by narrow frontages and two-storey facades — retain their conservation classification, with the URA requiring that facade restoration works adhere to the established guidelines for the Late Shophouse typology predominant in this part of the precinct.

Bussorah Street, which runs directly north from Sultan Mosque toward Pahang Street, has been extensively pedestrianised at its southern end and functions as a visual approach to the mosque forecourt. The shophouses lining both sides have been restored uniformly, creating the most coherent example of a conserved streetscape in the Kampong Glam area.

Conservation Framework and Permitted Uses

The URA's conservation guidelines for Kampong Glam follow the same broad framework applied to Chinatown and Little India, but with additional considerations specific to the area's Malay-Islamic heritage. Interpretive elements — signage, street furniture and public realm treatments — are coordinated through the URA's urban design guidelines for the precinct, which recognise the area's role as a cultural destination alongside its residential and commercial functions.

Land use within the conservation area allows for a range of permitted uses at the upper floors of shophouses, including residential, serviced apartment, hotel, office and institutional uses, subject to URA approval. At ground floor, the guidelines restrict certain uses to preserve the character and activity pattern of the streetscape. The full list of permitted uses and works requirements is set out in the URA's Development Control parameters for conservation areas.

Physical Condition

The building stock across Kampong Glam is in variable condition. The principal tourist streets — Bussorah Street, the Haji Lane stretch and the section of Arab Street closest to the mosque — show a high standard of restoration. Properties further north, toward Pahang Street and Jalan Sultan, are more uneven: some have been recently refurbished, others retain deteriorated plasterwork and weathered paintwork that has not been addressed in recent cycles. The URA issues periodic conservation notices to building owners whose properties fall below maintenance standards required under the Conservation Master Plan.

The Malay Heritage Centre and Sultan Mosque compound are both well-maintained, with the Centre having undergone a gallery refresh in 2022. The surviving stretch of traditional Malay shophouses along Kandahar Street, north of the mosque, provides a less-visited but architecturally significant complement to the better-known streets of the district.