Former Saint Joseph's Institution
Encyclopedia
The Former Saint Joseph's Institution (Chinese: 前圣约瑟书院) is a historic building in Singapore
, located at Bras Basah Road
in the Museum Planning Area
, within the Central Area
, Singapore's central business district
. The building has been restored and currently houses the Singapore Art Museum
.
, one of Singapore's oldest Catholic
boys' school
s. In 1992, the building was gazetted as a national monument
and it was converted into the Singapore Art Museum, which opened on 20 December 1996. Many of the building's original features were sensitively preserved.
Saint Joseph's Institution was set up by Father Jean-Marie Beurel
, who was also responsible for the building of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd
from 1843 to 1847. Saint Joseph's Institution began life on 1 May 1852 in a wood
and attap
chapel
building completed in 1833 at Bras Basah Road. The erection of the adjacent Cathedral of the Good Shepherd had allowed the original chapel to be converted into a school for boys, but a need for a better school building was quickly felt. The foundation stone for the present central block was laid on 19 March 1855 but funds had run out the year before.
In 1863, Brother Lothaire, now Brother Director, arrived from Penang
and pleaded to the government for financial assistance. He designed and raised funds for the new school building. By August 1867, the new school was ready. This was the year when the administration of Singapore was transferred from India
to Britain
. In two years, enrolment rose to almost 200.
By the turn of the 20th century, Saint Joseph's Institution had grown in both stature and size and the building soon became insufficient for its students' needs. In 1900, Brother Michael Noctor enlisted Father Charles Benedict Nain, who designed the chapel of the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus
, to design an extension to the building. This extension was completed in 1903.
In 1905, Brother Michael carried out a second extension — the Anderson Block. Brother Michael's final extension was the school hall
and chapel, constructed in 1911. After that, he made improvements to the old building. He left in 1915.
In January 2009, the Ministry of Community Development (now the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports) announced that the National Museum Art Gallery (now the Singapore Art Museum) will occupy the 5,000 m² school space as an extension of its existing gallery
at the museum.
Today, the Singapore Art Museum has an elegant Glass Hall featuring artworks
and a stately auditorium
.
The former Saint Joseph's Institution building was gazette
d as a national monument
on 14 February 2009.
priest
-architect
, Brother Lothaire. Brother Lothaire was one of six Brothers, five Sisters and two young missionaries who came to Singapore with Reverend Father Jean Marie Beurel on his return from France
in 1852 to found the new Catholic boys' school of Saint Joseph's Institution.
When the school was first completed in 1867, the completed building which is the current central block comprised a two-storey rectangular block with a pitch
ed roof
and modest belfry
.
In 1903-1906, Father Nain, the then parish
priest, added two new semi-circular wings to match the architectural theme of the central block and to define the fine Baroque
entrance forecourt
which is such an important part of the urban area in which it stands. This quality has been all but destroyed in recent years.
In 1910, verandah
s running along the whole length of the building were added at the rear, a large dome
built that replaced the old belfry was lined with teak
and the cross
was erected. New pediment
s and a parapet
were also added. Brother Michael was responsible for the hall, gym
nasium and the chapel, which were added between 1911 and 1912.
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, located at Bras Basah Road
Bras Basah Road
Bras Basah Road is a one-way road in Singapore in the planning areas of Museum and Downtown Core. The road starts at the junction of Orchard Road and Handy Road, at the ERP gantry towards the Central Business District, and ends at the junction of Nicoll Highway and Raffles Boulevard which then...
in the Museum Planning Area
Museum Planning Area
The Museum Planning Area is an urban planning area in the Central Region of Singapore. It is located in the area known as the Civic District. The area plays a "bridging role" between the Orchard Street area and the Downtown Core, which necessitates proper transport networks for vehicles,...
, within the Central Area
Central Area
In Singapore, the Central Area or Central Business District contains the core financial and commercial districts, including eleven urban planning areas, namely Downtown Core, Marina East, Marina South, Museum, Newton, Orchard, Outram, River Valley, Rochor, Singapore River and Straits View as...
, Singapore's central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
. The building has been restored and currently houses the Singapore Art Museum
Singapore Art Museum
The Singapore Art Museum contains the national art collection of Singapore. It has a collection of 7,750 pieces of Singaporean and Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art, and has an expanding collection of new Asian and international contemporary art.- History :Officially opened in 1996, it...
.
History
Until 2006 the Singapore Art Museum was Saint Joseph's InstitutionSaint Joseph's Institution
Saint Joseph's Institution is a Catholic secondary school for male students in Singapore. It was founded in 1852 as "Saint John's Institution", and is the third oldest educational institution in Singapore .SJI provides an education to boys of all races and...
, one of Singapore's oldest Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
boys' school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
s. In 1992, the building was gazetted as a national monument
National Monuments of Singapore
National Monuments of Singapore are buildings and structures in Singapore that have been designated by the Preservation of Monuments Board as being of special historic, traditional, archaeological, architectural or artistic value....
and it was converted into the Singapore Art Museum, which opened on 20 December 1996. Many of the building's original features were sensitively preserved.
Saint Joseph's Institution was set up by Father Jean-Marie Beurel
Jean-Marie Beurel
Jean-Marie Beurel was born on 5 February 1813 at Plouguenast, in Lower Brittany, France. He was assigned to the Mission of Siam by the Missions Étrangères de Paris and arrived in Singapore on 27 October 1839 at the age of 26...
, who was also responsible for the building of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd
Cathedral of the Good Shepherd
The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Singapore. It is located in the Museum Planning Area within the Civic District and affords a welcome respite from the city....
from 1843 to 1847. Saint Joseph's Institution began life on 1 May 1852 in a wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
and attap
Nypa fruticans
Nypa fruticans, known as the attap palm , nipa palm , and mangrove palm or buah atap , buah nipah , dừa nước , Ging Pol in Sinhala in Sri Lanka and gol pata , dani . It is the only palm considered a mangrove in the Mangroves Biome...
chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
building completed in 1833 at Bras Basah Road. The erection of the adjacent Cathedral of the Good Shepherd had allowed the original chapel to be converted into a school for boys, but a need for a better school building was quickly felt. The foundation stone for the present central block was laid on 19 March 1855 but funds had run out the year before.
In 1863, Brother Lothaire, now Brother Director, arrived from Penang
Penang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
and pleaded to the government for financial assistance. He designed and raised funds for the new school building. By August 1867, the new school was ready. This was the year when the administration of Singapore was transferred from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. In two years, enrolment rose to almost 200.
By the turn of the 20th century, Saint Joseph's Institution had grown in both stature and size and the building soon became insufficient for its students' needs. In 1900, Brother Michael Noctor enlisted Father Charles Benedict Nain, who designed the chapel of the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus
Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus
The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus schools are a group of eleven all-girls Catholic schools in Singapore. The first CHIJ school in Singapore was established at Victoria Street in 1854, by nuns of the Sisters of the Holy Infant Jesus. Today, the group includes six primary schools, four secondary...
, to design an extension to the building. This extension was completed in 1903.
In 1905, Brother Michael carried out a second extension — the Anderson Block. Brother Michael's final extension was the school hall
Hall
In architecture, a hall is fundamentally a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age, a mead hall was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord and his retainers...
and chapel, constructed in 1911. After that, he made improvements to the old building. He left in 1915.
In January 2009, the Ministry of Community Development (now the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports) announced that the National Museum Art Gallery (now the Singapore Art Museum) will occupy the 5,000 m² school space as an extension of its existing gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
at the museum.
Today, the Singapore Art Museum has an elegant Glass Hall featuring artworks
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
and a stately auditorium
Auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...
.
The former Saint Joseph's Institution building was gazette
Gazette
A gazette is a public journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper.In English- and French-speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name Gazette since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers bear the name The Gazette.Gazette is a loanword from the...
d as a national monument
National Monuments of Singapore
National Monuments of Singapore are buildings and structures in Singapore that have been designated by the Preservation of Monuments Board as being of special historic, traditional, archaeological, architectural or artistic value....
on 14 February 2009.
Architecture
Built on the site of a small Catholic chapel erected in the 1830s, the first in Singapore, the former Saint Joseph's Institution is another example of the work of a 19th-century FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
-architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, Brother Lothaire. Brother Lothaire was one of six Brothers, five Sisters and two young missionaries who came to Singapore with Reverend Father Jean Marie Beurel on his return from France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1852 to found the new Catholic boys' school of Saint Joseph's Institution.
When the school was first completed in 1867, the completed building which is the current central block comprised a two-storey rectangular block with a pitch
Pitch (resin)
Pitch is the name for any of a number of viscoelastic, solid polymers. Pitch can be made from petroleum products or plants. Petroleum-derived pitch is also called bitumen. Pitch produced from plants is also known as resin. Products made from plant resin are also known as rosin.Pitch was...
ed roof
Roof
A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
and modest belfry
Bell tower
A bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...
.
In 1903-1906, Father Nain, the then parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
priest, added two new semi-circular wings to match the architectural theme of the central block and to define the fine Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
entrance forecourt
Forecourt
In architecture a forecourt is an open area in front of a structure's entrance.In archaeology, forecourt is the name given to the area in front of certain types of chamber tomb...
which is such an important part of the urban area in which it stands. This quality has been all but destroyed in recent years.
In 1910, verandah
Verandah
A veranda or verandah is a roofed opened gallery or porch. It is also described as an open pillared gallery, generally roofed, built around a central structure...
s running along the whole length of the building were added at the rear, a large dome
Dome
A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
built that replaced the old belfry was lined with teak
Teak
Teak is the common name for the tropical hardwood tree species Tectona grandis and its wood products. Tectona grandis is native to south and southeast Asia, mainly India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Burma, but is naturalized and cultivated in many countries, including those in Africa and the...
and the cross
Cross
A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run obliquely, the design is technically termed a saltire, although the arms of a saltire need not meet...
was erected. New pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
s and a parapet
Parapet
A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
were also added. Brother Michael was responsible for the hall, gym
Gym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
nasium and the chapel, which were added between 1911 and 1912.