MacDonald House

 Location: MacDonald House (40 


Orchard Road, Singapore 238837)

Brief introduction: 


The MacDonald House is a historic building in Singapore, located at Orchard Road within the Central Area.  Initially, it was built for a bank, then it continues to function as a banking hall. Today, although it is more well known to be the site of a bombing attack in 1965 at the height of Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.


It was the first building to be fully air-conditioned in Malaya. In addition to the ground banking hall, seven floors of staff flats occupied the building. An open well runs through the building, allowing natural light into the inner offices. There are six skylights in the ceiling of the banking hall which thus needs no artificial lighting during the day.

History: 


The MacDonald House, located a short distance from the Istana, is the last remaining office building in facing brick in the central area. The building was built in 1949, one of the first high-rise buildings in Orchard Road, the MacDonald House housed mainly British, American and Australian companies. 


Before the building was vacated in the early 2000s, the building housed HSBC on the first few floors of the building.

Transformation through time and space:

1949 -  First built and designed by Reginal Eyre of the architectural firm Palmer and Turner in 1949.

1963 -  After the Indonesian Government opposed the formation of Malaysia in 1962, the Indonesian military began to release saboteurs into both Singapore and Malaysia with the intent of stirring up racial tensions while at the same time undertaking acts of sabotage to destroy vital installations from 24 September 1963. Later, these saboteurs resorted to exploding bombs indiscriminately to create public alarm and panic. The bombing of the MacDonald House was the 29th, and the most serious of the spat of bombings in Singapore, killing 2 bank employees.

1965 -  The external political situation was tense when Indonesian President Sukarno declared a state of Konfrontasi (Confrontation) against Malaysia and initiated military and other actions against the new nation, including the bombing of MacDonald House in Singapore in March 1965 by Indonesian commandos, killing three people. 

2002 -  On 5 April 2002, the building was put up for sale by tender.

2003 -  It was gazetted as a national monument on 10 February 2003 and was sold as a freehold building to Tinifia Investment for S$36 million. Thereafter, it closed its doors for an extensive S$12 million interior renovations job.

  

2005 - On 23 June 2005, the flagship Orchard Road Branch of Citibank Singapore opened at The MacDonald House, occupying 37000 square feet of space spread over the building's lower four floors, making it the largest wealth management centre in Asia.

Compare and Contrast:

The MacDonald House is similar in the past and now in terms of its purpose of its residence. Initially it was built for a bank which used to be mainly occupied by British, American and Australian companies. Similarly, now it is used to house HSBC on the first few floors of the building, Mccann Worldgroup which occupies the fifth to eighth floors while a beauty/spa operator, Expressions International, takes up the top two floors. This implies that it has been always used for commercial/banking purposes. 

Land use: Macdonald House has high density land use. It has 10 stories which contain offices of different companies. It uses high density land use as many companies and fit in just one building thus saving space. Which is very useful since Singapore has a limited amount of space due to being a small country.