1A Short Street

1A Short Street is a building at the junction of Selegie Road and Short Street in Singapore. Opened as the Selegie Integrated Primary School in 1963, it later served as the Selegie Campus of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. At the time of its completion, it was the tallest school building in Southeast Asia.

History

On 14 October 1960, Yong Nyuk Lin, then the Singaporean Minister for Education, announced that the 10-storey Selegie Integrated Primary School would be built at the junction of Selegie Road and Short Street at a cost of $660,000. The school was to have 38 classrooms for 3,000 children attending morning and afternoon sessions. The school's construction began in the middle of 1961 and was to end in the following year. The school featured two lifts which could carry 40 students each, two dental clinics cum dressing rooms, two kitchens, two canteens, a bookshop, a store and an assembly hall that was located in a separate block. It was officially opened by then-Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore Toh Chin Chye on 19 January 1963. The "skyscraper school" was the tallest school building in Southeast Asia at the time of its completion, a title it continued to hold until 1973. According to Roots, which is published by the National Heritage Board, writes that the building's "pragmatic box-like framework is characteristic of industrial modernism – a no-frills architecture style that mimicked machinery to appear more modern." The school merged with the Stamford Primary School in 1987, after which it moved into the latter's premises. Beginning in 1990, the building was leased to the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts as its Selegie Campus. In 2015, the building was acquired by the Centurion Corporation.