Following news that the Ellison Building along Selegie Road will be partly demolished for the construction of the North-South Corridor, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, Singapore (ICOMOS SG) has issued a statement to explain why this decision is wrong.

The ICOMOS SG is a committee of "professional heritage practitioners who have for many years worked closely with government and non-government projects pertaining to Singapore's heritage and sites", according to their website.

The council is part of the international Icomos Unesco advisory body.

Conservation status

In their statement, they pointed out that the Ellison Building -- which has been around since 1924 -- was given conservation status by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), yet it is now seen as an "inconvenience to be done away with when it is deemed to hamper planning dictates".

Not only does this negate the heritage value Singapore originally assigned to the building, future developments can also justify bulldozing places of heritage for the sake of development.

Further, ICOMOS SG mentioned that no proper consultation or assessment was done with stakeholders and experts to "explore alternative solutions".

Instead, the authorities seemed to have dropped this bomb onto the public after arriving at this decision to demolish and reconstruct on their own.

Reconstruction problematic

The decision to reconstruct the Ellison Building after deliberately demolishing part of it is also problematic.

ICOMOS SG said reconstructing is only recommended for heritage structures destroyed in "situations that are beyond control, such as warfare or natural calamities" -- clearly not the case for Ellison Building.

This sentiment was also echoed by the Singapore Heritage Society in a statement on the issue on Aug. 18, 2016.

You can read the full ICOMOS SG statement here.

Find out more about the Ellison Building in our video below:

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Yet another heritage site (part of it) is making way for your cars

Top photo via brasbasah2015.blogspot.com

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