National Stadium

The national stadium was opened in July 1973 and was officially closed in 30 June 2007. Come this March 2008, it will be torn down to make way for a modern sports hub to be ready by 2011. The new sports Hub will have a 55,000 seating capacity, a sporting arena that can seat 3000 people, a 6000 seater aquatic center, commercial space and even a hotel.

It is a pity that such a structure almost 35 years old has to make way for a newer facility driven by the need to modernize whatever is old. Perhaps there should be no room for sentimentality here as land space in Singapore is scarce and every inch is measured not in meters but in dollars.

The national stadium is a historical monument in itself as it symbolizes a growing nations "investment" in sports at a time when such an investment would be deemed unnecessary, risky and of lesser importance. Yet the man behind this push, Mr Othman Wok did not stop at pushing ahead with this idea. One year after independence in 1966, the first pile was driven in Kallang Park to make way for the construction of the National Stadium.

Perhaps the National Stadium should have been preserved as part of the conservation projects by the National Heritage Board or made into an icon of historical significance to a then developing country. Instead come March 2008, it will be bull-dozered to the ground. What is left of it will be memories and pictures. Perhaps this is a practical thing to do in land scarce Singapore.

But imagine visiting Rome and seeing pictures of the Colosseum instead of the real thing. Being able to touch and feel the pillars of the Colosseum "brings" a person "back" into time to feel the history of the country and its people. Imagine stepping to China and seeing pictures of the great wall instead of walking on it, or seeing pictures of the statue of liberty instead of climbing up its stairs. Yes perhaps the national stadium is not of the same level of historical significance as these structures, but it will be after 200 years (and if it is still standing)! If we start tearing everything down after 30 years there will be nothing left that is more than 30 years. :)

Every nation has pieces of history still intact. I wonder what will be left in Singapore that speaks of the people who live in the growing up years of 1960-90s a hundred years from now. Perhaps nothing much but stone slabs of the Old National Stadium showcased in the National Museum or the Sports Museum in the new sports hub.

History is being eaten away in favor of a new complex that will perhaps be more expensive to maintain and that can potentially attract more dollars. In any large scale projects to be done, the cost benefit analysis must prove positive. So i guess in this case the benefits outweigh the cost and the cost is history.

Take this as a tribute to a historical structure that has many "firsts" for the people in Singapore and that will soon only be seen in pictures and videos.