Located in the heart of Tanjong Pager lies this forgotten piece of architecture. It is sandwiched on a little hill behind Tanjong Pagar Complex and Duxton Plain. Invisible from the main road, this old swimming pool was closed many years ago and forgotton.
I first noticed an old single storey art deco styled building from my office at Amara Hotel. It intrigued me as in a fast paced and land scarce Singapore, there was still an abandoned structure sitting on valuable land located in the Central Business District.
Yan Kit Swimming Pool was the first public pool in Singapore. It was named after a Cantonese Dentist, Look Yan Kit who was trained in Hong Kong and subsequently came to Singapore in 1877.
It was built in 1952 and officially opened in December 1952 by Sir John Nichols the Governor of Singapore at that time. The pool was altered into an Olympic sized pool in the 1990s. In 2001, the pool was closed due to leaks that developed. It was too costly to repair and maintain. Another factor it was closed was due to losing many visitors to the newer public pools with bigger and better facilities.
The future of the Yan Kit Swimming Complex is uncertain. The Singapore Sports Council now manages it and have requested for proposals from interested parties to redevelope it in September 2003 and again in May 2005. With nothing arising from that, it looks like the Yan Kit Swimming Complex will disappear from our built environment very soon.