Cathay Building 3.55

The Cathay Building was opened in 1939 by Dato Loke Wan Tho as the headquarters for the British Malaya Broadcasting Corporation. Located at 2 Handy Road in the Museum Planning Area of Singapore, the building was most known for its air-conditioned theatre, then a technological marvel and the first to be built in Singapore. Cathay Building was the first skyscraper in Singapore and tallest building in Southeast Asia at the time.HistoryThe 16-storey Cathay Building was designed by British architect Frank W Brewer in the 1930s. The building was the first and tallest skyscraper in Singapore and in Southeast Asia, at a height of 83.5 metres from the Dhoby Ghaut entrance to the top of the building's water tower. The Cathay Building opened on 3 October 1939, with a 1,300-seat Cathay Cinema, and the tower block as Cathay Hotel. It was the island's first air-conditioned cinema and public building, and where one could sit in an arm chair to watch a film; a rare amenity during that time. The building was also used as a landmark for final landing approach at Singapore's first purpose-built civilian airport, Kallang Airport.At the beginning of World War II in 1942, the building was converted to a Red Cross casualty station. When Singapore fell to the Japanese, it was used to house the Japanese Broadcasting Department, the Military Propaganda Department, the Military Information Bureau and the broadcast department of the Indian National Army's Provisional Government of Free India during the occupation period. The Japanese utilised the building to broadcast propaganda in the Japanese language. It was also the residence of film director Yasujirō Ozu from 1944 till the end of the war.