Singapore Shophouses

They are free to look at: this is street architecture, so you walk the pavements and the covered five-foot ways that Raffles' 1822 town plan made compulsory, and only the shops, cafes and hotels now occupying them charge anything. The rows are not uniform — Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar hold the plainer, earlier examples, while the later terraces in Emerald Hill, Joo Chiat and Katong carry the ornate tiled facades and timber-shuttered windows most people come to see.

Kampong Glam and Little India add their own colour schemes again. The tightest, most-photographed single stretch is Emerald Hill Road, which runs straight off Orchard Road beside Somerset MRT. Somerset MRT sits almost opposite the mouth of Emerald Hill Road — leave by the 313@Somerset exit, and the lane is directly across the road behind Peranakan Place, so you reach the best-preserved terrace without a taxi.

Most shophouses are private homes or working businesses, so there is no "inside" to tour — the interiors stay shut to the public. At Emerald Hill the only way past the front door is to have a drink at the small cluster of bars at the Orchard Road end near Peranakan Place; the rest of the road is lived-in, and residents ask that you photograph from the pavement rather than the doorsteps.