Singapore’s Brutalist past could soon be gone

TIME has stopped in the Golden Mile Complex. Inside the sprawling 1970s building rows upon rows of travel agencies sit mostly empty, their employees staring into space. Stalls selling shoes, handbags, toothpaste and half-price stereo systems are illuminated in the gloom, while the smell of soap mixed with cheap perfume fills the air. From the second floor, the strains of a solo karaoke singer can be heard, defiantly off-key, from one of several dimly lit Thai bars which are full of punters even in the middle of a weekday afternoon. The place does not just feel like it is from the past, but from another South-East Asian country entirely.