Demolition of Nissen Huts + A Tribute

Nissen Huts

It came to me as a sad news that one of the abandoned military bases is undergoing demolition at the time of writing this blog. Demolition started since August I think. Yes the Nissen Huts along Kranji Road, formerly known as Ordnance Supply Base, OSB in short or aka Woodlands Camp I, is making ways for some new land redevelopment scheme or something else. Read on for more images as I pay tribute to this great abandoned place.

Golden Glow

I’ve visited the base for a total of six times including location recce in the day and night photography visits. I have planned to make another visit for more night photography on 27th October 2012, Saturday, but to my great astonishment and disappointment, I came across an image posted on Facebook on the same day by a friend of mine. An image of an excavator in the middle of the Nissen Huts. I was dumb struck when I saw that image and immediately contacted my friend for verification. The answer was affirmative. I was all packed and ready, waiting for the night fall. Guess I'm late again but I'm still glad I had made a few good nocturnes earlier this year.

In fact, my friend took many other images of OSB. Let me show you the Before and After effect of OSB. The image shown below was taken by me during one of my recce trips, followed by the image my friend, Chris Lee took. To view more of Chris' images, visit his Facebook Album page here.

OSB in panoramic view. (Before)

Excavator in OSB. (After)

Image courtesy of Chris Lee.

Another great place is gone. As the old saying goes “Nothing lasts forever.” Well even old abandoned places like OSB is no exception, though it has been vacant for more than a decade or two. I'm sure going to miss this place a whole lot.

Come to think of it seriously, time is precious and land in Singapore is so valuable that at any time, the authorities or private investors would buy and re-develop the land. It’d be wise to make more nocturnes on my other night project on old school playgrounds before some or all of them are gone forever.

Last but not least, here's a tribute to OSB with some of the images I've made during my visits. Pleasant viewing.