EMPS#35 : Government Building

The MICA Building, home to the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), is a colonial landmark located at the junction of River Valley Road and Hill Street. It was officially opened in 1934 and proved to be the largest government building in Singapore during the 1930s. It used to house the Hill Street Police Station and Barracks and is thus now also known as the Old Hill Street Police Station (OHSPS).

By 1980, the police vacated the building and from 1983, the National Archives and Oral History Department, Official Trustees, the Official Assignees and Public Receiver, and the Board of Film Censors became its new tenants. With this change the building was renamed the Hill Street Building. The National Archives, its last occupant, moved out in March 1997 and occupied their new home, next to the Singapore Philatelic Museum along Canning Rise, on 1 April 1997.

On 18 December 1998, the Old Hill Street Police Station building was gazetted as a national monument by the Preservation of Monuments Board. The Old Hill Street Police Station and Barracks was officially re-opened as the new headquarters for the Ministry of Information and the Arts (MITA) by Lee Yock Suan, the then Minister for Information and the Arts, on 1 November 2000.



Just across from the building is the Singapore River with the newer shopping centre and office building called The Central .
More tall building near the MICA .


In the small courtyard there is a Big Bang, a sculpture of copper, resin and bronze, by established Singapore-based Irish sculptor Brother Joseph McNally, a brother from the Catholic La Salle Christian Brotherhood who had dedicated 37 years of his life to teaching in Singapore and Malaysia.

.This cast silicon bronze statue is a visual representation of the two major concerns of man in the 21st centuary - outer space and human genetics. A dome of running water reveals the begining of time, the Big Bang, and the spirals run in eternal motion like the never ending cycle of creative life.

Brother Sean Joseph McNally (b. 1923, Ballintubber, Ireland - d. 27 August 2002, County Mayo, Ireland), nicknamed Brother Joe, later gained renown as a sculptor and artist and was also the founder and President Emeritus of the La Salle-SIA College of the Arts.


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