Finding Peace at Peace Centre

Unlike most shopping centres in Singapore that are named after their locations or by the people that started them, the name of Peace Centre uniquely stands out particularly amongst the many other buildings along Selegie Road.

The brown angled tiles and glass panes are typical of many olden shopping complexes

Constructed between the late 60s and early 70s, Peace Centre is a three-storey complex that is today better known for its vast array of printers that print anything from posters to corporate gift mugs. These printers presumably helped to feed the needs of students from both the old and current Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), and in more recent times, students from Laselle and School of the Arts (SOTA).

In Peace Centre, printers are aplenty

Workers taking a break on a unique hexagonal bench

Peace Centre is also directly connected to the adjoining Peace Mansion that towers above the shopping centre, housing mainly expatriate workers from Asia and a few bars that come very much alive at night.

Peace Mansion towers over the connected Peace Centre and houses mainly Asian Expatriates and other unwanted nightly activities.

You won’t find any LED lights or LCD Displays in Peace Centre, but instead fluorescent lights running above the mosaic tiled floors, elements that are typical of many shopping centres built in in the 60s and 70s.

Other notable design features are the wooden railings, wide-open corridors with inter-connected hallways, and even unique linear points of view between the second and third storeys.

The Sultana Second hand bookstore

The shops at Peace Centre range from travel agencies to second-hand bookstores, design and music schools to guitar shops, and some say the most affordable Nasi Padang in the city area at Alright Café on Level 3.

A plate of Nasi Padang can do no wrong

Alright Cafe is perhaps the choice Nasi Padang place in the Selegie area

In recent time, Peace Centre is also perhaps better known as one of the few places where the popcorn of old or Kachang Puteh can still be bought from Mr Nagappan Arumugam, a spirited man who used to sell this long cherished snack at Hoover Cinema. He however appeared to be on a day off as when I last visited.

Even the kachang puteh man needs a day off

This way up