In the 1970s, the old city centre underwent redevelopment under the government’s urban renewal scheme, which saw the building of new Housing and Development Board flats along North Bridge Road (background). Alongside these new flats stood older structures such as the Sultan Mosque (centre foreground). The original structure of the mosque, known in Malay as ‘Masjid Sultan’, was built between 1824 and 1826 under the patronage of Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, who acquired funds for the project from the East India Company as part of the treaty arrangements that allowed the setting up of a British trading settlement in Singapore. The mosque underwent a major reconstruction in 1928 and was gazetted as a national monument in 1975.
