The Fullerton Hotel Singapore is a five star luxury
hotel located near the mouth of the Singapore River, in the Downtown
Core of the Central Area, Singapore. It was originally known as
the Fullerton Building, and also as the General Post Office Building. The
address is 1 Fullerton Square. The Fullerton Building was named after Robert
Fullerton, the first Governor of the Straits Settlements. Commissioned
in 1924 as part of the British colony's centennial celebrations, the
building was designed as an office building by Major P.H. Keys of Keys &
Dowdeswell, a Shanghai firm of architects, which won the project through
an architectural design competition. The architectural firm also
designed the Capitol Theatre, its adjoined Capitol Building and
the Singapore General Hospital.
The Fullerton Hotel Singapore has 400 rooms and
suites which either overlook the atrium courtyard, or face downtown
Singapore's skyline, the Singapore River promenade or the Marina Bay.
The hotel has a 25 metre outdoor infinity swimming
pool, fitness centre and a luxury spa. It also has five food and
beverage outlets. For business travellers, the hotel has a 24 hour financial
centre with the Bloomberg Professional service that
provides financial reports and world news, and 15 meeting rooms equipped
with conference facilities.
The building's historical lighthouse, which
used to guide ships into the port, has been incorporated into a food and
beverage outlet. The Fullerton Light, a revolving beacon of
540 kilocandelas mounted on the roof of the building, was installed
in 1958 to replace the Fort Canning Lighthouse which was being
demolished. The beacon could be seen by ships 29 kilometres away. The Lighthouse has been moved to a
new location as an artefact near Harbour Front Tower.
The Fullerton Building was designed for natural
ventilation before the age of air conditioning; one of the
architectural devices used to provide this was the internal air wells. There
were four air-wells along the central longitudinal axis, divided by three
internal bays of offices, linking the front façade with the rear. It was the
largest and the last example of this kind of architecture in Singapore. As air conditioning
became increasingly common, the air wells became redundant.
