Located underneath Upper Paya Lebar Road near the junction of MacPherson Road and Airport Road, Tai Seng station was named after and primarily serves the industrial clusters at Tai Seng, which in turn means "big accomplishment" in Chinese. The name was first used on a rubber factory constructed in the area in 1917.
History
Artwork featured above the station platforms
In November 1999, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced that the Marina Line, a planned rail line, would be extended from Stadium Boulevard station to connect to the Outer Circle Line at Paya Lebar.[3] The Marina Line and the Outer Circle Line would be merged to create the 34 kilometres (21mi)Circle line (CCL) in April 2001. The second phase of the CCL involved a 5 kilometres (3.1mi) extension from Stadium Boulevard to Upper Paya Lebar Road with 5 stations.[4][5]
A segment of Upper Paya Lebar Road from Kim Chuan Road to Jalan Bunga Rampai was realigned in March and April 2003 for the construction of the station. The realignment works included the relocation of bus stops.[6]
Before the station was built, it was tentatively named Upper Paya Lebar. It was renamed to Tai Seng to reflect the location of the area.
The station was opened on 17 April 2010 along with the rest of Stage 1 & 2 of the Circle Line.[7]
On 16 May 2017, it was announced that Tai Seng will be linked by an underground walkway to commercial hub 18 Tai Seng. Work on the underground walkway started in March 2015 and was by the second half of 2015.[8] The new exit comes with escalators and a lift for pedestrians' use.
Details
Tai Seng station serves the CCL and is between MacPherson and Bartley stations, with the official station code of CC11.[9] As part of the CCL, the station is operated by SMRT Trains.[10] The station operates between 5:35am and 12:22am daily.[11] Train frequencies vary from 3.5 to an average of 5.0 minutes during peak hours to an average of 6 minutes for off-peak hours.[12] Tai Seng station is mostly wheelchair accessible.[13] A tactile system, consisting of tiles with rounded or elongated raised studs, guides visually impaired commuters through the station,[14] with dedicated tactile routes that connect the station entrances to the platforms.[15] Wider fare gates allow easier access for wheelchair users into the station.[15] The station also has bicycle facilities.[16] Tai Seng station runs along Upper Paya Lebar Road, and has two exits serving various nearby landmarks such as Tai Seng Point, 18 Tai Seng, Leong Huat Building, Tai Seng Centre, Hudson@5Harper, J'Forte, Sakae Building, and the Breadtalk headquarters.[13][17]
Artwork
As part of the Art in Transit Programme, a showcase of public artworks on the MRT, Equilibrium by Francis Ng is displayed at Tai Seng.[18] Located at the station's platform, the artwork consists of two parallel displays of red, yellow, and blue coloured equilateral triangles in a triangular grid, with the displays reflecting off of each other.[19] According to Ng, Equilibrium was "an extension of the interest and inquiry [he has] on site-specific areas. Drawing on the speed and rhythm of the inter-relationships found in the different level of private, public, and other spaces in this particular site, a sense of spatial 'equilibrium' is emphasised".[19] Martin Mayo of TODAY stated that Equilibrium "would look good in a gallery or a museum but is wasted here", adding that the artwork's visual effect could not be seen due to brightness of the light.[20]
Francis Ng initially conceptualised the artwork to express the themes of "parallel and opposites", "cohesion and contrast", and "symmetry and asymmetry", though later chose the theme of "equilibrium".[19] Ng started by experimenting with primary elements for a few months such as dots, lines, and shapes, and then selected a composition of primary-coloured equilateral triangles.[19]Equilibrium was originally submitted for MacPherson station as part of an art contest organised by the LTA as Ng was familiar with MacPherson's surroundings, with Kay Kok Chung Oi submitting Virtuous Cycle for Tai Seng.[21] Ng wanted Equilibrium to be made by fusing individual cut and coloured glass triangles, though the LTA suggested to stick together three glass panels of a single colour of triangles due to time and economic constraints; this would have eliminated the reflection effect that Ng wanted, and the installation needed for the artwork could not meet the design and engineering requirements for MacPherson as the station is a Civil Defence shelter. After talking to an LTA executive, Ng reworked the artwork to be made out transparent acrylic panels, which provided greater depth and enhancing the 3D effect.[22] Despite the proposal being lighter, Virtuous Cycle and Equilibrium swapped locations due to the weight of Equilibrium being a potential danger during an emergency.[23]
Zhuang, Justin; Mead, Andrew; Koh, Hui Ting (2013). Art In Transit: Circle Line MRT — Singapore. Singapore: Land Transport Authority. pp.105–107. ISBN9789810749828.
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