At the intersection of Maxwell Road and Tanjong Pagar Road, there’s a peculiar four-story church that doesn’t quite match. Aside from the title and the cross, the edifice hardly looks like a church at all. Painted off-white with horizontal stripes of bright yellow, the Fairfield Methodist Church is a jarring aesthetic disruption from the neighborhood’s construction, shophouses, modern towers, and the colonial-era Maxwell Food Center across the street. Indeed the structure was not intended to be a church, nor offices or homes. Despite being 61 years of age, the Metropole Cinema movie theater is still an impressive and attention-grabbing futuristic form.
