ABSTRACT
The tourist potential of the precinct around the prison was recognised by government and heritage authorities, but Changi prison itself had negative associations and a tenuous place in the national narrative that there was little will to preserve the 1936 building. Changi and its environs also illuminate another recurring issue in heritage conservation: the manner in which physical sites can acquire a significance beyond that which an objective analysis of their historic role suggests is appropriate. The demolition of Changi prison highlighted the intractable issue of 'ownership' of a heritage site when that site has a contested trans-national significance. Most of the Australian servicemen captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in 1942 had been held in Changi or had 'passed through the prison on their way to the horrors of the Burma railway, the mines of Japan and the labour camps of Borneo'.
