Built to serve as a maximum security prison facility, Changi Prison was officially opened in 1937. It was used mainly as an internment camp for European civilians during the Japanese Occupation. Large numbers of Allied prisoners-of-war were held in the neighbouring Selarang Barracks, where the famous Changi Murals Chapel, or St. Luke’s Chapel as it was then called, was first established in one of the wings of the barracks. The original facility was demolished in 2000 and the prison shifted to a new complex bearing the same name located nearby. The gates of the old prison were preserved and shifted to the new site while the Changi Chapel and Museum, first set up in 1988 next to the old prison, was relocated to a neighbouring location in 2001.
