OCBC Centre, as seen from North Canal Road. (28 July 2017)
OCBC Centre (GPS: 1.28543, 103.84931) is a 52-storey skyscraper at Chulia Street in downtown Singapore. It was designed by famous Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, who also designed Raffles City and The Gateway in Singapore. Construction began in 1975, and the building was completed on 26 November, 1976. At that time, it was the tallest building in Southeast Asia.
The OCBC Centre has a radical design comprising office units in three tiers, the result of the pre-fabricated steel trusses which were constructed off-site and reassembled into position. The building was fondly called the "calculator building" due to its appearance as the keypad of calculators.
OCBC was founded in Singapore as the Overseas-Chinese Bank in 1919. In 1932, it merged with the Chinese Commercial Bank and Ho Hong Bank to form the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation. By the way, the formal name of the bank is spelled "Oversea" rather than "Overseas".
Today OCBC has 500 branches in 15 countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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