CHIJMES began as a single wooden bungalow in 1854, when French nuns arrived in Singapore at the invitation of a priest named Father Beurel. Within ten days, they had opened a school.

Over the following century, the compound grew into a convent, chapel and orphanage, educating thousands of girls and sheltering the city's most vulnerable. Babies were left at the side gate so regularly that it acquired a name: the Gate of Hope.

The chapel's Gothic spires and stained glass, originally shipped from Bruges in Belgium in 1904, survive intact. After the school relocated in 1983, the complex was deconsecrated and restored for commercial use. The name kept the CHIJ initials which stand for Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus; the MES, a tour guide cheerfully admits, doesn't stand for anything.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace CHIJMES as a thread in Singapore's colonial Catholic history, connecting Father Beurel's legacy across the institutions he established throughout the Civic District.