Cathay known China under names similar to "Cathay", that country was known to the peoples of South-East Asia and India under names similar to "China" (cf. e.g. "Cina" in modern Malay). Meanwhile, in China itself, people usually referred to their nation state based on the name of the ruling dynasty, e.g. "Da Ming Guo" ("the kingdom of the Great Ming"), or as the "Middle Kingdom" ("Zhongguo" 中國); see also Names of China for details. When the Portuguese reached South-East Asia (Afonso de Albuquerque conquering Malacca in 1511) and the southern coast of China (Jorge Álvares reaching the Pearl River estuary in
Cathay Building the whole complex. Cathay Building and the Picturehouse would showed its last movie in 2000 before closing for redevelopment. The front facade of its theatre building structure was gazetted as a national monument for conservation on 10 February 2003, while the rest of the building structure was later demolished. Thus the new building incorporated conservation of the original art-deco façade of the 1939 and combined together with a modern-day design by Paul Tange of Tange Associates Japan and RDC Architects Pte Ltd Singapore. The Cathay as it is currently known, was opened on 24 March 2006. The building houses retail,