The National Gallery Singapore is a public art museum and national museum located in the Civic District of Singapore. It houses a collection of Singaporean and Southeast Asian art spanning the 19th century to the present, with more than 9,000 artworks.
The Gallery aims to provide an understanding and appreciation of art and culture through a variety of media, focusing on Singapore's culture and heritage and its relationship with other Asian cultures and the world. It consists of two national monuments, the former Supreme Court and former City Hall buildings, and has a combined floor area of ,This is about four times the size of the Singapore Art Museum: making it the largest visual arts venue and largest museum in Singapore. A total cost of approximately S$532 million has gone into the National Gallery Singapore's development.
In financial year 2024-25, the Gallery recorded 1,979,190 visitors. Singapore citizens and permanent residents receive free general admission.The Art Newspaper, March 30, 2021
The Gallery also contains several restaurants and cafés, including Odette and National Kitchen by Violet Oon.
History
Planning At his National Day Rally speech on 21 August 2005, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong mentioned the government's plan to convert the former Supreme Court building and former City Hall building into a new national gallery.In his National Day Rally speech on 21 August 2005, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong mapped out his vision to remake Singapore and called on everyone to play a part: On 2 September 2006, Dr. Lee Boon Yang, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts officially announced the setting up of the National Gallery Singapore during the Singapore Biennale 2006 at the National Museum of Singapore.
MICA subsequently established a process for stakeholders and interested parties to contribute to the project. A steering committee, initially chaired by Dr. Balaji Sadasivan, oversaw its implementation. The committee was supported by an executive committee and four advisory groups covering museology, architectural conservation, finance, and communications.
Design competition
On 23 February 2007, MICA and the Singapore Institute of Architects launched a two-stage architectural design competition to select a design team for the National Gallery. The first stage called for design and concept proposals and included a site tour of the two buildings. The competition received 111 entries from 29 countries, with five proposals shortlisted in May 2007. Members of the jury consisted of a panel of eminent local and international professionals headed by Tommy Koh, Singapore's Ambassador-at-Large and chairman of the National Heritage Board, and included officials from the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Musée national des Arts asiatiques-Guimet in France and the Asian Civilisations Museum.
For the second stage, the shortlisted candidates had to develop their designs, from which the winning proposal would be selected by the jury. Due to the status of the former Supreme Court Building and City Hall as national monuments, certain aspects of the buildings could not be altered, such as the façade, the Surrender Chamber, the office of Singapore's founding Prime Minister and the panelling in four rooms of the Supreme Court. However, this still left many design options open such as the addition of roof and basement floors. The participants also had to submit entries within a budget of S$320 million.
On 29 August 2007, the seven-member international jury panel named the top three designs out of the five shortlisted. The three firms – Studio Milou Architecture from France, Ho + Hou Architects from Taiwan, and Chan Sau Yan Associates from Singapore – each received $150,000. The jury selected the three designs after reviewing models and digital mock-ups and hearing presentations from the five finalists. The other two firms that were shortlisted in the first stage were DP Architects and Australia's Smart Design Studio.
An exhibition of the five finalists' proposals was held at City Hall in October 2007, and the public was invited to give feedback on the designs, programmes and events. The jury's decision was presented to MICA, which then decided on whom to commission to design and build the art gallery. An announcement on the final design was made in the first quarter of 2008.
Competition winner and construction In May 2008, Studio Milou Singapore, in partnership with CPG Consultants (Singapore), was appointed to design and build the Gallery.
Studio Milou Architecture is a French architectural firm, with branches in Paris and Singapore that specialise in the design of museums and cultural spaces.
CPG Consultants, a subsidiary of CPG Corporation, is a multi-disciplinary design consultancy firm. Headquartered in Singapore, CPG Consultants has extensive expertise in conservation and preservation of buildings. To date, the company has completed over 20 such projects in Singapore, most of which are gazetted monuments.
Studio Milou Architecture's design consisted of a linear draped canopy supported by tree-like columns to link the former Supreme Court Building and City Hall at the roof level. The design incorporated an extended staircase linking the basement to the upper levels, making use of solar energy to provide electricity. Fine metal mesh had been proposed to cover most of City Hall. Studio Milou's proposal was ranked first among the three winning designs.
On 21 December 2010, the Gallery appointed Takenaka-Singapore Piling Joint Venture as the main construction contractor for the new Gallery. Construction began in January 2011, and the Gallery opened to the public on 24 November 2015.
Buildings The museum occupies the former Supreme Court Building and City Hall, both of which are national monuments. The buildings face the Padang and are connected by bridges and a new basement level. The design for the National Gallery integrates the City Hall and former Supreme Court buildings, combining both old and new architecture.
The Supreme Court was built on the site of the former Grand Hotel de l'Europe, which was demolished in 1936. Designed by Frank Dorrington Ward, Chief Architect of the Public Works Department, the former Supreme Court building was built to house Supreme Court offices and courtrooms and was declared open on 3 August 1939. This building is the former courthouse of the Supreme Court of Singapore, before it moved into the new building on 20 June 2005. The architecture of the former Supreme Court building is in harmony with that of its neighbour, City Hall. The general layout of the building exemplifies British colonial architecture, comprising four blocks of offices and courtrooms surrounding a central rotunda with a dome that was originally used to house a circular law library. United Engineers Ltd was the building contractor. The Corinthian and Ionic columns, sculptures and relief panels were the works of Italian artist, Cavaliere Rudolfo Nolli. The building also features tympanum sculptures and ornamented frieze panels.
The City Hall building was constructed between 1926 and 1929 and was originally known as the Municipal Building. Designed by the British Municipal architects A. Gordon and S. D. Meadows, it was used to house the offices of the Municipal Council, which was responsible for the provision of water, electricity, gas, roads, bridges and street lighting. From 1963 to 1991, City Hall came to house offices of several government departments and courtrooms. The building was vacated in 2006. It was in the City Hall building that Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, on behalf of the Allied forces, accepted the surrender of the Japanese forces on 12 September 1945.
The building also housed the office of Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore. Lee and members of his Cabinet took their Oaths of Allegiance and Oaths of Office on 5 June 1959 in the City Hall Chamber. It was gazetted on 14 February 1992 as a national monument. The original layout of City Hall is a typical example of neoclassical British architecture. The building's interior is modestly proportioned, but its front façade is distinguished by 18 three-storey-high Corinthian columns facing the Padang.
Galleries
National Gallery Singapore focuses on Singaporean and Southeast Asian art from the 19th century to the present. Its displays draw primarily from Singapore's National Collection and include works by artists from Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia.
The Gallery's collection forms part of Singapore's National Collection. Its origins can be traced to artworks donated by Dato Loke Wan Tho to Singapore in 1960 and subsequent years.
The Gallery mainly draws from Singapore's National Collection, the world's largest public collection of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art. The National Collection started with an original bequest of 93 works made to the National Museum in 1976, by the well-known cinema magnate and art patron, Dato Loke Wan Tho. Through careful nurturing over the years, this collection has grown significantly to approximately 8,000 pieces in 2010. The National Heritage Board is presently the custodian of this collection. National Gallery Singapore will feature works by major Singaporean artists such as Georgette Chen, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi, Cheong Soo Pieng, and Liu Kang. The collection now spans from early-20th-century naturalistic paintings to contemporary video installations. The collection also holds pieces from Southeast Asian artists of international standing, such as Affandi (Indonesia), Latiff Mohidin (Malaysia), Le Pho (Vietnam), Montien Boonma (Thailand), Fernando Cueto Amorsolo (Philippines), and Raden Saleh (Indonesia).
Singapore Gallery
The Singapore Gallery is a platform for studying and presenting the cultural and aesthetic identity of Singapore from the ancient period to present day.
Southeast Asia Gallery Housed in the former Supreme Court building, the Southeast Asia Gallery presents the history of Southeast Asian art, starting in the 19th century.
Special set of Research Galleries These galleries complement the core galleries, providing space for curators and researchers to experiment with ways of presenting materials from the Gallery's permanent collection.
Changing gallery spaces
The gallery has approximately of spaces to host international travelling exhibitions.
Docents
One of the public programmes offered by the Gallery is the Docent Programme, a training workshop in art, history and culture. The programme seeks to cultivate a pool of volunteer guides. They are trained in public speaking and have extensive knowledge of Singaporean and Southeast Asian art, and the architecture and history of the Gallery buildings.
Keppel Centre for art education The Keppel Centre for Art Education is a learning facility for families and schools. It provides spaces and programmes for children and students to engage with art.
Children and younger students will experience and interact with original artworks that are specially created to develop observation skills and tactile exploration.
The Keppel Centre for Art Education also offers programmes including a regular series of Studio-based workshops, artist talks, curator's presentations, as well as complimentary Drop-in programmes conducted by artists, curators and museum educators.
Exhibitions at the National Gallery Singapore
An exhibition, ''The Gift'', was held from 20 August to 9 November 2021 and explored the role of gifts in art-making and collecting. It was a partnership with three other arts institutions: Galeri Nasional Indonesia, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Thailand and Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, which was initiated by the Goethe Institut. Each museum curated a selection of works from their own and each other's collections that were on display simultaneously.