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| Photo by Jonathan Choe |
The highly anticipated National Gallery Singapore opens to the public this week as a fitting culmination to the city-state’s SG50 golden jubilee celebrations.
The new National Gallery was created through the combination two historic buildings, Singapore’s former Supreme Court and City Hall into one of Asia’s largest visual arts institutions. It is the latest in a series of adaptive re-uses of historic structures in Singapore: including the Victoria Theatre & Concert Hall, the National Museum of Singapore, the Capitol, and soon to include South Beach and the Asian Civilisations Museum.
Milou speaks highly of the National Gallery’s conception, stating that “many other capitals in Asia are building very important art institutions from scratch, paying little or no respect to what is around them”. In contrast, the Singapore government decided to embed the gallery building in history by incorporating and enhancing two of the most important heritage structures in the city to create the new institution.
During the tour, I spoke with Jean Francois about his approach to working with heritage buildings. He said that “there are some buildings which are monuments, where you don’t want to do an adaptive re-use. You don’t do an adaptive re-use of Angkor Wat”, but that these buildings are very expensive to maintain, and not always very practical for contemporary uses. Adaptive re-use helps to preserve heritage structures, and ensures their relevance and usefulness.
Milou describes his design idea as a way to “signal change while demonstrating new”, with the addition of a light, thin veil which creates new spaces within the complex, acting as a “very non-violent way of joining the two with without changing the existing buildings”.
The contemporary intervention responds delicately to its urban context, creating a new axis of publicly accessible spaces, improving circulation through the district. The intervention is hardly visible from the exterior, except a subtly peeled-open entrance along the main elevation, demarcating one of the four axial entrances to the museum.
The new building is porous at all four sides, channeling visitors into the new basement concourse which adds visitor facilities to the building. Studio Milou intended to create the impression that the “basement is sliding below the buildings without touching them”.
This presented a number of challenges during construction, since although the two buildings look visually similar, they are in fact very different in terms of age and construction. The 1929 City Hall building is of load bearing masonry construction on a shallow raft foundation. In contrast, the 1937 Supreme Court building is one of the first buildings in Southeast Asia to be constructed from steel, with a metal frame clad in stone to complete the Neoclassical style.
With the uppermost floor of the new building perched atop and subtly set back from the existing buildings, it offers new (and spectacular) vantage points over the surrounding Historic District and city skyline.
The galleries within the National Gallery are a mixture of neutral contemporary spaces and bespoke historic galleries, often retaining existing finishes and furniture. Milou explained that his strategy for historic conservation work is to accept patina. Defects in original artefacts are not restored to mint condition. This is evident in much of the historic surfaces, which while imperfect are completely original and exude character.
Another example is the crest on the front of the Supreme Court building, which was removed by the Japanese during WWII, and the only remnants are a prominent scar within the front colonnade. It was decided not to recreate the crest, instead leaving the blemish as a visible narrative of history.
The most spectacular feature of the building is the ample lofty public spaces, sheltered under the soft, filtered light of the filigree gold canopy. Milou says that “what is important is we try to bring natural light everywhere, to create a landscape that is united by light. We wanted the feeling of something that is very even, like a landscape”.
Within these spaces, the historic structures including the original internal domes of the Supreme Court building are literally viewed in a new light, and stunning new vistas of the historic structures abound.
The City Hall courtyard (historically used as a carpark) has been transformed into an airy, light filled atrium with a glass water pool roof to provide a natural evaporative cooling effect, and is one of the contributing factors to the building’s Green Mark Gold environmental rating.
Milou speaks of the “veil acting as a unifying structure of light, light is the uniting structure”. It gives “layers of significance that give a complexity to the space”. He describes the design process as extremely complex, using digital modelling (and subsequent full scale mockups) to get the perfect quality of light correct.
Elements within the new additions are markedly contemporary. Classical mimicry is eschewed in favour of elegant and minimal interventions. Bridges between the two existing buildings are expressed with modern tensile structures, and the few columns that support the massive expanse of the filigree roof are expressed as graceful abstract tree-like forms. Milou mentioned that they didn’t start off with the idea of a tree, but the concept naturally developed as a way to support the huge roof with minimal columns interrupting the courtyard spaces. The tree-like form emerged as a way to distribute structural loads from a wide area onto a few points.
In quantitative terms, the 64,000sqm National Gallery plants Singapore firmly on the global arts map, even compared to prestigious institutions such as the Tate Modern (34,500sqm), the Louvre (60,600sqm) or MoMA (59,000sqm). At more than half a billion dollars to construct, this new gallery cost a staggering five times as much to build as Frank Gehry’s iconic Guggenheim Bilbao. No one is doubting this new museum’s credibility in terms of sheer facts and figures.
Qualitatively, the stunning blend of painstakingly restored historic gems and the perfectly articulated contemporary spaces between, above, and below them make this museum among of the world’s best. I was awestruck by the wonderfully crafted edifice, along with the hundreds who have already been to the gallery (sans art) on the naked museum tours, and am eagerly looking forward to see if the contents live up to the container when the National Gallery opens to the general public on 24 November 2015.
UPDATE ON 28 NOVEMBER 2015:
I went back to check out the National Gallery again after the official opening, and thought I’d add some pictures of the stunning gallery now that it is finally in use by the public.
The entrance to new National Gallery is through a subtly peeled-open new facade in the gap between the two heritage buildings.
The atrium spaces are filled with dappled sunlight, filtered by a filigree canopy supported by tree-like columns.
The new glass ceiling covering the gallery public spaces diffuses Singapore’s strong sunlight with golden lace-like aluminium panels.
The National Gallery features artwork from around Southeast Asia, soon to be joined by travelling exhibitions from some of the best museums in the world.
Sprinkled throughout the gallery are a series of unique furniture pieces designed by Lekker, which feature classical woodwork furnishings fused and extruded with contemporary elements. They add a quirky postmodern touch to the gallery spaces.
The existing courtyards of the City Hall building are covered with a new glass and water veneer roof, which casts incredible ripples of dynamic light into the courtyards.
The rooftop garden, host to some of Singapore’s hippest new bars and restaurants, also features publicly accessible (free) vantage points offering stunning panoramic views across the Padang of the Singapore skyline.
Singapore has had high hopes for the National Gallery (since the design competition in 2007), and the resulting museum is one of the finest in the world. Make sure to check it out!
