National Gallery Singapore

National Gallery Singapore is an art museum installed inside two buildings that were, for most of their lives, the machinery of government: City Hall and the former Supreme Court, standing side by side on St Andrew's Road at the edge of the Padang. The Gallery describes them as two national monuments restored and joined into a single venue of 64,000 square metres.

City Hall came first. Built as the Municipal Building, it was completed and declared open on 23 July 1929 at a cost of 1.605 million Straits dollars, and it took its later name when Singapore was proclaimed a city. Its four storeys sit behind eighteen Corinthian columns three storeys high, facing the field. The Supreme Court next door was designed by Frank Dorrington Ward, Chief Architect of the Public Works Department; construction began in 1937 and the building opened on 3 August 1939. Five storeys, four blocks around a central rotunda whose dome once held a circular law library, it is the last neoclassical building put up in Singapore.

Both buildings were declared national monuments, then converted after a two-stage international design competition that drew 111 entries from 29 countries. The Gallery held its grand opening on 27 November 2015 and now oversees the world's largest public collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian modern art.

The collection runs to more than 8,000 artworks from across Southeast Asia, spanning the nineteenth century to the present, and the Gallery's own shortlist of what to look for names Raden Saleh's Boschbrand (Forest Fire) of 1849, Juan Luna's Espana y Filipinas of 1884, Le Pho's Jeune fille en blanc of 1931, S. Sudjojono, Latiff Mohidin's Pagoda II, Chen Wen Hsi's Gibbons and Wu Guanzhong's Zhangjiajie. These are large, quiet, figurative paintings for the most part, and they reward a slow first hour more than a fast one.

The long-term displays sit in the DBS Singapore Gallery, which currently holds Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art alongside Lai Foong Moi: Crossings, and in the Wu Guanzhong Gallery. Changing shows occupy the Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries and Special Exhibition Gallery 3.

A useful amount is free of any ticket. The Ngee Ann Kongsi Concourse Gallery at Basement 1, the Keppel Centre for Art Education on Level 1, Laws of Our Land in the Chief Justice's Chamber and Office on Level 3, the ArchiGallery on Level 4, the Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Gallery on Level 5 and the Padang and Coleman decks on Level 6 all admit visitors without an admission ticket. The Rotunda Library and Archive is inside the old dome.

The Gallery states on its visitor information page that visitors typically spend three hours here, and that is the number to plan against rather than a guess. Three hours is enough to walk both wings, see the Singapore and Southeast Asian long-term displays properly, take one special exhibition at a reasonable pace, and climb to the roof garden.

The arithmetic behind it is worth knowing. The two buildings are joined by link bridges and the route runs across six levels, so a fair share of the three hours is spent moving rather than looking: getting from the Basement 1 concourse to the Level 6 decks and back is not a short walk. A visitor who only wants the DBS Singapore Gallery and the roof can do it honestly in ninety minutes. A visitor who wants two special exhibitions as well as the permanent displays should budget four hours or more and accept a break in one of the cafes, since food and drink are not allowed in the galleries.

Doors close at 7pm and last admission is 6.30pm, with admission and ticket sales ending thirty minutes before closing time. Arriving after about 4pm therefore leaves less than the three hours the Gallery itself expects a visit to take.

The Gallery opens daily from 10am to 7pm. There is no weekly closing day on the published schedule and no midday break, which makes it one of the easier Singapore attractions to fit into a fixed itinerary.

The hour of arrival matters more than the month. Singapore has no season that changes the visit, and the building is fully air-conditioned, so the Gallery is also the obvious place to be during an afternoon downpour. If crowds are the concern, the last two hours before closing are the thinnest, though they collide with the 6.30pm cut-off for admission.

Two things argue for a morning instead. The free guided tours run early: Building Highlights goes at 10.30am Thursday to Sunday in English and 11.30am Saturday and Sunday in Mandarin, while Highlights of the Gallery runs 11am Monday to Friday and 2pm Monday to Wednesday in English, 11am Saturday and Sunday in Mandarin, and 1.30pm on the first and third Thursday of each month in Japanese. Both are free with an admission ticket. The other is the roof: the Level 5 and 6 outdoor spaces are more comfortable early than at two in the afternoon.

Bring a layer. The exhibition spaces are kept cold to conserve the artworks, and the Gallery says so itself.

An admission ticket is required for the ticketed galleries, and prices are set per person. General Admission costs 20 Singapore dollars for other nationalities and is free for Singapore citizens and permanent residents, who need an NRIC or SingPass at a Visitor Services Counter to claim it. It covers the DBS Singapore Gallery, the Wu Guanzhong Gallery, the Art Remembers display in Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery 1 and the City Hall Chamber, and the two free guided tours.

A Special Exhibition ticket is 25 dollars and covers the changing exhibitions in Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries 1 and 2 and Special Exhibition Gallery 3. An All Access ticket, which the Gallery says grants entry to all galleries, is 30 dollars for other nationalities and 15 for locals; Singaporeans and permanent residents who buy a Special Exhibition ticket are automatically upgraded to All Access. Concessions take 5 dollars off any of these for children aged 7 to 12, seniors aged 60 and above, full-time National Servicemen and overseas students and teachers from qualifying institutions, with verification at a counter.

Every ticket stays valid for 180 days from purchase. Entry is free for children aged 6 and under, locally based students and teachers, Gallery Insiders, and persons with disabilities with one caregiver. Tickets are redeemed at a self-service kiosk or a counter on arrival.

The address is 1 St Andrew's Road, in the Civic District, and no car is needed. City Hall is the nearest MRT station: take Exit B and walk about seven minutes through the Art Connector. Clarke Quay is a ten-minute walk from Exit E along the Singapore River, and Raffles Place a ten-minute walk from Exit B through the business district.

By bus, services 63, 51, 80, 32 and 851 stop opposite Peninsula Plaza, five minutes from the Coleman Street Entrance. Services 195 and 961 stop on Parliament Place beside the Padang Atrium Entrance; 61, 124, 145, 166, 174 and 197 stop opposite The Treasury Building on North Bridge Road, about seven minutes away; 75, 100, 107, 130, 131 and 167 stop in front of Victoria Concert Hall, about five minutes away.

There are three entrances and they keep different hours. Coleman Street, the main one, is open from 10am until 1am Sunday to Tuesday, 3am Wednesday to Friday and 4am on Saturday and the eve of a public holiday; it is the only one that takes vehicles. Parliament Place runs 10am to midnight and Padang Atrium 10am to 7pm, both pedestrian only.

Drivers enter the car park from Coleman Street. Connaught Drive and Fullerton Road are closed to traffic, so that route does not work.

One closure changes what a ticket buys. The UOB Southeast Asia Gallery is shut and the Gallery says it will reopen in late 2027; in the meantime works from the National Collection are shown across the rest of the building rather than in that wing. Anyone arriving specifically for the Southeast Asian survey should read the current exhibition list before buying.

Food and drink are not allowed in the galleries at all, bottled water included, so a long visit means a deliberate stop at one of the restaurants or bars. Bulky items, large bags and umbrellas go into the lockers at Basement 1, and bags may be inspected on entry. The galleries are cold. Phone calls are not permitted inside them, running and roller shoes are out, and children must be accompanied by an adult throughout.

Sketchers face specific rules: pencil only, in a sketchbook no larger than 22 by 28 centimetres, no easels, no charcoal, pastel, marker, watercolour or oil, and no sitting on the floor. A stool can be borrowed free from the Basement 1 counter.

The R18 exhibition Passion is Volcanic can only be bought onsite and admits visitors aged 18 and above. Strollers are allowed in the galleries, with parking at the Keppel Centre for Art Education.

Still photography without flash is allowed in the galleries for non-commercial use. Flash photography and videography are not permitted anywhere in them, and selfie sticks and tripods are not allowed at all. The Gallery also warns that photography may be restricted in the special exhibition galleries and on Levels 3 and 4 of the City Hall Wing, so the rule to carry is that the permanent displays are photographable and a temporary show may not be; the notice at each gallery door is the authority. Commercial shoots are arranged in advance through the Gallery rather than negotiated on the day.

Since a tripod is out, the building rather than the artwork is the better subject. The strongest interiors are the rotunda under the old Supreme Court dome, the skylit atrium above the link between the two wings, and the long colonnade of the City Hall front. All three are bright enough to hand-hold.

Outdoors, the Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden and the Level 6 decks look across the Padang to the towers of the financial district, and the light there is best in the last hour before closing, when the sun is low and the glass across the field turns warm. The Gallery shuts at 7pm, which in Singapore is about sunset, so that last hour is the whole of the golden light available inside the building.