StudioMilou has merged Singapore’s former city hall and courthouse to produce a new national artwork gallery, with a sculptural entrance sheltered by a curving canopy produced from golden filigree and glass .
StudioMilou worked with regional firm CPG Consultants to transform the city’s Supreme Court developing and City Hall into the Singapore Nationwide Gallery, a public institution hosting collections of Southeast Asian artwork. StudioMilou’s design was chosen from 111 submissions to an international competitors for the gallery.
A concave canopy manufactured from gold filigree metal and glass construction hangs in excess of the entrance. The host buildings feature Ionic-style columns, an oxidised copper tower and pale grey stonework.
The glass and metalwork continues onto the roof of the gallery and is supported by a series of tree-like structures manufactured from steel.
The perforations in the flat roof create a dappled light result across the gallery’s floor even though assisting to display the artworks and guests from harsh sunlight.
“I wanted the roof to give rise to available analogies for the public, this kind of as the fibres of all-natural weaves and patterns rattan for illustration, or maybe ikat – gorgeous items conjured through a stunning layout gesture,” said StudioMilou founder Jean-François Milou.
Gardens, water features and a cafe set on the roof of the gallery offer visitors with views into the creating and across the city to the sea past.
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The architects preserved original particulars like tiled floors, windows with portico mouldings and canted timber ceilings, whilst new aspects have a limited colour palette to help unify the 64,000 square metres of gallery space contained within the two buildings.
CPG Consultants, which suggested on the refurbishment works, has previously worked on numerous large-scale restoration projects in the city, such as the conversion of a school into the Singapore Artwork Museum and the renovation of the 100-yr-previous National Museum of Singapore.
“This is by far the most difficult and fulfilling task in our efforts to rejuvenate historic buildings from the colonial era,” said Lee Soo Khoong of CPG Consultants. “Going through it feels like all our experiences doing work on earlier conservation tasks were a lead up to the creation of this globe-class landmark.”
Walkways crisscross an atrium in the centre of the site to connect galleries on either side, while a basement concourse unites the two buildings from below.
The Singapore National Gallery is due to open in November 2015, following a succession of high-profile cultural buildings not too long ago opened across the city such as a cluster of parsnip-shaped university buildings by British designer Thomas Heatherwick.
Building is also now underway on Moshe Safdie’s Jewel Changi Airport in the city, which will function a greenhouse-like terminal developing with a forty-metre-higher waterfall in an attempt to “reinvent what airports are all about”.
Photography is by Fernando Javier Urquijo.
Exploded axonometric diagram Dezeen
