The National Museum of Singapore reopens its revamped Singapore History Gallery today, Saturday 10 October, and entry is free for every visitor, tourists included, until Monday 12 October. The reopening also starts Stories of Everyday, nine days of free festivities for the museum’s 139th anniversary that run to 18 October.
The museum at 93 Stamford Road is open daily from 10am to 7pm. Last admission to the galleries is 6.30pm. Singapore Odyssea, the multimedia prelude visitors pass through before the gallery, takes its last entry at 6.15pm from today.
Seven sections, 700 years
The gallery covers 700 years of the island’s history in seven sections, each tied to an era:
- Fluid Beginnings, 1300s to 1800s
- Colonial City, 1800s to 1930s
- Fall of the Fortress, late 1930s to 1940s
- Towards a New Identity, 1950s to 1960s
- Becoming Singapore, 1960s to 1980s
- Being Singaporean, 1980s to 1990s
- Looking Global, 2000s to the present
Fluid Beginnings has the Singapore Stone and a newly commissioned jongkong boat, set within Singapore’s roots in the Malay world. Fall of the Fortress uses personal effects, military artefacts and letters to show the human cost of the Japanese invasion and occupation.
Becoming Singapore is where the restored HDB lift stands, among everyday objects from the years when families moved into high-rise flats and workers took factory jobs. Being Singaporean turns to hawker food, fashion, film and sport, with interactive stations and a virtual try-on for retro outfits.
Voice stations run through all seven sections. Visitors can record answers to a question in each one, and the gallery ends with a cinematic finale that turns those answers into the skyline of a future Singapore.
What runs at Stories of Everyday
Most of the anniversary programme is free and runs daily from 10am to 7pm until 18 October.
- The Living Archive, the museum’s first Living and Design Market, sits at The Concourse on Level 1 from 10 to 18 October, 10am to 7pm. Presented with Of Wonder Wander, it has more than 30 local brands selling ceramics, stationery, art prints, home goods, apparel and food, with workshops and maker demonstrations on the Basement Level.
- The National Living Room, a life-sized recreation of an old Singapore living room with vintage furniture and appliances, is at The Platform on Level 2 from 10 October to 10 November.
- Stoney, the museum’s new mascot based on the Singapore Stone, appears for photos at The Platform at 10.30am, 11.30am, 12.30pm, 1.30pm and 2.30pm on 10, 11, 17 and 18 October.
- Actors in the gallery play a colonial-era secret society member, a 1970s HDB postman and a 1980s coffee seller in pop-up performances at 2.30pm, 3pm and 3.30pm on the same four days.
- T.H.E Dance Company’s participatory piece Searching Blue starts at the Rotunda at 4.15pm on 10, 11 and 17 October.
Ticketed sessions
A few sessions cost money. A Lighter Side of History: Voices from the Sea runs today from 10.30am to 12.30pm at The Salon for S$18, and SG Culture Pass credits can be used. Orang Seletar artisans from Kampung Sungai Temon in Johor Bahru talk about life on the Johor and Singapore straits, and participants then weave their own headwear.
The HollowBody workshop by T.H.E Dance Company on 11 October is sold out. A HistoriaSG talk on HDB’s Our Home magazine is on 16 October at 7.30pm and needs registration with a S$10 refundable deposit.
After the free weekend
From 13 October, gallery admission returns to the usual terms, with free general admission for Singapore citizens and permanent residents and ticketed entry for other visitors. Community jamming with Ann Siang Sounds closes the festival on 18 October, from 3pm to 6pm beside the A Whale of a Tale playground.
