The Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum at the National University of Singapore opened in April following a S$46m (£22m) redevelopment. Formerly the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, the museum was renamed in honour of Lee Kong Chian, the founder of its major donor, the Lee Foundation.
Although the exact date the museum was founded is disputed, its history can be traced back 192 years to 1823 when Thomas Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore, established the Singapore Institution.
With a remit to nurture public interest in biodiversity and environmental issues, the museum has a large plant and animal collection for research purposes. Its galleries display about 2,000 objects over three floors. They are taken from a million-strong collection of wet and dry specimens.
The Biodiversity Gallery at ground level has 15 themed zones tracing the history of life on earth. A mezzanine level contains the Heritage Gallery, which explores the history of the museum and natural history in Singapore.
The geology of the island and the conservation work being undertaken by national agencies are presented in Singapore Today. Among the items on display are three rare diplodocid sauropod dinosaur fossil skeletons, nicknamed Prince, Apollonia and Twinky.
The main building is surrounded by landscaped areas that showcase the natural habitats of native plants, as well as a phylogenetic garden.
The venue is Singapore’s only natural history museum. What do you hope it will mean to people living in Singapore, and how will you encourage public engagement with the collections?
Peter Ng: The original gallery was very small and tucked away. The new museum is at a major entry point to the National University of Singapore and visitor numbers have been encouraging.
We are confident we are able to reach out to a larger base of visitors. Some 2,000 specimens from the collection are on display in the museum’s gallery, and many have not been shown before. These include some historical specimens that have not been exhibited for decades.
We also offer schools educational and enrichment programmes that cover biology topics, and we conduct field trips to local natural habitats and sometimes to neighbouring countries.
We hope that Singaporeans will visit the museum’s gallery to learn about the biodiversity of south-east Asia and also the natural history of Singapore. It will provide the specimen legacy for current and future generations of biologists who will consult the more than one million specimens within its three collection floors.
How does the new building reflect the collections and stories?
The design brief given to the architects and consultants was to create an attractive exterior promoting the biodiversity and natural history narrative inside, and to adhere to the collection’s conservation needs with no exposure to natural light.
The building’s architects have designed a nearly windowless monolithic block, conceived as an “allegory of a natural rock form”.
The building also features a series of landscape elements on and around it, presenting a glimpse of Singapore’s native flora. The most prominent feature is a massive angular slice at the front of the building, which represents the vegetation and geological features found on some of Singapore’s offshore island cliff habitats.
Are there any areas where you feel you have been particularly innovative?
The gallery’s content is a mix of art and science, and is different from traditional science or natural history museums. The use of design, light and glass has created an ambience and feel not typical of such museums.
The gallery was conceived as a teaching resource, but we have adopted innovative and unusual ways to highlight specimens so that they also appeal to the public, including the use of technology.
We have tried to use stories and narratives that relate to local uses of biodiversity – for example, as food or tools –and the displays are designed to bring the audience as close as possible to exhibits.
In many cases, we encourage visitors to handle and touch the specimens. Visitors to the new museum will be required to buy tickets for one-and-a-half- hour slots rather than daily passes.
What is the ethos behind the museum’s visitor experience?
The museum is an educational facility so we are not targeting tourists or the mass market. We prefer to have smaller crowds enjoying the visit, so we made the decision to control visitor numbers.
We felt that large crowds jostling for space and a chance to see and touch the exhibits would not lead to a good museum experience.
One-and-a-half-hour slots match the average “endurance” and “learning fatigue” of visitors. The feedback from this way of managing crowds has been positive.
Cost: S$46m (£22m)
Architect: W Architects Pte
Exhibition design: gsmprjct° (Singapore office)
Although the exact date the museum was founded is disputed, its history can be traced back 192 years to 1823 when Thomas Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore, established the Singapore Institution.
With a remit to nurture public interest in biodiversity and environmental issues, the museum has a large plant and animal collection for research purposes. Its galleries display about 2,000 objects over three floors. They are taken from a million-strong collection of wet and dry specimens.
The Biodiversity Gallery at ground level has 15 themed zones tracing the history of life on earth. A mezzanine level contains the Heritage Gallery, which explores the history of the museum and natural history in Singapore.
The geology of the island and the conservation work being undertaken by national agencies are presented in Singapore Today. Among the items on display are three rare diplodocid sauropod dinosaur fossil skeletons, nicknamed Prince, Apollonia and Twinky.
The main building is surrounded by landscaped areas that showcase the natural habitats of native plants, as well as a phylogenetic garden.
The venue is Singapore’s only natural history museum. What do you hope it will mean to people living in Singapore, and how will you encourage public engagement with the collections?
Peter Ng: The original gallery was very small and tucked away. The new museum is at a major entry point to the National University of Singapore and visitor numbers have been encouraging.
We are confident we are able to reach out to a larger base of visitors. Some 2,000 specimens from the collection are on display in the museum’s gallery, and many have not been shown before. These include some historical specimens that have not been exhibited for decades.
We also offer schools educational and enrichment programmes that cover biology topics, and we conduct field trips to local natural habitats and sometimes to neighbouring countries.
We hope that Singaporeans will visit the museum’s gallery to learn about the biodiversity of south-east Asia and also the natural history of Singapore. It will provide the specimen legacy for current and future generations of biologists who will consult the more than one million specimens within its three collection floors.
How does the new building reflect the collections and stories?
The design brief given to the architects and consultants was to create an attractive exterior promoting the biodiversity and natural history narrative inside, and to adhere to the collection’s conservation needs with no exposure to natural light.
The building’s architects have designed a nearly windowless monolithic block, conceived as an “allegory of a natural rock form”.
The building also features a series of landscape elements on and around it, presenting a glimpse of Singapore’s native flora. The most prominent feature is a massive angular slice at the front of the building, which represents the vegetation and geological features found on some of Singapore’s offshore island cliff habitats.
Are there any areas where you feel you have been particularly innovative?
The gallery’s content is a mix of art and science, and is different from traditional science or natural history museums. The use of design, light and glass has created an ambience and feel not typical of such museums.
The gallery was conceived as a teaching resource, but we have adopted innovative and unusual ways to highlight specimens so that they also appeal to the public, including the use of technology.
We have tried to use stories and narratives that relate to local uses of biodiversity – for example, as food or tools –and the displays are designed to bring the audience as close as possible to exhibits.
In many cases, we encourage visitors to handle and touch the specimens. Visitors to the new museum will be required to buy tickets for one-and-a-half- hour slots rather than daily passes.
What is the ethos behind the museum’s visitor experience?
The museum is an educational facility so we are not targeting tourists or the mass market. We prefer to have smaller crowds enjoying the visit, so we made the decision to control visitor numbers.
We felt that large crowds jostling for space and a chance to see and touch the exhibits would not lead to a good museum experience.
One-and-a-half-hour slots match the average “endurance” and “learning fatigue” of visitors. The feedback from this way of managing crowds has been positive.
Project data
Cost: S$46m (£22m)
Architect: W Architects Pte
Exhibition design: gsmprjct° (Singapore office)
