When in Singapore: Art & an iconic home, the ArtScience Museum

Coming from two art houses, the National Museum of Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum, I moved to the Marina Bay for the next museum listed on my art appreciation tour for the day—the ArtScience Museum. 

The ArtScience Museum is the latest architectural landmark to rise on the Marina Bay landscape and the newest museum in the Lion City’s art scene.

Inspired by the lotus flower, the ArtScience Museum’s sculptural edifice features ten “fingers” with the tips catching light to illuminate the interior gallery spaces. Referred to as the “Welcoming Hand of Singapore,” the museum’s design extends a symbolic gesture of welcome to guests and art from across the globe.

With over six thousand square meters of exhibition space spread in twenty-one galleries, the ArtScience Museum aims to be the premier museum destination in Singapore by hosting major international traveling exhibitions from a spectrum of influences—art and science, media and technology, and design and architecture.

The museum's architecture is a masterpiece in its own right, a sculptural triumph that rivals the very masterpieces it houses. The fusing of art and science in its construction makes it the ideal representation of what the museum’s name represents. And, as homage to this budding field, the museum created their showpiece exhibition, "ArtScience: A Journey Through Creativity," an exhibition that explores the relationships between the arts and the sciences, and presented it in three spaces—Curiosity, Inspiration, and Expression.

Curiosity, inspiration, and expression. I believe the ArtScience Museum applied these phases in its conception. It takes nature as its inspiration for its shape while utilizing technology to maximize the functions of its components. The lotus flower's fingers are skylights that illuminate the interior exhibition areas, the roof system gathers rainwater to be recycled, and the highly advanced man-made materials are used to accomplish this architectural feat.

The art exhibitions the ArtScience Museum hosts are as impressive. From the list of programs, the immersion in Van Gogh’s masterpieces through wide-screen projections afforded me the unique opportunity to enjoy this master impressionist’s works from another vantage point. From admiring the two-dimensional original paintings at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York to getting mesmerized by the same artworks digitally projected on walls, watching the paintings come to life is fascinating.

It was the Dali exhibition that proved to be breathtaking—250 artworks on femininity and sensuality, religion and mythology, and dreams and fantasy occupying ten galleries. What an amazing tour in the mind of a madman and a genius! Whoever he may be, this prolific surreal artist and his creations have inspired and provoked the minds of millions to perceive the depths of his expression.

Impressive. It made me believe that whatever it is in their roster of exhibitions, it will be grand, if not grander, and certainly worth the visit. It will be admirable how this museum can bring European masterpieces closer to us. For that, I should thank you. I will be back for more.

After a day of art appreciation, I exited the ArtScience Museum and took a scenic walk through the double helix pedestrian bridge crossing the Marina Bay. In a matter of minutes, I was back at the Mandarin Oriental Singapore Hotel, my home for this visit.