Explore The Colonial District
From the northern edge of the Padang, Stamford Road zigzags its way past the Colonial District’s most important sight, the National Museum, passing three grand surviving examples of colonial commercial architecture: the 1930s Capitol Building, at the corner of North Bridge Road; Stamford House, built in 1904 at the corner of Hill Street; and the red-and-white Vanguard House, completed in 1908 at the corner of Armenian Street. Each has had an illustrious past – the Capitol Building as a theatre and cinema, Stamford House as an annexe to the Raffles Hotel (they were designed by the same architect) and as a major shopping centre, and Vanguard House as the headquarters of the Methodist Publishing House, then much later as home to the flagship store of the MPH bookshop chain. Despite regular maintenance that has kept their ornamented facades in tiptop condition, all now serve much more mundane roles hosting offices and run-of-the-mill shops.
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The National Museum
The National Museum
You can’t fail to spot the eye-catching dome, seemingly coated with silvery fish scales, of the National Museum of Singapore. Its forerunner, the Raffles Museum and Library, opened in 1887 and soon acquired a reputation for its natural history collection. In the 1960s, following independence, the place was renamed the National Museum and subsequently altered its focus to local history and culture, an emphasis retained after a recent overhaul that saw the original Neoclassical building gain a hangar-like rear extension larger than itself. That extension houses the mainstay of the new-look museum – the History Gallery – while the old building is home to the Living Galleries, focusing on various aspects of Singapore culture and society. If you have no interest in seeing the History Gallery, note that after it shuts there’s free admission to the rest of the museum.
