Singapore's colourful new Indian Heritage Centre mixes history and modernity
The newly opened Indian Heritage Centre has finally given Singapore's ethnic Indian community a worthy home in which to showcase its cultural riches.
Created by New Zealand-born, Japan-trained, Singapore-based Robert Greg Shand Architects in collaboration with urban design consultants Urbnarc, this design has certainly paid dividends for the sensitive perspective and physical rendition of a culture that is almost 5,000 years old.
Located on Campbell Lane, a buzzy stretch in Little India lined with shophouses, cafes and vendors hawking curios, textiles and tchotchkes, the $12m building stands out with its distinctive transparent façade that layers a trellis of balconies over a huge colourful mural.
The brief, says Shand, was to embrace the vibrant streetscape of the area and its people. It also presented two immediate challenges. The first was to shoehorn a four-storey building with three galleries and community activity spaces into a triangular site that measures only 950 sq m. To that end, a lift doubles as a service lift for transporting exhibits and a passenger lift for visitors, while staircases act as main passages between the galleries and light wells, and windows that look out into Little India and the pedestrianised street below.
The second challenge was to design a building that avoided motifs that were too literal. 'Considering the diversity and multifaceted nature of the Singapore Indian community, we intentionally limited any direct references to traditional Indian architecture and art,' says Shand.
Here, the solution was the trellis of balconies and exposed staircases fronting the building's exterior that is based on the geometry of the baoli - a traditional Indian stepped well that is an important source of water and meeting point for Indian communities - and the peekaboo jali screen commonly found in Indian and Islamic architecture.
In keeping with the chaotic vibrancy of the neighbourhood, the colourful mural backing the trellis - currently, a splashy coloured collage of archival images of shophouses - will be changed regularly. This, says Shand, ensures the building is never static.
ADDRESS
Indian Heritage Centre
5 Campbell Lane
Singapore
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Daven Wu is the Singapore Editor at Wallpaper*. A former corporate lawyer, he has been covering Singapore and the neighbouring South-East Asian region since 1999, writing extensively about architecture, design, and travel for both the magazine and website. He is also the City Editor for the Phaidon Wallpaper* City Guide to Singapore.
-
JW Anderson and Pleasing design a balloon-inspired collection of nail polishes and more
JW Anderson and Pleasing launch an uplifting new capsule collection featuring balloon-inspired metallic nail polishes and a take on the viral rainbow cardigan
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
Bottega Veneta drafts Venetian artisans for its unique ‘Bottega for Bottegas’ project, a gift list of local craft
Italian fashion house Bottega Veneta has sought out six craftspeople from in and around Venice to create precious objects – from playing cards to jigsaw puzzles – which arrive just in time for festive gift-giving
By Jack Moss Published
-
Agnès Varda, Luca Guadagnino and Wim Wenders: why Aesop’s love affair with cinema is more than skin-deep
Aesop’s new 2024 Christmas campaign celebrates its long love affair with cinema. Laura Havlin speaks with the brand’s head of global store design Marianne Lardilleux to discover why film is inherent to its DNA
By Laura Havlin Published
-
A striking wooden house in Goa pioneers mass timber design for India
Architecture Discipline completes a wooden house in Goa, shaping the low-carbon material into a striking residence that overlooks the Arabian Sea
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Remembering Christopher Charles Benninger (1942-2024)
Architect Christopher Charles Benninger has died in Pune, India, at the age of 82; we honour and reflect on his passing
By Aastha D Published
-
A new exhibition marks Chandigarh’s modernist legacy
‘Celebrating the Capitol’, an exhibition of photographic work by architect Noor Dasmesh Singh, opens just in time for the famed modernist Indian city’s anniversary
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2024: meet the practices
In the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2024, our latest guide to exciting, emerging practices from around the world, 20 young studios show off their projects and passion
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Playball Studio's architecture balances the organic and the technical
Playball Studio, a young Indo-Spanish design practice, features in the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2024
By Pallavi Mehra Published
-
Peek behind the foliage at The Plumeria, a south Indian home by the water
The Plumeria by Silpi Architects is an India home in Kerala, the country's south, blending geometric forms and the region's tropical foliage and waters
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Step inside Le Harlequin, an imaginative redesign of a Mumbai apartment
Le Harlequin by Design Hex is an imaginative redesign of a Mumbai apartment in the bustling Indian city's Lower Parel neighbourhood
By Daven Wu Published
-
A Hyderabad apartment blends soft minimalism and ‘tangible luxury’
A Hyderabad apartment by Studio Design Inc wows with its balanced design that brings together soft minimalism and tangible luxury
By Daven Wu Published