National Gallery Singapore teams up with & Co to create a dynamic lifestyle space

The National Gallery Singapore and & Co just reinvented the museum store. Located on the ground floor of the newly opened museum, the lifestyle concept space, named Gallery & Co, comprises a retail shop and a casual dining area that serves organic bites, and seeks to engage museum visitors through its vast offerings. The gallery tapped creative collective & Co to curate and design the space. The retail area features platforms covered in grids, stripes and polka dots, while the cafe consists of clean lines and a green tile floor.
'Each space has its unique aesthetic catering to a different product category and customer type, ensuring relevance and engendering engagement. They are all unified by the custom-designed grey tiles and blue-grey columns,' says Yah-Leng Yu, co-founder of & Co and the Foreign Policy Design Group.
The retail shop carries both international and local fashion and design brands, such as French fashion label Kitsuné and Singaporean jewellery brand Argentum. The shop also holds special collaborations between brands and the museum, like the timepiece made collaboratively with Japanese solar watch company Q&Q.
'Our objective [for] doing the store was really to make it a living and evolving space, and the idea of the retail store was to really inspire people to be creative. That’s what the museum is for, to bring the public here, and to inspire them through art – and that’s what we aim to do in our store,' said & Co co-founder Alwyn Chong. 'That’s why we don’t sell the regular museum souvenirs – really [we] are about collaborating, about bringing people together, and about creating something special.'
With Gallery & Co, the museum experience is seamlessly extended into dining and shopping environments
Indeed, ’engendering engagement’ with the museum’s users is given paramount importance by Yah-Leng Yu, co-founder of & Co and the Foreign Policy Design Group
Shop and cafe, she explains, are ’unified by the custom-designed grey tiles and the blue-grey columns’
The outcome is bold and visionary, with the Gallery & Co concept space taking inspiration from south-east Asian art and culture
As well as special collaborations between designers and the gallery, the shop includes ephemera, books and clothes from international design brands including French fashion label Kitsuné
Local brands, such as the Singaporean jewellery brand Argentum, are also represented
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the National Gallery Singapore's website
ADDRESS
National Gallery Singapore
1 Saint Andrew's Road
01 - 01, Singapore 178957
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ann Binlot is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who covers art, fashion, design, architecture, food, and travel for publications like Wallpaper*, the Wall Street Journal, and Monocle. She is also editor-at-large at Document Journal and Family Style magazines.
-
The Muravey Chair: Mehdi Dakhli on celebrating North Africa through contemporary design
The designer balances innovation and tradition in his unique pieces, which take cues from his Tunisian heritage
By Shawn Adams Published
-
Remembering Yrjö Kukkapuro, Finnish grand master of design (1933-2025)
Almost everyone in Finland has sat in a chair by designer Yrjö Kukkapuro, writes Wallpaper’s Emma O'Kelly, who met him at his studio in 2020 and here pays tribute to a design legend
By Emma O'Kelly Published
-
Red beauty products to gift the aesthete in your life this Valentine’s Day
These red beauty products by the likes of Chanel and Comme des Garçons are ideal Valentine’s Day gifts for the aesthete in your life (even if that aesthete so happens to be you)
By Anna Solomon Published
-
Does Singapore hold the key for the art world's future?
As Art SG 2025 prepares to open its doors, we take a look at Singapore’s art scene
By Daven Wu Published
-
Art SG 2024: what to see at Southeast Asia’s biggest art fair
Art SG returns for its second year with a rich international roster of artists and galleries
By Daven Wu Published
-
Artist's Palate: Cao Fei’s recipe for Singapore laksa
‘It’s sweet, salty, spicy, fishy and fresh,’ says artist Cao Fei of her recipe for Singapore laksa. As seen in this month’s Artist’s Palate feature, a Wallpaper* homage to our favourite contemporary art
By TF Chan Last updated
-
A duet of Singapore exhibitions propose a new provenance for minimalism
By Daven Wu Last updated
-
Singapore + Wallpaper* Handmade Classics
A new exhibition at Gillman Barracks presents a ‘greatest hits’ of Wallpaper* Handmade’s collaborative designer-maker project – from rice cubes to bookish perfumes (and everything in-between)
By Harriet Lloyd Smith Last updated
-
In the round: Ron Arad’s 720° lights up a public garden in Singapore
By Elly Parsons Last updated
-
Pastel prisms: Dawn Ng’s free-ranging installation at Hermès’ Aloft space
By Daven Wu Last updated
-
Finding comfort in an uncomfortable imagination: Ana Prvački at ICA Singapore
By Daven Wu Last updated