Asian Civilisations Museum

Asian Civilisations Museum occupies the Empress Place Building on the Singapore River in the Downtown Core. Designed by Colonial Engineer John F. A. McNair and built with convict labour between June 1864 and December 1867, the building first held government offices, later the Registry of Births and Deaths and the Immigration Department, and reopened as a museum on 7 April 1989. The Asian Civilisations Museum itself opened on 21 April 1997 in the former Tao Nan School on Armenian Street and moved into Empress Place in 2003.

The museum describes itself as the only museum in Asia with a pan-Asian scope, and its permanent galleries are arranged by theme across three floors: Maritime Trade on Level 1, Faith and Belief on Level 2, and Materials and Design on Level 3. The Maritime Trade floor opens with the Tang Shipwreck, the cargo of a 9th-century Arab dhow that sank off Sumatra and was found in 1998, including more than 50,000 hand-painted Changsha bowls. Faith and Belief follows how religions began in Asia and spread by land and sea, while Materials and Design covers ceramics, jewellery and design. The museum opens daily from 10am to 7pm and until 9pm on Fridays, and Singapore citizens and permanent residents enter the permanent galleries free with their NRIC.