Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall

Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall are twin heritage performance venues at 9 Empress Place in the Civic District, Downtown Core, joined by a 54-metre clock tower and home to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The theatre began as the Town Hall, designed by John Bennett and built between 1855 and 1862. Victoria Memorial Hall was added beside it from 1903 to 1905 in memory of Queen Victoria, the clock was set in motion on 1 February 1907, and the remodelled Town Hall reopened as Victoria Theatre on 11 February 1909. The Memorial Hall served as a makeshift hospital before the fall of Singapore in 1942 and housed war crimes trials in 1946 and 1947, and the theatre staged the first public performance of Majulah Singapura in 1958. The complex was gazetted as a national monument on 14 February 1992.

After a four-year restoration it reopened on 15 July 2014 with a 614-seat theatre and a 673-seat concert hall. The building is open daily from 10am to 9pm, but the halls are seen properly by booking a concert or a festival event such as the Singapore International Festival of Arts. The Arts House Group also runs the Clock Tower Climb, a guided tour that ends with about 106 steps and steep cat ladders up the tower, open only to climbers aged 18 and above. The nearest MRT stations are City Hall and Raffles Place, each about ten minutes' walk away.