Last Friday, on the 13th Oct to be exact, my company held a staff function at the newly renovated Singapore National Museum. As my company was involved in the renovation work, my company managed to secure the museum function room for free. FYI, I heard the booking fee is SGD2,000 and the place is pretty ideal for newly weds who went for ROM nearby. The place is pretty nice with a very good view. (Sorry, didn’t take any pic of the function room.)

The museum has already opened its door to the public, except that most if not all its exhibits are yet to be in place. What you’ll most probably gonna see now is the Cartier collection and some art items for the Singapore Biennale 2006.

The Cartier exhibit is pretty interesting, that is if you are into jewellery. You’l get to see the concepts behind Cartier’s collection as well as some pretty rare and interesting pieces which you’ll most likely won’t be able to see in your lifetime. One of them is a series of what’s known as the Mystery Clocks. They are called so because the clock faces are transparent and you don’t see any mechanism. The other is the Patiala Necklace, originally made in 1926 for the wealthy Maharajah Sir Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, India. It has five rows of De Beers yellow diamonds of 235 carats and its overall 2,930 diamonds is weighed at 963 carats, making it the world’s largest, heaviest and most valuable necklace, last seen adorning the chest of his handsome son, Maharajah Yadavindra Singh before it disappeared (Yup, some people can be pretty careless…) and reappeared again and currently being restored by Cartier as most of the diamonds have already long gone.

Now, for the rest of the museum, you’ll see art pieces currently on display for the Singapore Biennale. Unlike ‘conventional’ art pieces, those at the museum are pretty big and yes, they take up alot of space.

And one thing to take note is the museum’s facade itself. Without its display items, the facade actually took centre stage and they are also pretty amazing.

And of course, the icon of the museum is the dome building. Apparently, I was told that the contractor actually went mad erecting the dome as the work is very unfamilar to him. The contractor was from China, whereas the design is very western. The dome apparently is made out of good circular bricks supported by columns around the dome. It’s a huge impossible task back then when technology isn’t that advance.

Anyway, go take a visit to the museum, it’s a prety amazing place. And the museum is also a excellent place to get married in! But be prepared to pay a huge sum of $$, and also I was told that the museum committee is pretty picky about this; so you’ll most likely have to have some kind of high social status to secure the place for your wedding, or any other kind of party. (Oh, by the way, I was told that Tiffany Co. held a function at the dome area some time back before my company function…cool.)

Oh btw, I actually won first prize for the lucky draw at the company function. It’s a watch, but I’m going to exchange it to some other design and will be giving it off to my dad or brother…