ArtScience
Museum is a museum located within the integrated
resort of Marina Bay Sands in the Downtown Core of
the Central Area in Singapore. Opened on 17 February 2011 by
Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, it is the world's first
ArtScience museum, featuring major exhibitions that blend art, science, culture
and technology.
Although a permanent exhibition at the ArtScience
Gallery has been planned, the Museum mainly hosts touring exhibitions curated
by other museums. The architecture is said to be a form reminiscent of a lotus
flower. It is designed by the Moshe Safdie.
The ArtScience Museum is anchored by a round base in
the middle, with ten extensions referred to as fingers. The design
concept for each finger denotes various gallery spaces sporting skylights at
the fingertips, which are included as sustainable illumination for
the curved interior walls.
The ArtScience Museum has 21 gallery spaces with a
total area of 50,000 square feet (6,000 square meters). Rainwater is harvested
and channelled down the centre of the building, flowing through its bowl-shaped
roof into a reflecting pond at the lowest level of the building. The rainwater
is then recycled for use in the building's restrooms.
Permanent exhibits include objects indicative of the
accomplishments of both the arts and the sciences through the ages, along the
lines of Leonardo da Vinci's Flying Machine, a Kongming Lantern, and a
high-tech robotic fish. The museum opened with an exhibition of a collection of
the Belitung shipwreck cargo, and Tang dynasty treasures that were
discovered and preserved by Tilman Walterfang of Seabed Explorations NZ Ltd.
