The Former Supreme Court Building
Frank Dorrington Ward (1885 to 1972) · 1937 to 1939
Stand on the Padang and look across at the big classical building with the green dome. It is the former Supreme Court, the last major public building put up by the British in Singapore before the Second World War, designed by the colonial architect Frank Dorrington Ward and opened in 1939. Its Corinthian columns, rusticated ground floor and central dome were meant to give the young colony the dignity of a European capital, and the court sat here until 2005, when it moved to the new building by Norman Foster behind it. It reopened as half of the National Gallery in 2015.
The details are worth a slow look. The sculptured pediment above the entrance, by the Italian artist Cavaliere Rudolfo Nolli, shows Justice with her scales among grateful and penitent figures. Nolli also made the artificial stone that clads the building, cheaper than the real granite the government could not afford in the Depression. The great dome is copper and was modelled on the dome of St Paul's in London; a second, smaller dome covers the rotunda library at the back. Inside, the courtrooms keep their timber panelling, the Chief Justice's court still has its bench and dock, and the holding cells beneath the building are open to visitors on tours.
Jean-François Milou, whose Paris practice won the competition to convert the two buildings, kept every historic surface and simply cut the new galleries into the offices and corridors behind. The dome rooms, the foyer with its marble floor and the tall windows are all original. Notice, as you enter, the time capsule marker in the floor of the foyer: a capsule with newspapers and coins of 1937 was buried under the foundation stone and is not to be opened until the year 3000.
Did You Know? A time capsule was buried under the foundation stone in 1937 and is not due to be opened until the year 3000.
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