Robert Zhao Renhui and teamLab: Glass Rotunda at National Museum of Singapore
By Marybeth Stock
The National Museum of Singapore (NMS)—the country’s oldest museum—has just reopened its Glass Rotunda to great fanfare following two years of renovations. The unveiling of the rotunda coincides with the launch of two new permanent exhibits in the museum’s Singapore History Gallery: Story of the Forest (2016) by Japanese collective teamLab, an installation integrated into the architecture of the rotunda itself; and “Singapore, Very Old Tree” (2015), a photographic series by multidisciplinary artist Robert Zhao Renhui.
Designed as part of the neo-classical museum’s modernist extension, the glass walls of the formidable rotunda encircle an inner drum-like core. From within this 16 meter-high core, visitors originally descended a spiraling ramp to the history gallery below while surrounded by a 360-degree projection of various Singapore city scenes. The trippy Story of the Forest experience is far more exhilarating: viewers enter the darkened upper level of the dome via a “sky bridge” suspended within a virtual galaxy of cascading flowers and light. From this spectacular prelude, a stroll down the ramp passes alongside a brilliant tropical panorama filled with life and movement.
