National Gallery Singapore

Lose the biggest room in the building and you finally look at the building.

National Gallery Singapore is still worth an afternoon while its biggest room is shut, as long as you come for the buildings and the Singapore collection and not the full regional survey. The UOB Southeast Asia Gallery is temporarily closed and the Gallery says it will reopen in late 2027, so bin any old room-by-room plan. It suits a date, a rainy afternoon and, because citizens and PRs get in free, a short visit made often. Start with the Singapore galleries, pick three works, and end with a drink over the Padang.

National Gallery Singapore opening hours

The galleries open daily from 10am to 7pm, with last admission and ticket sales at 6.30pm. The Gallery says visitors typically spend about three hours. The building itself keeps longer hours for its restaurants and bars: the Coleman Street entrance, the main one, stays open until 1am from Sunday to Tuesday and later towards the weekend.

National Gallery Singapore tickets

Singaporeans and permanent residents pay nothing for general admission, which covers the DBS Singapore Gallery, the Wu Guanzhong Gallery and the Level 4 Gallery. Everyone else pays S$20. The changing shows in the Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries need a Special Exhibition ticket at S$25, which is sold only to other nationalities; locals buy the All Access ticket at S$15, and for visitors that ticket is S$30. Children aged 7 to 12 and seniors of 60 and over get S$5 off. Children of 6 and under, students and teachers based in Singapore, and persons with disabilities with one caregiver enter everything free. Tickets are valid for 180 days from purchase, and guided tours are free with one.

What to see for free

A good deal of the building needs no ticket at all: the Keppel Centre for Art Education on Level 1, the Chief Justice's Chamber and Office on Level 3, the ArchiGallery on Level 4, which tells the story of the two buildings, the Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Gallery on Level 5 and the Padang and Coleman decks on Level 6. The free Building Highlights tour runs in English from Thursday to Sunday at 10.30am.

The buildings

The Gallery stitches together two national monuments facing the Padang. The former City Hall, completed in 1929 as the Municipal Building, is where the Japanese surrender was accepted and where Singapore's first cabinet was sworn in; 18 Corinthian columns three storeys high face the field. The former Supreme Court, which the Gallery calls the last neoclassical building built in Singapore, is four blocks around a domed rotunda that once held a circular law library. Studio Milou Singapore and CPG Consultants joined them, and the join is the best room in the house.

What's on now

General admission currently covers Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art and Lai Foong Moi: Crossings in the DBS Singapore Gallery, Fan Chang Tien: Rhythm of the Southern Brush in the Wu Guanzhong Gallery, and Let's Imagine the World Together: Art in Southeast Asia, which opened on Level 4 on 5 November. The next special exhibition, Pop after Pop: Art around Us, opens on 11 December. Champagniac takes over the Supreme Court Terrace on 14 and 15 November, and Light to Night returns to the Civic District from 15 to 31 January 2027.

With kids

The Keppel Centre for Art Education is free, designed for children aged 4 to 12, and includes a forest play space inspired by Raden Saleh's Boschbrand (Forest Fire) in the collection. It closes for cleaning from 12.30pm to 1pm and from 3.30pm to 4pm, and the Gallery warns of waits of about 30 minutes when it is full at weekends, so go on a weekday or early in the day. There is stroller parking inside the Centre.

Getting there

City Hall is the nearest station: take Exit B, and it is about seven minutes on foot through the Art Connector to the Coleman Street entrance. Clarke Quay (Exit E) and Raffles Place (Exit B) are each about ten minutes away. The car park entrance is on Coleman Street, at S$1.40 per half hour by day and S$3.30 per entry after 6pm.

Nearby

For lunch in the building there is National Kitchen by Violet Oon, and Odette if it is that sort of day. The Asian Civilisations Museum and Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall are a short walk away, and the rest is in our Civic District guide.

Good to know Open daily 10am to 7pm, last admission 6.30pm. The UOB Southeast Asia Gallery is closed until late 2027. City Hall MRT, Exit B, about seven minutes on foot via the Art Connector. The Keppel Centre closes for cleaning 12.30pm to 1pm and 3.30pm to 4pm. Details from nationalgallery.sg, checked 13 November 2026.

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National Gallery Singapore | 1 St Andrew's Road, Singapore 178957 | Nearest MRT: City Hall