Singapore Culture, Gardens and Heritage: A Guide to the City’s Public Landmarks

The Botanic Gardens

The Singapore Botanic Gardens are the city’s most civilised public space, and the only tropical botanic garden on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. The current site dates from 1859 and was laid out in the English landscape style; its botanists introduced Para rubber to Southeast Asia and later pioneered the orchid hybridisation that the National Orchid Garden still displays. Covering 82 hectares, the gardens are best explored from end to end rather than in pieces, early in the morning before the heat. A walk through the Botanic Gardens gives the shape of it: with lawns, lakes, the rainforest and the orchids each in their own sector.

The Civic District and the National Gallery

The Civic District is where colonial Singapore made its statements, around the open green of the Padang. The National Gallery occupies two of its largest buildings, the former Supreme Court and City Hall, joined by link bridges and reopened as a museum in 2015. It holds what it describes as the world’s largest public collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian modern art, and the buildings are part of the story: it was on the steps of the Municipal Building that the Japanese surrender in Singapore was accepted in 1945, and in the City Hall chamber that the first self-governing cabinet was sworn in 1959.

Allow half a day. Start with the gallery’s Southeast Asian collections, which place the region’s painters in the history that shaped them, then finish on the roof, with the Padang and the bay below. Raffles Singapore sits a short walk away, in the same district.

Hawker centres

Hawker culture joined UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in 2020. In practice it is an everyday ritual: open-air dining halls where Chinese, Malay, Indian and other cooks sell dishes they have often refined for decades, each stall typically specialising in a single one. The centres are as important to the social life of the city as any museum. Eating your way round a hawker centre is best done at off-peak hours, with a friend, so that you can share and sample widely. Go early for breakfast, or avoid the lunchtime crush.

Modern landmarks worth the detour

Jewel Changi Airport, with its indoor waterfall and gardens, is a sensible use of a layover. Marina Bay is best seen from the water’s edge. Neither needs more than an hour or two; the Botanic Gardens and the Civic District reward longer.

Where to stay

Choose by district. The Civic District and Marina Bay put the Gallery and the bay within walking distance, and suit first visits. Orchard Road is the shopping axis, where Pan Pacific Orchard has planted terraces by the architects WOHA, a fitting base for those who want gardens in the hotel as well as outside it. The guide to Singapore’s districts compares the options in more detail.

Sources: Singapore National Parks Board: History of the Botanic Gardens; National Gallery Singapore: Architecture and history; UNESCO: Hawker culture in Singapore. Check the official websites for current information.