Chamber Made
The City Hall’s shallow 87-year-old
foundation couldn’t support a contemporary museum’s heavy loading
requirements, so the project team
had to create a new foundation and
floor slabs. But there was a catch:
The hall’s main chamber—a meeting
room where the Japanese formally
surrendered control of Singapore
after World War II—could not be
disturbed, because of historical
preservation restrictions.
After detailed planning, the
team encased the chamber with
a temporary protective frame of
steel columns and beams before the
foundation was built beneath it. The
framework was removed after three
years of construction—and every
element of the chamber remained
intact.
“We made sure the City Hall
chamber was sitting properly on
the new, permanent columns and
beams before we removed the
temporary set of columns and
beams,” Mr. Chee says.
“Stakeholders also
had to know that,
at certain points
in the timeline,
things like the
structure could
not be changed.”
—Mark Chee, National Gallery
Singapore
City Hall main chamber
PHOTOS COURTESY OF NATIONAL GALLERY SINGAPORE
