The Singapore Art Museum opening was followed on 24
April, 1997, by the inauguration of the Asian Civilisations
Museum, represented as ‘the first museum in the region to present
a broad yet integrated perspective of pan-Asian cultures and
civilisations’.21 It opened a new building recently. The Singapore
History Museum, another national cultural institution, is also
undergoing major renovations at the time of writing. But the
supreme manifestation of the ‘national effort to become a world
capital of the arts’ came on 12 October, 2002, with the grand
opening of the Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay, after ‘thirty years
of planning, six years of construction and three months of testing
and tuning in the making’, with a mission to ‘entertain, engage,
educate, and inspire’. The new centre, captured in the popular
imagination as ‘The Durians’ because of its resemblance to the
strong-smelling but highly palatable tropical fruit, possessed,