Singapore’s participation in the World Expo 2010 was its largest to date at the World Expo, signifying its strong and close bilateral ties with China. The Singapore pavilion showcased Singapore’s achievements in urban planning, water technology and environmental services while promoting closer people-to-people relations between China and Singapore. The pavilion also highlighted Singapore’s ability to offer a high-quality and integrated environment to live, work and play within a compact area through sustainable planning and development. The Singapore pavilion was designed to resemble a “music box”, whose sound could be heard by visitors even before they entered. Its exhibition sections of different shapes were linked by gentle slopes and stairs. It integrated different design elements – music fountain, audio visual interplay and distinctive flowers on the roof garden, manifesting the harmony between cities and nature, as well as Singapore’s originality and diverse cultures. Four columns of varying sizes supported its structural system and floors above, symbolising Singapore’s races living, working and playing together on the same ground. Ramps and stairs suspended off trusses led to the upper floors The theme Urban Symphony was inspired by the harmony of unique elements in Singapore: Progress and sustainability, urbanisation and greenery, tradition and modernity and the different races living in harmony together. The two environmental areas that Singapore has successfully made headway with in balancing progress with sustainability – water and garden – formed the softscape of the pavilion as its two design elements.
Kay Ngee Tan Architects
Singapore Pavilion
Shanghai, China















Shanghai World Expo
Volume 4, Number 4

- Projects
- Articles
- Dialogues
- Books
- Expo: International Expositions 1851-2010
- Exit to Tomorrow: History of the Future, World’s Fair Architecture, Design, Fashion 1933-2005
- Kenchiku to Toshi = Architecture & Urbanism : a + U
- China Today, Shanghai EXPO 2010
- Blur: The Making of Nothing
- Shanghai Transforming
- The Opening Celebration & Site Opening Ceremony of World Expo 2010 Shanghai China
- Expo Guide 2010
- The USA Pavilion Expo 2010 Shanghai: Rising to the Challenge
- And Guide Shanghai: Architecture And Design
- Expo 58: Between Utopia and Reality
- Great Vision for the Future: World Expo 2010 Shanghai
- Shanghai Expo
- Architecture Expo 02
- Architecture at the Expo: An Urban Project in Zaragoza
- Visions of the Future: Worldwide Projects, Global Dialogue and Thematic Area of EXPO 2000
- Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s
- Barcelona Pavilion