One assumes that when such matters of National significance arise, there are of course several obvious concerns which, rhetoric or not, warrant some amount of discussion and debate. In this case, we have the National Art Gallery Competition, about to be judged by a panel of judges that has been chosen by an apparently anonymous committee, probably from the National Arts Council, or the National Heritage Board.

For now, it has not been revealed as yet whether the Singaporean public would be consulted in the future with regard to the selection of design proposals for the National Art Gallery. It is also noticeable that the jury themselves have impeccable credentials, undoubtedly suited for the job of establishing yet another Gallery-to-be. However, would they know what would best suit Singapore? What was the criteria for selection of the jury panel? Who exactly are these selected panel members, and how would they best represent the nation in selecting the decidedly ‘best’ design for Singapore? Hopefully, there will be some word from the organizers in response to these questions raised.

In order to get a better idea of the jury that’s going to be deciding on the winning entry for the National Art Gallery Competition, FFW sussed out some of the relevant histories that each of the jury members have. Quite an impressive line up, there’s no shortage of expertise. Each member brings relevant experience to the jury on paper, having done a lot of work in the realm of museums, historical collections, and art. Combined, one certainly hopes that their powers can be multiplied, because the job of creating an Art Gallery for a nation with such a diverse cultural make up requires a team of judges who are aware of how complex this challenge is.

Heading the Jury, is Prof Tommy Koh, Chairman of the National Heritage Board in Singapore, and also Ambassador-At-Large for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Not short of credentials, you can find out more about him here. When someone has his own Wikipedia page you can be sure he isn’t just another somebody.

Next is Mrs Cheong-Chua Koon Hean, CEO of the Urban Redevelopment Authorit (URA) in Singapore, concurrently the Deputy-Secretary of the Ministry of National Development. Mrs Cheong-Chua Koon Hean was a Colombo Plan scholar who graduated from Australia as a university gold medallist in architecture, and holds a master’s degree in urban development planning from University College, London. She has held several portfolios in the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore and has extensive experience in both strategic and local planning as well as in urban design and conservation. Mrs Cheong has been involved in the preparation of the Singapore oncept Plan, its long range land use and transport plan, as well as the Master Plan which sets out the detail plans for the city state. - URA

Mr Jean-Francois Jarrige is a French archaeologist specializing in South Asian archaeology. He holds a doctorate from the University of Paris in oriental archaeology. He has done excavations in Baluchistan, Mehrgarh and Pirak. Present-day director of the Guimet Museum, Jean-François Jarrige has had a long productive career in archaeology. His most well-known excavations were as the director of the French Archaeological Mission, excavating the sites of Mehrgarh and Nindowari in Pakistan. -Wikipedia

Mr Koh Seow Chuan is a board member of the National Heritage Board, Singapore, and is also a founding director at DP Architects in Singapore. Mr Koh is also a renowned philatelist and an avid collector of social historical documents, maps, and antiquarian and art books. The Koh Seow Chuan Collection boasts money-lending documents that capture loan obligations of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It offers a glimpse of how money changed hands in Singapore to meet daily commercial and personal needs. It portrays the money-lending community in Singapore, with a special focus on the Chettiars. It also gives an insight to the problems that arose from unregulated money-lending activities before the introduction of the Money-lenders Ordinance of 1935. - NHB Website

Mr Julian Raby hails from the United Kingdom and is Director of the Freer Gallery of Art & Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and is a former member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, England. A well-known teacher and scholar of Islamic art, Raby has a wide range of scholarly interests, from Byzantium to China, Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Raby also has extensive experience in the field of publishing. At Oxford, he was the Series Founder and Series Editor of Oxford Studies in Islamic Art. Raby is the founder and former co-owner of Azimuth Editions, a major publisher in the field of Asian studies. In addition, Raby has served as curator, concept designer and consultant for numerous museum exhibitions in both the United States and abroad. An active participant in professional and educational associations, Raby has served as a member of the Council of the British Institute of Archaeology and History in Amman, Jordan, and is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. - The Smithsonian Institute

Mrs Rita Soh Siow Lan is Immediate Past President of the Singapore Institute of Architects, and partner at RDC Architects. She has been involved in many feasibility studies, competition proposals, design and detailing of residential, resort and commercial projects, both local and overseas, and project management. Mrs Soh was instrumental in RDC Architects’ effort to be the first architectural practice in Singapore to attain an ISO 9001 rating in 1992. - RDC Architects

Mr Peter Wilson is Project Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company Transformation Project, UK. Peter was building project director for both Tate Modern and the Tate Britain Centenary Development. Other projects at the Tate include acting as the Tate client for Cornwall County Council’s Tate St Ives, plus a number of other projects, including the second phase of Tate Liverpool in 1998. As Project Director for the redevelopment, Peter will work closely with the RSC Directors to transform the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and redevelop the Company’s Stratford-upon-Avon estate. During his career he has been an adviser to the National Trust, researched museum lighting at the Bartlett School of Architecture, chaired the Museum Documentation Association, acted as the client adviser for the Astrup-Fearnley Museum in Oslo and helped to write the brief for Zaha Hadid’s Centro per le Arti Contemporanee in Rome. In 2000 he gave both the Gertrude Langer Lecture at Queensland Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia 18th Birthday Lecture in Canberra. He has been a member of the Project Steering Committee for Laban in the UK, and the CABE enabling panel and is a board member of Woking Galleries- The Shakespeare Transformation Project

- [FFW]

Opinions >> Report

On the NAG Jury