On the 8th September of 2010 I was invited to a preview tour of the old supreme court (some might call it the former supreme court but it’s the same place). OH HECK YEAAAAAAAAH! A warning to those reading this post via google readers or whatever since I don’t think you’ll see a “more” cut. THIS post is going to be EXTREMELY long!

The short details: The old supreme court is going to be converted into the National Art Gallery in the future! There’s going to be an open house on the 8th and 9th October. However, tour slots are full at the moment. IN ANY CASE. LET’S GET ON WITH THE SHOW!

If you expect “serious” textbook history stuff for this post, go find other blogs or something. I will disappoint you because this is freaking exciting! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!

I was supposed to find my way into the old supreme court however, the doors are closed and oh! I met Suzz of Artitute and we knocked on the main doors of the building because we could hear people inside… OR DID WE? Well, she knocked and I tried the knocker too. Sort of. I hit my hand on the door with it instead and casually moved away as if I meant to do that and then patted the surface.

Ha… Ha…

ANYWAY, so instead we made our way down once more to the side door where we met a security guard who directed us to the correct elevator (you see there’s two buildings and it was uh the other one?).

AND WE GOT UP! The elevator has vintage buttons. I liked pressing them, the other lift was under maintenance so, ooh-er it’s really an old building. There were other bloggers too but I’m crap at talk of any sort. Ok, I’m not that crappy but I only start to talk random only if people realize that I’m not posh serious. The other bloggers are le artistic, smart types or are professionals of the sort with large followings.  It would not do to freak them out indeed.

I looked out the window and OH MY, what a view of The Padang! And I mean seriously “Oh my…” because it was all muddy and dug up due to National Day. It’s ok though, they’d fix it up before the F1 races. OK, so anywho, there was food but since it was Ramadhan then, I had to wait much later.

Anyway, we got to sit inside a room to listen to their spiel on what the Old Supreme Court is going to be converted to. (Into The National Art Gallery, duh) and details of the buildings and whatnot. IT IS GASPTASTIC. I don’t want to give THAT much spoilers but there’ll be a cafe. Donuts will be involved. It looks like it’ll be the best place to hang out for writers and artistic types! ALSO, INTERACTIVE BITS FOR FUNNESS OF ALL AGES.

Ok, so they went onwards to what the open house will entail AND OH SNAP WHAT DO I SEE? Complimentary Milo. NMNT as they say! No Milo, No Talk! Naturally, this did increase the chitter amongst the bloggers as we noted that. Milo is a must. In any case, besides info about the open house happening on the 8th and 9th October, Barcamp details were also shown.

A note especially on Barcamp. The Adventure Crew will attend it especially on Saturday. If you’re attending it, HO HO HO sign up/vote whenever you see the topics up and see #AdCrew on it. We’ll be certain to make sure our talk is according to the theme art/tech. Seriously. It will be exciting.

After the very informative session on the upcoming events etc. WE STARTED OUR TOUR.

Ok.

First, a pitstop as it was sunset and I could eat by then.

AND THEN WE STARTED OUR TOUR! We busted through a door nearby. It was a discreet door with the word “Circular Staircase” next to it. As you open it, you will find yourself facing an old white laminated metal stairway that creaks and wavers as you step on it.

And this is the start of a first person point of view videos. You can play the entire playlist of my tour here. Well, not all of my tour, just the most significant bits. A NOTE: To those who managed to get into the tour for the open house, what you’ll see here… Heh, this is an exclusive. So some places you won’t be able to get in.

Like the roof.

Or actually having it at night. Otherwise, you’ll probably have similar experiences on your tour!

I find it amazing since they didn’t upgrade/fix anything of the roof. These are old British steel back in the times of 1937 onwards. You can note engravings on the side of the steel beams. They are that old and yet they’re still sturdy and strong.

I don’t know if they were bats or were they birds but they swooped around you as you got onto the roof. It’s a large empty space but we weren’t there just to check out the rafters… We headed outside.

This is the real lighting or close to it as we headed outside the narrow balcony ledge.

Ho ho ho, it was beautiful. Also, you got the scenery of what you usually see on postcards!

Like so. Ok, so postcards aren’t usually portrait, I saved some shots for my use, BWUAHAHA. Nonetheless, look! It’s the Arts House!

Ok, this shot was adjusted with lighting. Know that this was actually past sunset. But woaah. The architecture looked familiar especially if one plays Assassin’s Creed 2. The architect for Old Supreme Court (or at least some parts?) was Italian. I did touch the wall as it led to the roof from the outside. It is of a smooth white stone. Perhaps if you were an assassin, you can do the double jump grapple to pull yourself up to the roof and use eagle vision on it.

As it is, with the flying bats/birds inside and the vast view of the city, it could have been where Batman lurked too.

And then we went down.

Via some alley way corridor things, we managed to be at the main entrance at the first level.

When you step upon the middle of the stone with the words engraved on it, know that if you look up, you are directly under the roof! Also… There’s actually a time capsule underneath you. It’ll only be opened in the year 3000. The first stone was placed on 1st April 1937. Heh, we have no idea what would be in the capsule even if the guide says that there’ll be currency from back then in it and some other documents.

You just don’t know if it’s just that.

DUH DUH DUUUH.

This is the part where I had flashbacks to Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail. You know, the scene where he used a metal divider thing to smash the X in the library? Yeah, only there were no large objects to tempt people to smash the floor. Maybe a dustbin but you’d probably get restrained by security first or something.

Alright, it’s time to go to the second floor.

We got to go out onto the main grandstand where it’ll be the most expensive and best view for the F1 races that will be had later in the month or so. Also, when you go outside and look to the top, did you know Singapore’s Lady of Justice is not blind? Originally the lady of justice isn’t. It’s only blind in America onwards for some reason. Just look into original Greek architecture instead.

Then we were led through corridors to get to the main supreme court… Court! By this point, I figured that the old supreme court would have been a very good location for a movie or a game. I’ll post that more at the end of this post so let’s just enjoy the tour first, heh heh.

Woaaaah. Everything was where it was ever since it stopped being used.

At least until we invaded the place. To our right at the corner of the room lies a high chair and some audio things, that’s where the interpreter sits. The supreme judge sits under that lighted dramatic looking thing. And of course, I did do the Phoenix Wright “OBJECTION!!!” pose when I got up on it. You can’t just be up there and not do it, you know.

Ok, we headed outside because we went in via the “normal” people way and went back in from where the judge would enter. Through a side door past a little reception/security counter and into an office area!

So fancy! No papers but all the furniture was there. From this point onwards, there were a few offices and did you know that in the main judge’s office, there’s an elevator that leads straight to the carpark? We didn’t try the lift because it’s a really old one that you had to shut with a gate and go down. It’s a very large office with a few cubicles and rooms.

If you get the chance to get there, you will notice they have large heavy desks. These desks have natural air conditioners under them. In a way for there’s vents leading to under these heavy desks and you’d feel air coming out of them to cool you down. This was built in the time before air conditioners so heh, your lower half will feel cool.

And then we got to step and see how the judge would see, looking over at the accused, jury and whatnot. You would think that’s it, wouldn’t you? BUT NON! OH GASP! See the place where the accused would stand? Well, let’s see how they “appeared” for their trials now.

WHY YES! What’s this? There’s… There’s a TUNNEL running underneath it to lead the accused into the box?

And so we went down. Mind you, at this point you really need to follow the guide. It really is a maze under the court!

The worst place you’d get lost in the building. Everything’s white and similar. Perhaps it was this way so if the accused did manage to run away, they wouldn’t know which way to turn to because you need to be familiar with the place to find the exits.

There’s an office there, somewhat like a security post and a weapons loading area. No weapons though, just the cabinet where it was used to store them. Near the security area was the interrogation room too.

Past said rooms, you got to go to the holding cells! There’s only two cells for ladies on the other side, these are for guys.

A close up of how a holding cell looks like.

You might notice that the flush is from the outside. Probably so the people held in the cells would not use them as weapons or something.

And then we headed up once more. This time we were led to a different tunnel even if most of us didn’t really notice it. It was went we got out that we realised that we were in a different court room! After freaking out that we didn’t know how to get out, the guide (who was the last to come out to make sure everyone did get out of the tunnel first) showed us the exit.

We followed her to the next room since I had no idea how we managed to travel there via the corridors and whatnot in the dark… Well, THE ROOM IS SO COOL!

It is the rotund library! To those who played Batman’s Arkham Asylum, this library will look so similar to one of the levels. Only, it’s huger in the game of course.

Imagine! The empty shelves to be filled with books in the future!

OH MY GAAAAAAAAASP! LET IT BE FILLED WITH BOOKS IN THE FUTURE. It’s too beautiful not to! It’s like Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. ONLY NOT. Because Belle isn’t a lawyer that I know of… Well, if she was there she would go “MON DIEU! C’EST TRES BELLE! (pun!)” for she’s French you see.

Old CRT monitors, tape players were mounted on the various tables near the perimeter. You will like to note that the furniture is exceptionally ornate here. I can’t remember what the guide says but this was something about the era back then where they wanted it to be beautiful and make it last long or something.

We were done with the old supreme court area and then led to the other adjoining building! The actual City Hall of… uh City Hall!

After going up the floors, seeing the bar where lawyers went to and various rooms, we were led to the last part of the tour! The room where the Japanese surrendered to the British during world war 2!

This was also the place where ministers are sworn in. AND THAT WAS THE END OF THE TOUR. It lasted a few hours because we’re such camera people and got exclusive previews of rooms and whatnot.

THE WHOLE TOUR WAS AWESOME. Now I’m just gonna have a little take of what I thought of it all.

Did you know as the guide tells you facts and the history of the place, I was thinking that this was a GREAT place for a game? I mean an interactive online game. I hope before they renovate some parts of the buildings for The National Gallery that they’ll at least have some professional photographer to take pictures of it all before it is partially changed.

I have five ideas if the National Heritage Board had the time and budget to do so. I HOPE they will implement at least one! I’m putting it from the easiest to the most detailed.

IDEAS OF AWESOMENESS

Photobook:

This is pretty much explanatory. A book including the historical facts and whatnot.

Pros: A person can borrow/buy it. You just need photographers, writers and researchers. Good for archival.

Cons: It’s a book. It’s not very interactive.

Documentary:

Pretty easy to do if you have a good team. There needs to be at least have some archival footage of how it is before the renovations.

Pros: You get to watch how it is with voice overs or a host telling it how it is.

Cons: They’d have to put the video somewhere for people to find. It wouldn’t be a problem if they put a whole documentary online somewhere but people would need to know where to find it.

Virtual Tour:

Get a really professional photographer and web team to get pictures of everything. From the roof to the bottom, to the tunnels etc. Stitch them up and put it on a website so it’s like a 3d tour of everything.

Pros: You don’t need to be there to see the place. People from around the world can learn more about it too!

Cons: People need to know it exists or are enticed to check it out. Also, coding is complicated but no biggie for web designers, heh.

Interactive Game (version 1)

You know I’m getting more insane with the ideas now. THIS was one thing I thought of as I went through the tunnels and such. It seems like a very good place to have an interactive youtube game. You might have seen some games on youtube where you have choices to click after a video ends to make your decision.

Version 1 is easy that the storyline could be that the “viewer” is some investigator and gets into the old supreme court chasing after a suspect or the storyline just lets the viewer choose the directions where by the end of it all, they’d be able to go through all or most of the building until they do a second run of the game.

Pros: It can be addictive to play the game and international audiences might be found too.

Cons: Takes much planning, not sure when the renovations are going to happen!!

Interactive Game (version 2)

In which you have two characters, one guy and girl as they lead “you” to the Old Supreme Court as they’re some history time travel investigators (pro point: said characters can be used for other museums too) where someone is trying to change the past. The player follows them as they split up and chooses who to go with as stuff happens! As the player follows the character, they find out the past of what had happened in each of the rooms with reenactments until they end by finding everyone together.

Pros: This sort of storyline will be very fun to play and might actually win awards for being both an interactive game, a museum edutainment thing and lead more people to know more about the other museums if said “heritage team” are used for other episodes.

Cons: LOTS of planning! Not sure if it can be done before the renovation. You need more actors to do reenactments of the historical events.

SO YEAH. Those are my ideas. I know how it works because BWUAHAHA, yeah I can do game design and whatnot. In any case, if you think these are awesome (especially the game), go try convince the NHB to at least save something before the new changes occur!