Designed by internationally renowned architect Moshe Safdie, the Museum of Art and Science is the world's first museum that combines art and science.


The entire building is surrounded by a 4,000-square-meter lotus pond, like a blooming lotus flower blooming at the water's edge. When you look at it from a distance, you don't feel it's special. But once you get closer, you can feel the immensity and power of this lotus.


Once the museum is completed, visitors can admire the building from outside along the walkway beside the lotus pond, even if they do not buy tickets to enter the museum.


It is easy to see the concept of the Singapore ArtScience Museum from this wonderful architectural design. The concept of this museum is to stand at the intersection of art, science, culture and technology to drive innovation and create the future.


Thus, since its opening in February 2011, the museum has presented a number of important exhibitions both in the field of art. The museum has presented public works by world-renowned masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Salvador Dali, Van Gogh and Escher.


It has also presented several interesting crossover exhibitions that guide visitors to explore the mysterious scientific fields of big data, marine biology, and space exploration.


The museum is particularly adept at using cutting-edge technology to showcase scientific and artistic themes. For example, the permanent exhibition project Wilderness Exploration. Wilderness Mysteries was developed by the ArtScience Museum in collaboration with Google, Lenovo and WWF.


The exhibition uses Google's Tango technology to integrate the virtual world with the real world, highlighting the theme of environmental protection. The exhibition also won several awards for creative excellence, including the Wimpy People's Voice Award and the Asian Creative Festival Digital Craft Technology Advancement Award.


Smartphones are a necessary device to visit the entire exhibition. As visitors walk through the virtual rainforest of Southeast Asia, they will meet some of the rainforest's key inhabitants such as pangolins, tapirs, chevrons, orangutans and tigers.


They will also be able to observe them up close, learn about the crises they are facing and interact with their cell phones to protect their environment.


Towards the end of the tour, visitors can plant a virtual tree in the museum. Meanwhile, WWF field staff will plant a real tree in Bugitigapulu, Indonesia. This is the last pristine rainforest in Sumatra and the main habitat of the endangered Sumatran tiger.


Those trees were once cut down by estate owners who illegally planted palm trees, leaving many wild animals, including Sumatran tigers, homeless. After planting the trees, viewers will enter a magical world created by contemporary Singaporean artist Brian Gothong Tan using state-of-the-art animation and graphics techniques.


He draws the viewer from a virtual reality digital adventure into a spectacular immersive cinematic experience. His multimedia film depicts five animals in their fragile habitats, fluidly showing the animals' journey from creation to destruction to rebirth.


The director of the ArtScience Museum believes that museums want elements of creativity, curiosity and aesthetics, not hanging an exhibit on the wall and sticking a narration on it. They are practising their philosophy with a whimsical exhibit that attracts a wider public to enjoy.