Raffles Hotel Singapore

Raffles Hotel Singapore's 1899 Main Building floodlit after dark, its white neo-Renaissance facade with a central pediment, rows of arched and Palladian windows and the cast-iron portico over the entrance, behind a round lawn on the forecourt
Location: Singapore, SingaporeType: HotelYear: 2019Architect: Aedas + Champalimaud Design + Studio Lapis + Jouin Manku + Regent Alfred John Bidwell + Swan & MaclarenPhotographer: Diego Delso, Daniel Case

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Marine Photo Service, BugWarp, Renek78, Unknown, LBM1948, Pangalau

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Raffles Hotel Singapore by Aedas in Singapore

Raffles Hotel Singapore is a hotel at 1 Beach Road in Singapore, the colonial grande dame opened by the Armenian Sarkies brothers on 1 December 1887 and named after Sir Stamford Raffles. Its white Main Building of 1899 was designed by Regent Alfred John Bidwell of Swan & Maclaren, and the hotel has been a national monument since 1987. After a three-phase restoration and refurbishment begun in 2017, with Aedas as lead consultant and architect, interiors by Champalimaud Design, heritage research by Studio Lapis and the restaurant BBR by Alain Ducasse designed by Jouin Manku, Raffles reopened on 1 August 2019.

Black-and-white photograph from the 1920s or 1930s of Raffles Hotel seen across Beach Road, the Main Building lettered RAFFLES HOTEL above its pediment, palms and striped awnings along the front, vintage cars at the entrance and rickshaws parked beside a Raffles Hotel sign

From Beach House to the Sarkies brothers’ grand hotel, 1830s–1915

The hotel grew out of Beach House, a private home built in the 1830s that became Emmerson’s Hotel in 1878 and later a boarding house for the Raffles Institution. When that lease expired in 1887, Martin, Tigran and Aviet Sarkies, later joined by Arshak, leased the house from the Arab merchant Syed Mohamed Alsagoff and opened a ten-room hotel by the sea. Under Tigran, building was almost continuous: two wings of 22 suites in 1890, a Billiard Room at the corner of Beach Road and Bras Basah Road, and the Palm Court Wing in 1894. The Main Building replaced the old bungalow in 1899 and was celebrated with a grand opening that November. It had its own generator, among the first in Singapore, powering electric lights, ceiling fans and call bells, and its ground floor held a marble dining saloon for 500. The Bras Basah Wing, with shops at street level, followed in 1904 and made Raffles the largest hotel in the Straits Settlements; in 1915 the barman Ngiam Tong Boon created the Singapore Sling.

A cast-iron fountain with a pale blue basin in a courtyard at Raffles Hotel Singapore, framed by tall palms and two storeys of white arcaded verandahs with balustrades, café tables set out on the patterned tiles under a grey sky

Bidwell’s Main Building and the 1989–1991 restoration

Bidwell’s Main Building is in a Neo-Renaissance style: symmetrical, with Corinthian and Doric columns, round arches, wide verandahs and rows of Palladian windows that kept the rooms cool and ventilated before air-conditioning, between angled wings that let in the daylight. A cast-iron portico of 1913 by Walter MacFarlane & Co. of Glasgow sheltered the entrance until a new ballroom displaced it in 1920. The Sarkies brothers went bankrupt in the Depression in 1931, the hotel was relaunched as Raffles Hotel Limited in 1933, and during the Japanese occupation it became the Syonan Ryokan, after staff had buried the silver in the Palm Court. Gazetted a national monument in 1987, Raffles closed in 1989 for a S$160 million restoration by Architects 61, with interiors by Bent Severin & Associates, that took 1915 as its benchmark: the 1920s ballroom gave way to a faithful copy of the cast-iron portico, the plasterwork was repaired and the great timber staircase reinstated, and a new block added a shopping arcade, a museum and the Jubilee Hall theatre before the hotel reopened on 16 September 1991.

Entrance to the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel Singapore at dusk, a black Long Bar sign set into a white arched fanlight above open glazed timber doors, with a frosted pendant lantern hanging from the white ceiling

Restoration led by Aedas, 2017–2019

By the 2010s the hotel, owned since 2010 by Katara Hospitality, again needed renewal. Aedas, as lead consultant and architect, led a multidisciplinary team through three years of careful restoration and refurbishment of the 43,360-square-metre complex, applying state-of-the-art techniques to heal deterioration caused by time, weather, acid rain, sea-salt corrosion and past maintenance and restoration attempts. Studio Lapis, the restoration and research consultant, studied the buildings’ history; Tino Kwan Lighting Consultants designed the new lighting; and Aedas Interiors served as executive interior designer and designed the Chinese restaurant Yì by Jereme Leung. With no as-built drawings, much of the work was a journey of discovery. Suites gained intelligent, energy-efficient lighting and air-conditioning controlled from in-room touch pads, while many social spaces remain naturally ventilated and open to gardens shaded by heritage trees. The suite count rose from 103 to 115, the Jubilee Hall became the Jubilee Ballroom and the Raffles Arcade reopened in July 2019, and the restoration went on to win the URA Architectural Heritage Award for conservation in 2022.

The back bar of the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel Singapore, dark timber cabinetry with glazed upper doors and lit shelves of spirits above rows of glasses, a beer tap and a sack of peanuts on the polished counter

Champalimaud Design interiors, the Tiffin Room and the Long Bar

Champalimaud Design, the New York studio founded by Alexandra Champalimaud, won the commission through a 2013 design competition and, with partners Ed Bakos and Jon Kastl, set out to layer a contemporary sensibility over the colonial architecture. Public spaces were re-planned to flow and encourage social life, scale was emphasised with sumptuously shaped custom furniture, ornate screens that nod to the hotel’s outdoor gates, locally sourced heritage antiques and impactful lighting, and the original black-and-white contrasts were set against caramel, shades of green and creamy neutrals. The new reception and lobby lounge, with a bejewelled chandelier, became the gateway to the Tiffin Room, the Writers Bar, La Dame de Pic, the Long Bar and Butcher’s Block. In the Tiffin Room, timber floorboards recall the early 1900s and hammered gold shelves in the form of service trolleys display vintage tiffin boxes; the Writers Bar gained a sculptural counter and shelves of books; and the Jubilee Ballroom pairs blue and off-white Chinoiserie detailing with gold Venetian light fixtures. The two-storey Long Bar keeps its original counter and plantation-style cabinetry, with décor inspired by Malayan life in the 1920s, and guests still brush peanut shells onto the floor.

Ornate cast-iron pavilion in a courtyard at Raffles Hotel Singapore, its glass roof carried on lacy fretwork brackets with painted crests, brass lanterns hanging over a glass-fronted bar cabinet and white verandahs and city towers beyond

Photography and credits

The photographs open with Bidwell’s Main Building floodlit after dark and the Long Bar, then step back to a Beach Road view of the 1920s or 1930s before moving through the lantern-lit verandahs, the fountain courtyard and a crowded dinner of around 1930, into the Long Bar, with its arched entrance, peanut-strewn floor and back bar, and out to the guest-wing verandahs, the cast-iron courtyard pavilions, the Main Building at blue hour, a bartender at work along the Long Bar, the colonnade on Bras Basah Road and the palm gardens. The contemporary photographs date from 2009 to 2024, most of them taken after the 2019 reopening; no freely licensed photographs of the restored lobby, suites, Tiffin Room or Writers Bar were available. Credits go to Diego Delso, Daniel Case, Marine Photo Service, BugWarp, Renek78, an unknown photographer in the KITLV collection of Leiden University Library, LBM1948 and Pangalau, under the CC licences, public-domain dedications or public-domain status noted on each Wikimedia Commons file.

Slender palm trunks rising in front of the arched white facade of a Raffles Hotel Singapore wing, the red-tiled roof and lacy ironwork of a courtyard pavilion below tall arched openings and a balustrade

Raffles Hotel Singapore gallery

Raffles Hotel Singapore's 1899 Main Building floodlit after dark, its white neo-Renaissance facade with a central pediment, rows of arched and Palladian windows and the cast-iron portico over the entrance, behind a round lawn on the forecourtThe Long Bar at Raffles Hotel Singapore busy with guests, a long dark timber counter lined with tan leather bar stools under green pendant lamps and leaf-shaped ceiling fans, with plantation-style cabinetry and a clock behind and a black-and-white patterned floorBlack-and-white photograph from the 1920s or 1930s of Raffles Hotel seen across Beach Road, the Main Building lettered RAFFLES HOTEL above its pediment, palms and striped awnings along the front, vintage cars at the entrance and rickshaws parked beside a Raffles Hotel signA long white verandah corridor at Raffles Hotel Singapore, brass lanterns hanging from a timber-boarded ceiling above terracotta floor tiles, square white columns framing the view and small hanging signs receding into the distanceA cast-iron fountain with a pale blue basin in a courtyard at Raffles Hotel Singapore, framed by tall palms and two storeys of white arcaded verandahs with balustrades, café tables set out on the patterned tiles under a grey skyPhotograph from around 1930 of a crowded dinner at Raffles Hotel Singapore, diners in white suits, bow ties and sun hats seated at long tables beneath an iron-framed canopy hung with ceiling fans and lamps, potted palms at the edgeEntrance to the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel Singapore at dusk, a black Long Bar sign set into a white arched fanlight above open glazed timber doors, with a frosted pendant lantern hanging from the white ceilingPeanut shells scattered across the black-and-white patterned floor of the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel Singapore beneath leather-topped bar stools, following the bar's custom of brushing the shells onto the floorThe back bar of the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel Singapore, dark timber cabinetry with glazed upper doors and lit shelves of spirits above rows of glasses, a beer tap and a sack of peanuts on the polished counterTiered white verandahs of a Raffles Hotel Singapore guest wing at dusk, round arches and slender columns on the ground floor below lamp-lit timber balconies, with a guest walking along a paved path beside tropical plantingOrnate cast-iron pavilion in a courtyard at Raffles Hotel Singapore, its glass roof carried on lacy fretwork brackets with painted crests, brass lanterns hanging over a glass-fronted bar cabinet and white verandahs and city towers beyondLooking down from an upper verandah at a cast-iron kiosk in a Raffles Hotel Singapore courtyard, its red-tiled hipped roof on slender iron columns sheltering a dark bar counter and chairs on terracotta paving, ringed by tall palmsSlender palm trunks rising in front of the arched white facade of a Raffles Hotel Singapore wing, the red-tiled roof and lacy ironwork of a courtyard pavilion below tall arched openings and a balustradeRaffles Hotel Singapore's Main Building at blue hour, the white facade with RAFFLES HOTEL lettering on the pediment and a flag on the roof, warm light glowing beneath the cast-iron portico and cars parked along the forecourtA bartender working behind the long timber counter of the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel Singapore, guests seated along the bar under green glass pendant lamps, with bottles and brass fittings lining the cabinetryCovered colonnade along Bras Basah Road at the Raffles Hotel complex, white arches and pilasters on one side and glazed timber shop doors on the other, pendant lanterns hanging from a beamed ceiling over terracotta tilesDense tropical planting of palms, ferns and broad-leaved trees in a garden courtyard at Raffles Hotel Singapore, in front of the white verandahs of a guest wing with arched openings and louvred upper storeys

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