Singapore is an unlikely nation. With no natural resources and limited land, Singapore was not a shoe-in for success. At the Unnatural History Museum of Singapore at the National Design Centre, you can take a quirky look at Singapore’s design legacy at a “museum of the unexpected”.
The Unnatural History Museum of Singapore
The Unnatural History Museum of Singapore is curated by Kinetic Singapore. The exhibition, part of Singapore Design Week, transforms the National Design Centre’s four storey-high atrium space that reframes Singapore’s evolution as a series of design-driven adaptations.
It features themes like “R/Evolutionary Life”, “Growing Habits” and “The Resourceful Island” to showcase hybrid flora, robotic fauna and reimagined habitats that reflect a nation that has thrived “unnaturally”, and not by chance.
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Merlion Fossil
The exhibit that will capture most people’s attention when they arrive at The Unnatural History Museum is a six-metre “fossil” of the Merlion, Singapore’s iconic half-lion, half-fish mascot.
The Merlion was the result of the then-Singapore Tourism Promotion Board’s search for a mascot. Since then, it has grown to become a design identity that is closely associated with Singapore.
The wholly mythical creature has resonated with many and it represents the deliberate crafting of national identity.
The towering fossil provides a quirky look at this mythical creature as if it were real!
R/Evolutionary Life
The Merlion is not the only unusual creature that you can encounter at The Unnatural History Museum of Singapore.
You can also see robotic rays along with cyborg cockroaches fitted with navigation sensors and cameras, developed in Singapore for post-disaster search and rescue missions.
The Unnatural History Museum of Singapore also features autonomous bee drones that mimic the pollination behaviour of real bees while offering advanced crop analytics for urban farms.
Daisy, a humanoid wellness robot steps in as a compassionate complement to Singapore’s eldercare workforce
There is also a Crab Condo that houses these creatures in drawer-style tanks designed to emulate natural burrows.
In total, there are more than 20 exhibits demonstrating Singapore’s unconventional evolution and innovative solutions.
Designing a Nation
Together, these inventions pose a timely question: in a land with no natural resources, what does it mean to design our own nation?
“We’ve never had the luxury of resources, but we’ve always had resourcefulness,” said curator and creative director of Kinetic Singapore, Pann Lim. “With the Unnatural History Museum of Singapore, we wanted to get visitors curious and engaged, help them understand the design choices that made Singapore and our array of solutions possible. This exhibition is our way of reimagining Singapore’s story through a different lens, to show how design has propelled the progress of this city we call home.”
The Unnatural History Museum of Singapore is now on at the National Design Centre till 26 October 2025.
Get more details about The Unnatural History Museum of Singapore.
Where: National Design Centre, 111 Middle Road, Atrium, Level 1, Singapore 188969
Dates: Till 26 October 2025
Opening Hours: 9 am to 9 pm
Admission: Free
