Architecture
Located at the mouth of the Singapore River, the Empress Place Building's imposing Neo-Palladian exterior with timber-louvred windows and pitched clay tile roofs caught the attention of immigrants and visitors sailing into Singapore harbour. A 1905 Singapore guidebook describes Government Offices and its neighbouring buildings thus: "Apart from the cities of India, there is, perhaps, no place in the East which boasts such a handsome group of buildings as viewed from the sea."
Inside, the rooms are stately, with high ceilings, handsome Doric columns and exquisite plaster mouldings and cornices. Elegantly proportioned, the building is laid out symmetrically along a central axis.
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