Singapore's latest lotus-shaped addition to its skyline and museum scene is unabashed about its mission to entertain.
'We want people to come here and have a good time,' says Tom Zaller, director of the ArtScience Museum. The Moshe Safdie-designed, privately funded museum at Marina Bay Sands officially opened the doors to its total of 50,000 sq ft of galleries last month - to great fanfare. And as part of its inauguration, it has lined up four exhibitions, including one on Genghis Khan, another on The Silk Road and another of Tang-dynasty maritime treasures.
Explaining his vision for the museum, Zaller says: 'To me, all museums are a form of entertainment... It's about having a good experience at the end of the day.
'Our staff is friendly, you understand where you're going, the content is rich and scholarly to the point that's digestible, and we deliver it in a way that's comfortable. You don't feel as though you need to have a [doctorate] in an area just to understand the content.'
Zaller is a veteran of the exhibitions and entertainment industry, having worked on travelling projects such as Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, Bodies: The Exhibition, Star Trek: The Exhibition and Dialogue In The Dark, in which blind or visually-impaired guides take visitors through different settings in absolute darkness.
'The connotation is that museums are dusty and boring. But we are going to try to give it [the experience] to you in a way that's immersive,' adds the 38-year-old father of two.
The exhibitions are aimed at a target audience 'aged from two to 82', and 80 per cent of the displays will be travelling or rotating, rather than permanent.