Upscale designer furniture and home accessories are available at SPACE Furniture along Raffles Boulevard. Here, a coveted sofa may set you back by more than S$5,000. The IKEA and Courts megastores are the ultimate one-stop shops for all your home furnishing needs. Furnishings that come in a wide range of designs and prices are found at Raffles City Shopping Centre, Millenia Walk, Suntec City Mall, Paragon along Orchard Road, Centrepoint, Ngee Ann City, Orchard Point, Pacific Plaza, Park Mall, Plaza Singapura, Tanglin Mall, and Great World City at Riverside. All the possible choices are yours at these locations.

Tanglin Shopping Centre, a 5-minute walk north of Orchard Road, is packed with little antique boutiques and shops showcasing paintings, tapestries, and curios made of jade or brass. Tudor Court, along Tanglin Road, has many interesting shops such as Antiquity Hands of the Hills that offer curio items from Tibet.

Local antique furnishings in Indonesian, Chinese, and Peranakan styles are widely available along Dempsey Road. The warehouses up on the hill are full of Chinese antiques and Burmese teak. Chinese figurines, Southeast Asian Buddha images, and chests are found at the Renaissance Art Gallery. The stores on Dempsey Road open daily from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and carry large furniture pieces, carved teak Indonesian-style reproduction furniture, authentic pieces from mainland China, and Oriental carpets, among others.

Singapore has an extensive list of art galleries and antique houses. Two of the world’s most reputable auction houses, Sotheby’s and Glerum & Bonhams, feature a wide range of jade, porcelain, and popular Southeast Asian paintings. The Evolution Prehistoric Art Gallery has access to the world’s largest private collection of prehistoric and natural art in the world. The Wetterling Teo Gallery represents top names in contemporary American art. The Plum Blossoms Gallery specializes in contemporary Asian art, primarily from China and Vietnam. It also holds five to eight successful exhibitions a year. Holland Village and Dempsey Road have a variety of shops that sell antiques, souvenirs, and handicrafts such as Bali-inspired crafts and Chinese silks.

The Artrium@MITA (The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts), on Hill Street is packed with six galleries of fine art. The Raffles Hotel Arcade on North Bridge Road houses the Artfolio’s exhibits. Tanglin Shopping Centre has a series of art galleries such as Hakaren Art Gallery for contemporary Southeast Asian art and Kwan Hua Art Gallery for a collection of Chinese brush paintings and oils. Other art galleries to cater to your particular taste are Raffles Hotel Shopping Arcade, Stamford House on North Bridge Road, and Centrepoint and Ngee Ann City in Orchard.

Royal Selangor pewter, the famed Malaysian pewter tin alloy, has eight showrooms in Singapore. The Royal Selangor Pewter Centre on River Valley Road in Clarke Quay has an exhibit of the history of pewter works in the region and daily pewtersmith demonstrations. Raffles City Shopping Centre, Paragon on Orchard, Delfi Orchard, and the Marina Square are some of the places where the Royal Selangor pewter is exhibited.

You can find antique porcelain items along Pagoda and Trenagganu streets in Chinatown. The ultimate in pottery shopping, referred to by locals as the “pottery jungle,” is the Thow Kwang Industry Pte. Ltd. at Lorong Tawas, off Jalan Bahar.

Hassan’s Carpets at the Tanglin Shopping Centre is a household name in Singapore for generations. Proprietor Suliman Hamid is the local authority on carpets. He was adviser and supplier of carpets for the restoration of Raffles Hotel. Some of the warehouses on Dempsey Road are filled with carpet stock. Marina Square, Raffles Hotel Arcade, and the Centrepoint and Far East Plaza on Orchard are also good sources of Oriental carpets.

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Via hotel4stay/MARIMARI