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ACM opened in the former Tao Nan School Building on Armenian Street on 21 April 1997, with then Deputy PM Lee Hsien Loong presiding. The museum included 10 galleries, with thematic displays on China and space for special exhibitions. Later, a Peranakan display was added, after a special exhibition on the topic proved especially popular.
The Armenian Street ACM building had closed at the end of 2005, and, because of the immense popularity of the Peranakan displays in the old ACM, was redeveloped into a brand new Peranakan Museum. On 25 April 2008, the Peranakan Museum was officially opened by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Operated and managed by the Asian Civilisations Museum, the Peranakan Museum explores the culture of hybrid communities in the former Straits Settlements of Singapore, Malacca, and Penang, and their links with other communities in Southeast Asia.
In 2003, the ACM moved into its current home — the historic Empress Place Building.
First completed in 1867, this neoclassical-style building along the Singapore River had seen several extensions built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
For more than a hundred years, the building housed colonial and, later, Singapore government offices — from customs to the legislative council, and until the 1980s, the Immigration Department.
Renovations to design this second venue for the Asian Civilisations Museum had begun in 1997, even before the Armenian Street location opened. Conversion of the building into a state-of-the-art museum took 5 years.
Since 2003, ACM has transformed itself from an ethnographic museum presenting the history of Asian civilisations to an art museum displaying objects of beauty, which represent the best in craft and aesthetic traditions of cultures across Asia.
