Standing at 1 Empress Place, the Empress Place Building has seen the history of Singapore enfolds before it. Built in 1864, it had functioned as offices for government departments from the colonial era right up to the 1980s. Many of us remembered it as the place to make our identity cards and passports as it housed the Citizens Registry, the Immigration Department as well as the Registry of Births and Death.

The Empress Place Building was converted into the Empress Place Museum in 1989 which organised five world class exhibitions in six years before its closure in 1995. It will be reopening in 2003 as the second wing of the Asian Civilisations Museum.

This set of four stamps by Sylvia Tan charts the significant milestones in the illustrious history of the Empress Place Building - as a Court House (No-Value Indicator - For local address only), Government Offices (60 cents stamp), Empress Place Museum ($1 stamp) and the Asian Civilisations Museum ($2 stamp).