NHB to add iconic Changi Airport flip board to National Collection
SINGAPORE — The scrap heap may not be the final destination after all for one of Changi Airport’s decommissioned information display flip boards.
Instead, Changi Airport Group (CAG) has donated it to the National Heritage Board (NHB), which will be adding it to Singapore’s National Collection.
At an NHB event on Wednesday (26 February), members of the media were invited to take a peek into the processes involved in preparing the board for conservation.
Comprising 48 panels, over 50 metal casings and 2,052 capsules of individual alphabets and numbers, each analogue board is 4.5m high, 15m long and 0.3m deep.
The boards at Changi Airport’s Terminal 2 were decommissioned due to difficulties faced in maintaining and finding parts for them.
NHB estimates that it will take about six months to thoroughly clean the donated board’s components, after which it will be transferred to the board’s Heritage Conservation Centre (HCC) where it will be accessioned into the National Collection.
At the HCC, conservators will assess the condition of the board’s components and recommend plans for conservation and storage.
“The flip boards are certainly part of Changi Airport’s history. Hence, we will also re-use the last remaining flip board, to be retired in about two years’ time, in a different part of the airport as a display piece to be enjoyed by all who visit,” said Ang Siew Min, CAG’s senior vice-president for development operations, in a media release.
The remaining flip board is still operating and is located at Terminal 2’s Departure Hall.
“Many Singaporeans will remember standing underneath these huge boards, listening to the ‘clickety-clack’ sounds of the flaps and waiting for the flight information to be displayed,” said Alvin Tan, NHB’s deputy chief executive for policy and community, at Thursday’s event.
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