The original building, constructed in 1965 as a crescent-shaped monument, served multiple purposes beyond honoring Churchill. It housed the Hassanal Bolkiah Aquarium, Brunei's historical and cultural center, the Department of Fisheries offices, and a lecture hall. The architecture was straightforwardly modernist, a two-story concrete structure that the New York Times in 1972 noted as part of a sultanate 'top-heavy with wealth.' By the early 1990s, Brunei had been independent for nearly a decade, and the impulse to honor a British prime minister had cooled. Renovations began in early 1992, taking eight months to complete. The transformation was timed for the Silver Jubilee of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who had ruled as the 29th monarch for twenty-five years. When the Royal Regalia Building opened on 30 September 1992, Churchill's name was gone. In December 2017, the building was renamed once more to the Royal Regalia Museum, marking the Sultan's Golden Jubilee.

The 1992 renovation kept the original crescent footprint but wrapped it in a new architectural language that blends constructivist geometry with Melayu Islam Beraja, the national philosophy that fuses Malay culture, Islamic faith, and monarchical governance. The original 1960s walls, staircases, verandahs, and banisters were preserved and integrated into the expanded structure, creating a building that contains its own history in layers. The most striking addition is the dome, capped with golden flower mosaics called bunga putar that mirror patterns found in the Sultan's ceremonial dress. Rising from the dome, a 13.5-meter white spire takes the shape of a traditional umbrella, inspired by the Pemanjangan found in the Istana Nurul Iman. In Bruneian royal symbolism, the umbrella represents protection and vigilance. Below it, a semi-circular atrium connects old and new, and Black Assoluto granite flooring gives the interior galleries a weight that the original concrete never possessed.

The exhibits within make the building's purpose unmistakable. The Royal Regalia Gallery displays the ceremonial objects used at Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah's 1968 coronation: gold and silver weaponry, jewel-encrusted crowns, and the elaborate costumes worn during the ceremony. The most unusual artifact is a golden hand and forearm, used by the Sultan as a chin rest during the coronation -- a practical solution to the physical endurance required by hours of ceremony, elevated to art by the goldsmith's craft. The Constitutional Gallery houses documents and treaties that trace Brunei's political evolution from a British protectorate to an independent state. Visitors remove their shoes before entering, a gesture of respect that transforms the act of viewing from tourism into something closer to a visit to someone's home. The Golden Jubilee Exhibition Gallery, added to mark fifty years of the Sultan's reign, uses contemporary LED lighting and large-format photography to document national milestones, projecting audio and video from Independence Day celebrations and the coronation itself.

The bronze statue of Churchill has never been publicly displayed since its removal. Its fate is a small mystery in a small country -- stored somewhere, presumably, in a government warehouse in Bandar Seri Begawan. The transformation of his memorial into a celebration of Bruneian sovereignty is not a story of disrespect. Omar Ali Saifuddien III genuinely admired Churchill, and the memorial was built with sincerity. But nations change, and the symbols they choose to display in their capital cities change with them. Brunei gained independence from Britain in 1984, and the conversion of Churchill's building into a showcase of royal Malay identity eight years later was as much about a young nation finding its own voice as it was about a building needing a new purpose. Today the museum sits at the center of Bandar Seri Begawan, a short walk from the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, and draws both domestic and international visitors. The crescent-shaped walls that once honored a British prime minister now hold the gold that honors a Bruneian sultan.