Singapore – The Lion City
Singapore became a sovereign nation in 1965 after being kicked out of Malaysia federation fearing its tie to the communist China. In the independence day of Singapore, the founding father Lee Kuan Yew teared up for the fate of the tiny island of 722.5 km2, 279 mil2 (New York City is 468 mil2 ). One taxi driver told me that you could drive around the country in 2.5 hours.
Later, Mr. Lee led Singapore to be one of the four fastest developed Asian countries in the tiger economy. Today, Singapore is a multi-ethnic, multi-religion and multi-language city-state with a fast growing economy.
The main architecture to see is the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore hotel. You can’t miss it. It’s a landmark to look for when you get lost. This was the hotel we stayed.
The hotel was designed by the renowned Canadian architect Moshe Safdie architects who is known for Habitat 67 at Montreal Expo 67 in 1964.
The 845,000 square meters (9,095,504 sqft) Marina Bay Sands, Singapore is composed of three towers connected at the top with a dramatic cantilevered sky garden and an infinite pool that extend out 65 meters(yards) out on one side. The atrium of the hotel merges into a grand mall and a casino at the lower lever and is connected to the subway system. It’s truly a mixed-use conglomerate inside. The downside is that there are very little pedestrians activity outside the buildings in the surrounding area. If it were in the urban USA, it would breed crime. We felt uncomfortable, but still safe walking outside the hotel. Hey, this is Singapore. You can get spanked on the tushie vandalizing mailbox.
The first thing we did after we checked in, and dropped luggage in the room, was to find our way to the top. It was breath-taking.
I was curious about what the local building code on seismic restriction. It turns out that Singapore is not located on an earth plate boundary and is therefore not prone to earthquakes. That explains that they have many structural forms that are not allowed for many parts of the world. Such as the Interlace apartment building designed by OMA. If factors in the seismic calculation, a structure like this will not be economically viable.
In fact, the main threat to Singapore is from rising sea level. In February 2018, the government froze the number of cars on streets to push into a car-lite future. Moving around the town on metro and buses are fairly easy.
Recently, as of 2018, a modified version of Marina Bay Sands popped out in Chongqing China by the same developer, CapitaLand, and, I am pretty sure, by the same architect Moshe Safdie. I saw the proposal of this project in CapitaLand’s Shanghai office in 2015.
We visited the Merlion, downtown, the zoo, the botanic garden, universal studio, sea world, night Safari, the flower dome, and Sentosa beach.
Clarke Quay is one of the successful urban renewal projects. Once heavily polluted river transport hub was transformed into a commercial and residential mix-used trendy vibrant attraction. We waited inline for hours for a taste of the well-known jumbo crab bathed in salty duck egg yolk sauce for dinner across the bridge from Clarke Quay.
