Modern Architecture

‘One of the great beauties of architecture is that it is like life starting all over again each time.’

– Renzo Piano

The architecture of Singapore encompasses a range of styles from different places and periods. It is both modern and contemporary. Since the late 1990s, Singapore architecture has focussed on branding Singapore’s identity as a business tourism hub. Many landmarks have developed through architectural design competitions. These structures are everywhere in buildings, bridges and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations. Some of the iconic buildings and other facilities are Reflections, Marina Bay, the Esplanade, the Singapore Flyer, Lasalle College of Arts, the Apple Store, Marina Bay Sands, The Interlace, Marina One, The Star Vista, ArtScience Museum, Gardens by the Bay, and Cloud Forest.

Celebrated architect Moshe Safdie’s architectural marvel, Marina Bay Sands, has three sloping towers, and a lobby at the base links all three. The towers are broader at the bottom and become narrower as they rise. Each tower has two asymmetric legs, with a curved eastern leg leaning against the other, making it an architectural marvel. Tower 1 has a 26-degree slope, notable in that the two digits add up to eight, considered a lucky number in Chinese culture. The world-famous infinity pool at Marina Bay Sands straddles the top of the three towers in the shape of a boat. At 57 storeys high, the 150-metre-long pool is designed to be an auspicious symbol of a lake at the top of a mountain. In China, Heaven Lake (Tianchi Lake), located at the top of Changbai Mountain, is considered sacred and has become an important destination for pilgrimage. The pool’s vanishing edge gives the appearance of an abrupt cut-off at 650 feet in the air; however, just below the top edge is another trough-like basin that catches the water and returns it to the main pool. On the other side of the pool, three Jacuzzis face the city’s port side. Here one can watch thousands of boats pull into Singapore.