I remember how impressed I was with Singapore's skyline, when I first saw it in January 2005. It looked like a concrete forest of high-rise buildings to me, the tallest among them topped at 280m. And since in Slovenia we don't have such downtowns, it was truly something new to me. This experience was life changing to me. In one day that I needed to arrive on the other side of the globe, I have entered into a world I have not known before. Never was I further from home than at that time, when I was in Singapore. It was also the biggest city I have ever seen until that time. I was young, barely 25 and of course fascinated by everything I saw and experienced in Singapore. Now, after seeing Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul, I'm somewhat harder to impress.The skyline of Singapore today doesn't impress me anymore. I think they have spoiled it by building too many questionable buildings. I'd rather see they would've kept the downtown as it is and build a very tall skyscraper in the middle, maybe around 500m. Instead they're building tens of smaller buildings all around Marina bay (you can see that here). That will somehow make Singapore's skyline three times bigger. But will the quality of life increase? Will it benefit average Singaporeans? We will see. I understand that Singapore needs to have plans for further development, but I wonder how will the city look like in 100 years. Where can they expand? Will they start tearing down old skyscrapers and replace them? Only time will tell. Until then, let's enjoy Singapore's old skyline from January 2005:
He wanted Singapore to be an important harbor for the British empire in Southeast Asia (early 19th century). He is being worshiped in Singapore today, praised as the founder of the city. The names Stanford or Raffles are commonly used for buildings and streets in Singapore. The statue above is located in the downtown near the Singapore river.
[Skyscrapers page][My Singapore page][All photos by MKL, 2005]
No comments:
Post a Comment