Interior shots of the strangest building in Singapore

These shots I took while I was having a drink inside the building with my friend Phil, who initially alerted me to the building. I will not guide your own conclusions but do we detect the presence of ‘stonecutters’?

A building of this kind does not just happen – it servers a purpose. It may carry messages, statements, proclamations or simply show intent. I do not know which but I am certain there is more to this building than meets the eye.

“There are many bronze effigies of some of the most famous figures in world history, including Sun Yat-sen, Abraham Lincoln, Salvador Dalí, Mozart, Chopin, Isaac Newton, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkview_Square

I saw the statues myself – we truly are standing on the shoulders of giants.

Limmerick

On a fine day in May

in the midst of Sprey

there stood a gnome

beneath the dome

and was busy making hay

Strangest building in Singapore

I am not sure if you are familiar with this building but it stands out like the proverbial – what’s its – very much art-deco and reminiscent of other 1920s architecture – certainly the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building – it is nonetheless an oddity. I urge you to go and look at it if you are in Singapore. I will upload some internal shots as well in my next post.

Info about the building:

Parkview Square is an office building located in the Downtown Core Planning Area, Central Region, Singapore. It is situated along North Bridge Road, and is near the major commercial hub at Marina Centre. It is next to Bugis MRT Station, Bugis Junction, and The Gateway, and straddles the Rochor Road and Ophir Road corridor.

Parkview Square was designed by the US firm James Adams Design, together with DP Architects of Singapore.

It was built at a cost of SGD$87.93 million.

It was built as the last major project enterprised by the late Mr. C. S. Hwang, a Taiwanese tycoon chairman of Chyau Fwu Group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkview_Square

TGIF – a slice of the American dream…

Christmas lunch at TGIF proved to be a an all-American experience – large quantities of food – sports memorabilia miserable failing to obscure poor wall paper choices and almost one flat screen per paying customer. Conversation was difficult over the cricket and muzak background noise, but the wait staff were sufficiently cheery, festive and helpful.

I will say that the food was good and plentiful (if you like steak, burgers, ribs etc) and reasonably priced.

They also accommodated my team of 12 with only 1 days’ notice on what is arguably one of the busiest lunch periods of the year – the last working week before Christmas.

So, all in all, enjoyable if kitschy, relaxed yet cliched and colourful enough for even the most jaded consumers to sparkle at least for a brief moment in the lead up to the Christmas battles we all face.

Thoughts

India is very vibrant, alive but in the jungle sense of the word – there is no order and everything feels organic. Structures, even when new, seem be in a state of permanent disrepair. Nature and Culture face off in a constant battle, neither winning, only keeping entropy at bay to allow continued existence, to allow life to propagate, to allow chaos, to allow colour and decay, beauty and brutality. Inimitable.

One is not sure if a view into the past is afforded or, indeed, a vision of the future. For the world has many paths it can follow – all possibilities along the quantum stream, liber universum.