The City of Singapore

Singapore is the place on my itinerary that I most recently visited before. In September 2022 we used Singapore as a stopover for a few days back from Cambodia to the UK. We went on this holiday just before I started working full time at the architecture practice that I have been at since.

I found a lot of things interesting while I was in Singapore, and it wasn’t just the architecture, which I must admit was an interest to me, obviously.

I believe that very often one of the most prominent things I notice in a new city or country is the roads and the traffic. Singapore was very interesting for this because of the number of cars on the roads and the way the road networks moved. We were told that the price of a car was the least of a person’s worries if they wanted to drive in the city because the fees to actually put the car on the road were more than the car itself. This is what caused the quiet and careful roads in Singapore. I think that the strictness that we saw was amplified by coming from Vietnam less than a week earlier purely for how different their roads were. In Vietnam the number of mopeds on the road was ridiculous. Everyone seemed to have them and all rules of the road seemed to go out the window and trying to cross a road on foot was a whole other ball game. The thing I learned while I was there was: be predictable, just walk, they’ll go around. And it worked because luckily none of us got ran over. Then when you compared that to Singapore with the designated crossings and roads with no mopeds in sight you can probably understand why this contrast hit so hard.

Another big difference between Vietnam and Cambodia and Singapore was, of course, the cost of everything. Singapore is expensive. If you know anything about the city, it’s probably that. We arrived in Singapore late in the evening and just wanted some food before heading to bed. We ended up in an American style restaurant on Clarke Quay. It was good, just what you would expect. When the bill came, we discovered that the beers that my dad and brother had ordered were $19 each. Each!! Again, I think the shock of the price of these beers were amplified by the fact that a few days earlier we had been sitting in a bar where the beers were the equivalent of about 50p each. It’s safe to say they knew to look at the menu after that first night, at least then they would know how expensive their next beers would be. So, if you ever go to Singapore, remember to be prepared to spend a small fortune if you want to get drunk on beer.

Merlion statue in Marina Bay

Luckily, Singapore has a lot to offer so you don’t have to spend your life savings drinking your time away there, this was an extra bonus for me as someone who doesn’t really drink because we got to see the city and my dad allowed me to choose what to so in Singapore before we went. One of the most worthwhile things we did was a bike tour. We hopped in a saddle and joined a group to see different parts of the city. Singapore is known as a melting pot and has many different cultures throughout the city so a bike was a great way to get around between them. We had a few stops on the way, including streets with street art that you could lean into and insert yourself into the perspective, a drive past a mosque, a stop in Little India for a sugar cane drink and a samosa, a stop in a small park where protests often take place, and, of course, a stop at the Merlion. You’ve probably seen or heard of the Merlion before even if you don’t know what it is. It is a statue with the head of a lion and the tail of a mermaid that sits by the water’s edge and shoots water from its mouth, resulting in photos of many people making it look like they are catching the water in their mouths. I had to settle for it landing on the top of my dad’s head. The Merlion is the symbol of Singapore. The origin of the statue and the symbol as well as the name of the city comes from the legend of a prince arriving on the shores of the country and supposedly seeing a lion on the land, and so came the name Singapura, meaning lion. Of course, there are actually no lions on Singapore, which to me makes the name even better. I wonder if they thought that as they already had a city named after a creature that doesn’t really live there, they might as well go one step further and make themselves a mythical creature. (Although as a brit can this be used as an argument with our symbol also being a lion, where do the three lions on a shirt come from? And the UK decided to not only take one but two mythical creatures into the mix by using a unicorn and a dragon). Anyway, the tail of the Merlion has much less mythical origins and instead comes from the city’s history of being a fishing village, thus the Merlion. Interesting statue, interesting story.

Of course, I can’t talk about Singapore without talking about its architecture. This is the reason I wanted to have more weight in suggestions for activities while we were in the city. During my time at university, I have seen images and briefly learned about some of the buildings in the city. Singapore has rapidly developed over recent years so would be almost unrecognisable to someone who visited 20 years ago. There are still some things there of course but there has been a lot of build up around it since then. I believe that Singapore has some very recognisable and famous buildings. The first being Raffles Hotel, which we first saw from another building actually. The next being the Marina Bay Sands, which I always thought of as the three buildings with the boat on top. An expensive place but also free to enter the feet of the building as it is a shopping centre. We did, of course, ascend the building. I always take the opportunity to go up a building if I can. From the top, you can see pretty much the whole city which was quite interesting and the cantilever of the viewing platform gives an even better uninterrupted view (and a not so enjoyable feeling for someone who doesn’t like heights like my mum). The viewing deck was pretty empty while we were up there so luckily didn’t have to wait for a good place to take photos, so it was a fun experience.

Another noticeable architectural feature in Singapore is the green architecture. The climate is pretty much ideal for it in Singapore because of the rain, the sun and the pretty stable temperature year around. I always think that it’s lovely, I love plants and nature, but it simply doesn’t work in the UK, yet people still try to insist on it. We need ways that work for our climate, not what we’ve seen work in a tropical climate. Anyway, it did make an interesting trip and there were pockets of nature all over the place. We visited an office building that looked to be ripped open for a garden to be slotted inside into the central levels. Again, this was free and we spent some time in there. It was a place for office workers to go during their break times and was actually a very pleasant experience.

Traditional and modern side by side

Nestled within all this modernity, there was also a small temple that we stumbled across and paid a visit to. It was small, and old enough to have one of those thresholds you really have to step over, accessibility not like required today, and was actually probably one of the busiest buildings we visited while in Singapore. It was interesting to see that there were pockets of history that were lovingly still kept and used within the growing metropolis.

Overall, it was a short visit but very interesting nonetheless and got me thinking of all sorts of things while I was there, so i am looking forward to going back there to see it again, despite there not being much of a time difference between my two visits.