WOW Buildings

Are there Wow buildings in Singapore? Sad to say, I cannot think of any.

The overall architectual landscape in this city is dull and uninteresting unlike in other major Asian cities like KL and Tokyo. KL can boast of its internationally well-known Petronas Towers which dazzles day and night. In Tokyo, there are buildings that simply make you gasp and literally go "wow".

The Tokyo Big Sight looks like inverted pyramids and includes escalators that climb steeply to dizzying heights. Not for someone who fears heights. Also in the same Odaiba area is the Fuji TV building - beautifully crafted with a gigantic sphere-like structure embedded in the middle. Kyoto city has one of the most remarkable train stations ever built - a modern structure with a cavernous hall with impossibly high roofs and with one end of the building totally open-ended with a steep flight of stairs that seem to go up forever. Climbing these stairs is certainly not for the faint-hearted. A glass-walled travellator straddles the building from one end to the other, up high near the roof. Equally mind-boggling is the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka city - going to the roof-top observatory in this building means having to use a glass-wrapped travellator that appears to float in space, high up there. Easy to get vertigo!

Whither Singapore? We nearly came close to an iconic building - what we affectionately call the Durian at the Esplanade. It looks good from afar but alas not so when you are right in front of it. The problem lies with the fact that the durian-like roofs are places on ugly rectangular blocks that do not impress.

What is stiffling our architects and designers? The 1o1 (or is 1001?) rules and restrictions laid down by our beloved rules-loving civil servants? Hopefully not. Perhaps, the architects need to engage designers to define the look while they focus on the form and structure.