Singapore

We're in Singapore for the opening of the Yale-NUS College, a joint venture of Yale and the National University of Singapore.

Travel

We flew on Thursday to arrive on Friday around midnight. But due to a delayed departure from SFO, we missed our connection at Hong Kong and ended up staying overnight there.  It worked out for the best because it broke up the trip, and we continued on to Singapore from Hong Kong at 8am on Saturday. 

We're staying at the lovely Fullerton Hotel, the former Post Office - a grand colonial building with a bit of a deco feeling.  Apparently because we are with the Yale VIP group, we've been upgraded to a fabulous suite.  I sure do like that! 

Saturday

After arrival, we joined our group to head over to the Yale-NUS campus.  I've been a big fan of this project since it was proposed in 2009.  Basically, the government of Singapore wanted to create a liberal arts college on the American model and asked Yale's help to do so.  Yale has provided the curriculum development, some start-up faculty, guidance on the physical site development, etc., while Singapore has provided the funding.  Since I've followed the project since the very beginning, including when it was just drawings on paper, it was very exciting to see real buildings with real students and real faculty!

You enter through the "oculus", a large circular area with a giant open square above over a pool of water.  When it rains here - which is a lot - it will pour through this opening into the pool.  It's a dramatic entry.  We first went to a small theatre where a panel, including Pericles Lewis, the Yale-NUS President (and former Yale faculty member) gave us an introduction, and we heard about aspects of the college's curriculum, student life and professional development.  It's really an incredible program, which was developed with a clean sheet of a paper.  I walked away feeling that the kids attending are very lucky to be there.

We then toured the buildings, which had just opened weeks earlier, and were custom built for this purpose.  On the model of the Yale residential college system, there are 3 colleges with courtyards integrated with everything else - the library, common rooms, performance rooms, classrooms, faculty offices, etc.  Because of the Singapore heat/humidity, the buildings were created very much with this specific environment in mind.  On the towers, for example, there are outside "sky gardens" every few floors with outdoor stairs where students are able to congregate in the evening.  I was interested to learn that students have individually controlled AC and must pay for it.  This effectively is a carbon tax that puts control of the amount of power used directly in the hands of the individual.

We then saw some student performances over cocktails and appetizers (very fancy cocktails and some wild appetizers served with dry ice).  After this, we went to the new National Gallery in Singapore.  It isn't yet open to the public, so this was a preview.  This project was architecturally quite amazing.  They took two old buildings - the Supreme Court and City Hall - and tied them together to create the gallery.  The entrance is stunning with a web-like tent integrating the two into an enclosed courtyard, held up by an enormous tree.  It was visually breathtaking.  There isn't much art hung yet on the walls, but the museum opens in about 6 weeks, so I expect they'll be getting to that soon!

We had dinner there, with an amazing view of the city.  I started to really crash around 9pm, given the jet lag, so we headed back to the hotel.

Sunday

Today Lenny and I walked over to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  Along the way we passed a floating soccer field in the middle of the bay.  Who thought of that?  Let's just stick a soccer field in the middle of the bay?  There's a beautiful esplanade, concert stages, art venues, and a fascinating double helix bridge.  It's kind of empty giving the whole place a bit of a cartoonish feel.  It's almost as if it is built like Disneyland.  Everything is so super clean and new looking.

The Marina Bay Sands is an enormous relatively new structure consisting of 3 towers with a large boat-like structure across the top.  It dominates the skyline from just about every direction.  There is a forest on top with an infinity pool (isn't that a kind of heavy thing to put on top of a building?).  The interior is dramatic where you look up into the wedge of the towers.  It seems to me quite audacious to build something quite this huge, but it was bustling and busy.  There's also a casino and a mall attached.

  

We paid to go to the observation deck on the top with a grand view of Singapore.  We could see the gardens below, the entrance to the harbor, the financial district, our hotel, the container ship port, etc.  It's a bit hazy - which everybody is complaining about - because of neighboring countries burning their palm leaves and causing quite the international crisis.

 

I should also mention that it is hot and humid.  I don't think I could live in this climate.  It seems like you walk outside and are drenched in minutes.  Then you walk into very cold air conditioning.

Donna