Arab St, Gardens by the Bay and back to Little India

- August 12, 2013

View from Bugis Junction

Having emerged from conservation after ten years I was mostly fed up with the conservation mafia which seemed to think that human beings should all be eradicated from the face of the earth and they should be left in peace to walk by beaches counting birds. The subconscious arrogance was probably the most difficult thing to deal with. The fact that they all had PhDs or were specialists in this and that did not help either.

However when I am in Singapore I do have the opposite reaction, which is quite similar that is...we have gone too too far. And then some. This post is exhibit A.

Gardens by the Bay

It was only when I got toe Gardens by the Bay that I realised what the feeling was for me...that I felt completely overwhelmed and made to feel insignificant by the magnitude of things here. They are on a completely inhuman scale. There is no way we can relate to THAT many people, comprehend THAT kind of building and understand how we fit into THAT size of a society. It is simply impossible. Garden by the Bay brought it home completely.

Whenever you ask a Singaporean have you been to Gardens by the Bay, they will say only with visitors from other places. I was no exception. I went because I had a friend with me.

For all the talk of the conservation mafia, I cannot disagree with them that there is nothing that substitutes the relaxing encompassing nature of Nature. This was not a feeling I had when walking in Garden by the Bay. It was the difference between beholding a real child and the daemon created by Frankenstein. It is saying it in an extreme way, but that was the feeling I had. This unnatural horror. Yes skilful, costly and spectacular, but a grotesque unnecessary parody of the real thing.