3 Musketeers' Pilgrim and The Beginning of An End Of A City-State

-An implicit clock gears metaphor of the rigidity and robotic nature of Singapore.-APEC as the clock gears repairman

Not a Hajj Pilgrimage though, nor this place inherit masterful pieces of architecture, that worth 3 Malaysian musketeers to set on a highly intrepid trip. Singapore has always been on high and low. This time, the high of the APEC summit and their doomy domestic worries has set a highly intense and contradictory display, suggesting the beginning of an end of their great 30 years of triumph, all found through the eyes of 3 Malaysian architecture musketeers.
-Harbourfront - 10 Nov 2009 - courtesy musketeer R.Y.TAN

The ever so predictable, systematic (or even robotic) tiny island nation, this time poise in front of me with a different messages, that could well suggest deeper truth from the average understandings from the mouth of others.

The 48 hours of hectic voluntary ushering in the Suntec Convention Center couldn't provide the points on our intrepid undertaking, without it impose strong hints for our better interpretation on their work ethics. The typical dictacting, systematic(even robotic) and the unbearably narcissistic nature of the nation's conduct manifested throughout the whole preparation for the summit. As usual, fear drive them forward.

Our architectural pilgrimage, unmask some masked reality of their high and low. Their Yeang's National Library, Kurokawa and Tange's office towers downtown plus all the ultra-modern high profile signature architecture are in opposite gesture with the worries posted on newspaper of educational, cultural and mostly, economical concerns. This pilgrimage tell us that the first are served for the survival of their ailing later. The mood under the Convention Center may be the same. Singapore treat APEC as the keystone of their economical arch in the future, with the rising economical powerhouse in the world increasingly impose greater pressure on the tiny island country. As usual, it is unmistakable. The fight for an Utopian free trade zone over AsiaPasific region and Singapore's subsequent survival is the masked reality. Harbourfront's mega casino is in the making, while the last grasp of Confucianist school of thought is in the brink of eternal banishment. The impending gambling culture means laissez faire capitalist economy is in their highest ethos. Singapore have made decision on the cultural-identity crossroad while they compensate their cultural sacrifice by instilling back Chinese oriented teaching in their school curriculum, in which the first is much a heavy bill.
-The other 3 musketeers in the making - Harbourfront Casino

The island is founded with no more than swampy land, before they eventually realized the importance of westernization and capitalism on the survival of their city state. The two subsequently embraced without more consideration, and their citizen are now enslaved to the giant regime of western consumerism, nonreturnable and blindfolded. Squeezing into the rank of Middle Class is in the mind of everyone here, the rank which capitalist crave for, a giant rank consist of high spending power slaves, who wander narcotically in the trap of rivalry, envy and sarcasm circle. The politically and socially inert Singaporean is undoubtedly a sample consequences of the Sigmund Freud and Edward Bernays's long forgotten psychoanalytic theory in tamming the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy. Consumerism and the subsequent people's psychological pursuit of imaginery self-portrait (or self-branding) are everywhere, from the self-and-brand-conscious student to the highly narcissist office-woorking class, the two are modern forms of cocaine invasion and political dictatorship. Singaporean in real need of help...
-Yeang's National Library revisited - 11 Nov 2009

The mistake of their urban planning authority 30 years back of allowing the development of many low density housing could be traced everywhere on the island. The initial planned target of maximum 6.5million inhabitant is now on its 4.99 mark. Until it reach the point 6.5, I am wondering in what style, the highly mass transit oriented transportation will collapse. The rising rank of middle class would means more and more automobile on the road which has now reach its ultimate buffer, the incursion of foreign labour then also will force its mass rail transit to its brink. In housing, this means more dominos on more reclaimed land, courtesy of Malaysian soil. These are all closer and closer to the much awaited modern vision of Ville Contemporaine.

This give reasons for them to worry. But those fear would still drive them forward in the beginning of its end...

-Towards an intrepid traveller...- 13 Nov 2009 - train.