Real Estate Offers

Look, an invitation to a "VVIP Private Preview" from Jones Lang LaSalle.  I might have felt we were part of an exclusive set if the advert actually included our name or address.  Nevertheless "Bring along this mailer to enjoy your early-bird promotion."

A couple months ago I wrote about the fevered sport of real estate here in Singapore.  Loads of people want to invest in property, and even government-built flats are selling for record amounts.  Consequently, estate agents are not shy about soliciting potential buyers.  One day last week I opened the mail box to discover three flyers advertising new buying opportunities.  These do not come with names or even addresses; they are as anonymous as coupons for pizza delivery.  Sadly none offered up off-plan condominiums in Mongolia.

The Far East Organization is building Miro, and it is practically around the corner.  This advert opens to invite us to a Saturday brunch at the Miro Sales Gallery.  FEO also does not indicate they know our names.  1,250 square-foot units start at S$2.8 million (USD 2.04 million/GBP 1.33 million).

Savills hopes we will invest in a London, buy-to-let with "estimated rental yields of up to 5.5%."  Prices begin at GBP 305,000 so we should bring ourselves to their exhibition at the Hilton Singapore on Orchard Road.

Further Troublesome English

I recently laughed at the words chosen in translating from Japanese into English an online booking form for a Tokyo ryokan.  This is rather unfair because the person who undertook the translation did his task fairly successfully, and native English speakers are not much better themselves.  Here is the letter of instruction I received with my absentee ballot for the Missouri 2010 primaries.

Please read your ballot instructions carefull.

The computer's spell-check function could have presented this mistake.

Chicken!

The signboard for an eatery in the basement of our local mall.

Part of the love of food here in Singapore includes a somewhat overly enthusiastic demand for chicken, preferably fried.  In the mall around the corner from our flat, Novena Square/Velocity, there are several imported imported chicken outlets.  This is in addition to multiple mom-and-pop chicken rice stalls.

KFC has prospered in Asia.  The image of the venerable and inscrutable colonel welcomes diners to a KFC outlet on the ground floor.

The big American fast-food brands can really thrive here, but the affection for mass produced poultry means that even obscure or regional American franchises can do well in Singapore.  Our mall is soon to add a Popeyes.  Most confusingly, there sits upstairs at the mall a Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant.  I thought that corporate venture went bust and disappeared sometime in the 1990's.

I am counting down to savoury biscuits coming to our neighborhood.  Popeyes already has at least two other locations in Singapore.  This one will open along the street-level shops of Novena Square.

Somehow the Gambler he broke even here in Singapore.  The third floor of Velocity.

Of course, these chicken locations are in addition to the Burger King and Long John Silver's fast-food outlets in the mall.

Existential Evening Plans

Screen grab from an online reservation form for a Tokyo ryokan.

The Passengers are planning a trip to Japan next month, and I am doing my best to hunt down a traditional Japanese bed-and-breakfast, or ryokan, for our stay.  These places sometimes also serve dinner to visitors so when I entered our meal preferences on the enquiry form above I was faced with a startling choice: large, medium, small, existential.  Click the image for a detailed view.

Protect Me from the Tragedy of Culture

Artist Jenny Holzer put up an illuminated billboard in Times Square in 1986 as part of her well known "Survival" series.  The imperative "Protect me from what I want" called attention to the intrusion of advertising, the commercial exploitation of public space, and our helplessness within the situation.  Now appreciators of art can own that experience for themselves and support the Whitney Museum by purchasing a pair of Keds sneakers.  Get them at Bloomingdale's starting 8 July, $75 for high tops, $70 for low tops.  As Tom Scocca pointed out, buying shoes emblazoned with messages about mass market consumption prices are essentially announcing that you, the consumer, paid a mark-up of 100%.

The Holzer designed sneakers.  Image from the New York Times.

Welcome to the 25th anniversary celebration of American consummerism critique.  Buy your special deluxe edition of Don DeLillo's White Noise now.  Maybe we would do better to retreat all the way back to the nineteenth century and the foundational sociology of Georg Simmel on the "tragedy of culture." I may get to when I finish listening to Naomi Klein on my iPod.

Integrated Resort 1 | Resorts World Sentosa

Resorts World Sentosa (called RWS around here because Singaporeans love acronyms) with the larger island of Sinapore in the background. All images of RWS from Slate's slideshow.

While the Passengers nervously watched USA and England keep alive their respective, overly optimistic quests for World Cup glory, Singapore welcomed the opening of its second den of iniquity integrated resort: Marina Bay Sands.  Some work remains to be done on the structure, especially the much anticipated Skypark atop the 55-story towers.  But this post piggybacks on an architectural write-up of the city-state's first integrated resort in Slate: Resorts World Sentosa. The project opened in time for the Chinese New Year in February and includes 1,740 hotel rooms spread over six locations, a maritime museum, convention and conference facilities, and loads of retail space, but these mostly serve as a fig leaf for the cash cow super casino.

The gaming floor at RWS.

Traditionally the ruling classes party of Singapore have has looked down on gaming, but Macau is making money hand over fist from newly wealthy Chinese not allowed to gamble at home.  So Singapore decided to patronize all the punters who might patronize a casino  Only two casinos have been built and only as a part of larger euphemistically named integrated resorts.  The first project was located on Sentosa a small island to the south, even easier to control and far from most Singaporeans . Sentosa visitors pay S$3 to set foot on the island, and Singapore citizens must pay a S$100 (about 72 USD) admission to lose money inside the casino.  The gaming floor itself has been buried underground precisely to keep it away from public view.  Families should concentrate their excitement on the brand-name excitement above ground, a shiny new Universal Studios attraction.  Those Singaporeans unable to control their losses can be added to a blacklist and refused entry to the casino.

Slate's architectural critic Witold Rybczynski has a fair amount of praise for the 121-acre project designed by postmodern pioneers Michael Graves and Associates.  The principal and his firm have carried out something of a gesamtkunstwerk, an impressive total design effort extending from the hotel towers down to the flatware and the lamps in each hotel room.  This seems well within the capabilities of a firm that makes paper-towel holders for the discount retailer Target, but it hasn't been popular practice since the early twentieth century.

Micheal Graves Design Automatic Drip Coffeeemaker, available from Target.

The high-end Cockfords hotel at RWS.

"Asians don't want to borrow from Western culture.  They want their own architecture.  Although they don't necessarily know what that is," says the condescending American Michael Graves.  Rybczynsky claims the Cockfords hotel was designed without the flourishes of Classicism that punctuate much of the architect's work.  This seems accurate if one ignores the green cupolas and refuses to see green rim encircling the top of the inhabitable floor as an overhanging cornice.  The design does bother to subtract any capitals from the extended pilasters that emerge to support the ring of oversized pedestals.  Also the name Cockfords does not necessarily suggest a Southeast Asian location.

Much of my hesitation to agree with Rybczynski stems from my dislike of the whimsical stunts that characterize Graves.  His play with classical devices and bold colors seems increasingly naff and bears some responsibility for some of the worst excesses of corporate architecture in the last thirty years.  However, I concede that the design probably does match the brief set forth by the patrons. This was not the first resort executed by Graves; he did Walt Disney World Swan, and his selection was probably a safe choice for Singapore.  Indeed the firm specializes in architectural fantasies so  it does not surprise that they built the blinders required to keep a supercasino super-clean.

Ready the ark, everyone!

The plaza in front of Ngee Ann City.

It has been raining all morning and into the afternoon here in Singapore.  Usually the island avoids the sort of seasonal monsoons that sweep through other countries in the region.  Apparently, this might have prevented the installation of adequate drainage systems along the incredibly chic Orchard Road.  The center of the city has suffered an unusual wave of flash floods today.

Singapore's latest luxury mall ION Orchard at the intersection of Scotts Road, below, and Orchard Road.

Stomp.com.sg has loads more photos and videos here and here.