Singapore’s skyline boasts an impressive collection of buildings designed by Pritzker Prize laureates and starchitects, including Thomas Heatherwick, Ole Scheeren, Norman Foster, Moshe Safdie, Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind, but beneath all that modern gloss, an older, more storied Singapore still pulses.
This history is particularly evident in the small clutch of grand old hotels that dot the island. Individually, each represents a unique glimpse into Singapore’s colonial past, a veritable time capsule of how travellers of yore once toured the world. Collectively, they represent a remarkable, ongoing effort by Singapore’s urban planners, working with commercial developers, to balance historical value, contemporary relevance and future purpose.
The first that comes to mind is Raffles, its glorious high-Victorian Italianate revival facade and interiors long a byword among the jet set for…