GAD Editorial · Published ·
It is the most expensive resort ever built, and it looks like it: three 55-storey towers leaning almost imperceptibly inward, crowned by a 340-metre-long SkyPark that cantilevers 65 metres off the north tower. Marina Bay Sands, designed by Moshe Safdie and opened in Singapore in 2010 — soft opening 27 April, official opening 23 June — is less a hotel than a small elevated city.
The numbers are the headline: S$8 billion, 2,561 rooms and suites, a convention centre, theatres, a museum shaped like a lotus, and a casino below it all. But the SkyPark is the argument. Atop it sits the world's most photographed infinity pool — 150 metres long, its edge dissolving into the skyline — alongside gardens, restaurants, and an observation deck that turned out to be the building's real public space. Safdie's move was to take the resort's amenities, which would normally sprawl across acres, and stack them vertically, freeing the ground for the city.
Singapore got exactly what it commissioned: a landmark visible from every postcard angle, an economic engine, and a piece of infrastructure for national ambition. Whether you find it thrilling or excessive probably depends on how you feel about the twenty-first century itself — the building is that century, distilled into three towers and a boat-shaped roof.
Key facts
- Completed: 2010 (soft opening 27 April 2010; official opening 23 June 2010)
- Location: Singapore
- Architect: Moshe Safdie
- Scale: S$8 billion; 2,561 rooms; 340 m SkyPark with a 150 m infinity pool