“Lion City” – ‘Isle at the end of the peninsula’ – By Arundathie Abeysinghe Part II
Currently, Singapore is a thriving center of commerce and industry, with intense economic growth and a rapidly developing manufacturing base. Singapore is the busiest port the world with over 600 shipping lines herding supertankers, container ships, passenger liners, fishing vessels including wooden lighters in its waters. It is also a major oil refining and distribution center and a significant supplier of electronic components. It has also turned it into a leader in shipbuilding, maintenance as well as repair. When the Suez Canal was built in 1869, Singapore became even more singificant as a ‘gateway’ between Europe and eastern Asia.
Changi International Airport
Ranked by Travel + Leisure readers as “the best airport in the world”, a position Changi Airport has upheld in T+L’s World’s Best Awards since 2012, the 14,000-square-metre space is filled with spectacular attractions, from garden mazes, butterfly garden to mist-filled play areas…
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Spread out over four terminals and arranged similar to a ‘U’ shape, Changi Airport is one of Asia’s largest aviation hubs. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, over 68 million passengers passed through its gates, thus, making it one of the busiest airports in the world …
Designed by globally-acclaimed architect Moshe Safdie, this dome-shaped complex houses myriad breath-taking attractions that fuse nature with human ingenuity and voted as “the most beautiful airport in the world.” Singapore Changi Airport, popularly known as “Changi Airport” is a unique design and is the seventh busiest in the world. It is a major international airport which serves Singapore. It is also one of the largest transportation hubs in Asia and is a tourist destination itself.
Fusing artistry, architecture and nature into a single structure, the airport comprises four terminals and Jewel Changi, a ten-storey lifestyle hub that seamlessly links to Terminals 1, 2 and 3. Similar to Singapore, globally-renowned as a ‘City in a Garden’, Changi Airport is also home to green spaces and verdant gardens. Generally, travelers consider airports as places of transits and stopovers, Changi Airport is a must-see tourist attraction and a world-class aviation hub turned into a truly inspiring lifestyle destination where travelers secretly wish for a “flight delay” as there is always something to see at Changi…
Located within Jewel Changi Airport and open 24 hours daily, Shiseido Forest Valley is an indoor green haven which gives visitors a few moments of tranquility, walking trails lined with over 2,000 diverse tropical plants including breathtaking views of the Rain Vortex, a 40-metre-high indoor waterfall, a bagel-shaped complex of glass and steel, the tallest indoor waterfall in the world which lies in the center of the Forest Valley that was opened in 2019. The location is spectacular after dark, when light installations by Tokyo-based art collective TeamLab illuminate the trees and a light-and-sound show sets the waterfall aglow at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.…
Terminal 1 is home to “Kinetic Rain,” a magnetic moving installation of 1,216 bronze droplets suspended from the ceiling, while French artist Cédric Le Borgne’s “Les Oiseaux” (the Birds) seemingly fly around the Terminal 2 arrival hall. Near the check-in desks in Terminal 3, there is “Daisy,” a propeller-like installation created by German artist Christian Moeller, that determines its movements based on passersby…
Scattered throughout the terminals, there are fascinating collection of art and installations by creatives from around the globe…
Magic of T2 – The wonderfall
Changi Airport’s Terminal 2 is a collaborative venture with multimedia entertainment studio Moment Factory and lead interior design firm Boiffils, an architecture and interior design office based in Paris.
The connoisseurs behind the Terminal 2 project have connected passengers with two new attractions: the Wonderfall and the Dreamscape, the boundary between nature and architecture, connecting travelers to the urban greenery defining Singapore as a “garden city.”
Digital Waterfall, known as the “Wonderfal” is an iconic landmark that offers a striking mix of nature and digital wizardry with elegant superior glimpses and cascades among lush green walls which creates a mesmerizing, relaxing spectacle, opened in November, this year …
Comprising 892 seamlessly connected tiles, the LED wall split into three flat segments with curved edges for better viewing, and towering at 14 meters and stretching 17 meters wide at Terminal 2’s Departure Hall, the Wonderfall steals the show for in-transit travelers. The four-story digital waterfall is located between two lush gardens seamlessly joined together into three large and flat segments. The video on the enormous display reaches the top of the departure hall and is set to instrumentals composed by Canadian composer and post-classical pianist Jean-Michel Blais.
The wonderfall frames the entrance to the elevator lobby, so travelers feel as if walking straight through it, although, an umbrella is not necessary…
The Dreamscape (the revamped orchid garden) is an immersive indoor garden where nature and technology merge in a magical symphony surrounded by 20,000 plants including 100 species, nestled amidst the 18 evergreen structures, including two special feature plants: the Pesuderanthemum “splash” and the Begonia blancii. Stepping into the center of the glass panels “floating” above the pond, an impression of walking on water can be experienced, as the almost transparent Aponogeton ulvaceus plants shimmer and move with the fish swimming between them along with ever-changing digital sky located above simulating real-time weather conditions, an atmospheric light and sound show that evolves throughout the day at 30-minute intervals…
The Dreamscape is located above a pond, featuring a digital sky, a window to the great outdoors with the attraction synchronizing up with (the actual) weather, while travelers can spot planes cruising by, with the occasional thunderstorm that transforms into an underwater wonderland with fish, otters, including a sampan boat…
The butterfly garden at Changi Airport is the world’s first butterfly garden (in an airport) designed as a tropical butterfly habitat with over 1,000 tropical butterflies with 40 species during different seasons of the year, a profusion of flowering plants, lush greenery as well as a 6-meter grotto waterfall…
Among other attractions are Foggy Bowls, mist-filled play areas which evoke the illusion of playing amidst the clouds including a spectacular, 14,000-square-metre rooftop park which is home to gardens, walking trails and play attractions…
Next: Attractions outside Singapore Changi Airport
