July 19, 20251 yr You have a landmark building that looks impressive and has become something of an icon. It is also a hotel with far too many rooms requiring queueing for almost everything and a galaxy of ordinary tourists gazing at you as they watch you swimming in the infinity pool 56-odd floors up. You pay little attention to the floods of complaints about the hotel's problems. It's doing it's job. It's putting Singapore on some map or other. But it still remains only #27 on Tripadvisor's list of top Singapore hotels, with several four star hotels above it. And fake 5-star reviews are still to be found on the site! Plus the nightly rate is around 100% more than other similar 5-star hotels. Forget it is you are thinking of booking. So what has the Singapore government decided to do with its Marina Bay Sand Hotel? Spend $8 billion to expand and renovate it. Well, hold on the renovation bit. Because the $8 billion is going to be spent on an extension. Not a fourth linked tower, but a totally new 55-storey tower all on its own which broke ground last Tuesday - and only a short distance from the original. Photos: Satdie Architects The new tower adds 570 more suites, presumably for all the Chinese and other Asians who come to gamble at the original's casino, which had planned to forbid Singaporens entry! Now SIgaporeans can purchase a daily pass for S$150 (US$117) or an annual pass for S$3,000 (US$2,336). Non-Singaporeans presumably enter for free. Not surprisingly, a lot of Singaporeans dislike the design of the new tower. "It sticks out like a sore thumb" is a common view whereas others compare it to a giant dehumidifier. The 87-year old Israeli architecht disagrees. "When it’s all said and done, people will feel it’s always been there,” Safdie argued. “And they will love it as much as they love this building, if not more, because I think the sum total of the two together is greater than the individual parts.” Hmmm! Time will no doubt tell. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/16/style/singapore-marina-bay-sands-expansion
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