I always thought the modern, metropolitan landscapes we see today lack the same candidness and texture that made older architectural styles so artistically pleasing.
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Singapore, where I live, is emblematic of this uninspiring urbanity: full of modern, impeccably beautiful, well-thought-out infrastructure. Yet much to the frustration of the scrupulous city planner, she is punctuated by construction sites. The authorities usually barricades these areas up, adorning their perimeter with workplace safety advertisements and unrealistic artists' impressions that appease the eye. Yet they are hard to miss – and around every corner.
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One thing is for sure:
Singapore and the world are building furiously, and they always will be.
Ever are we trapped in a present participle.
In our sea of glass rectangles, there will always be, somewhere, an exposed column or cantilever; a towering crane, the low droning noise of a distant jackhammer.
Thanks to our effort to beautify it to no foreseeable end,
our landscape is in a state of perpetual non-completion.
But to me, these works-in-progress shine for their raw, natural texture – especially in a skyline choked full of clean, surgically arranged edifices. Truth is, Singapore may be a metropolis of great renown, but deep down, it remains unfinished.
Yet she embraces that. To invest in a future that exists only in concept; to toil towards no definitive endpoint.; to be defined in present participle.
Because if we want to build to the end of the world,
the best we can do is to keep going.
