Parkview Square

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

百威广场 Parkview Square
Location	North Bridge Road, Downtown Core, Singapore
Construction period	1999 - 2002
Primary usage	Office
Opening date	2002
Structural height	144m, 472 ft
Floor count	24 and 2 basements
Owner	Chyau Fwu Development
Management	Chyau Fwu Development
Developer	Chyau Fwu Development
Architect	DP Architects
Website	emporis.com

Parkview Square is an office building located in the Downtown Core Planning Area, Central Region, Singapore. It is situated along North Bridge Road, and is near the major commercial hub at Marina Centre. It is next to Bugis MRT Station, Bugis Junction, and The Gateway, and straddles the Rochor Road and Ophir Road corridor.

Parkview Square is one of the more expensive office buildings in Singapore. The occupancy rate for this building was rather low when it first opened. However, as the economy improved, the occupancy rate for this building grew higher steadily^[1]. Besides commercial office space, Parkview Square also houses the embassy of Austria and the United Arab Emirates.

[edit] Design and architecture

Parkview Square was designed by American Consultant James Adams, together with DP Architects of Singapore. It was built at a cost of SGD$87.93 million.

It was built as the last major project enterprised by the late Mr. C. S. Hwang, a Taiwanese tycoon chairman of Chyau Fwu Group. As his last project, he wanted it "imposing and monumental, yet stylish and elegant"^[2].

The office space on each floor is columnless so it can be reconfigured according to the tenant's wish. Although it is a modern building, having been completed recently in 2002, it is specially designed in the classic Art Deco style, following New York City 1929 Chanin Building as an inspiration. The exterior surface of the building is cladded in brown Granite, bronze, lacquer, and glass.

The lobby is also designed mainly in the Art Deco style and features a 15m-high ceiling with handcrafted details. The bar in the lobby of the building has a unique 3-storey high wine chiller. The open plaza of Parkview Square is reminiscent of Piazza San Marco in Venice, with sculptures and statues surrounding the open plaza. There are many bronze effigies of some of the most famous figures in world history, including Sun Yat-sen, Abraham Lincoln, Salvador Dalí, Mozart, Chopin, Isaac Newton, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein.

The building also has widespread use of motifs, sculptures, and ornamentation. The building is "guarded" by eight gigantic fiberglass statues of men holding a light ball in their hands, four of them standing on each broad side of the building's crown. Another example is the gargoyles decorating the building’s exterior, which are said to be hand-crafted^{[citation needed]}. In the center of the plaza is a statue of a golden bird. On the pedestal is written a chinese poem:

黄鹤楼
崔颢

昔人已乘黄鹤去，此地空余黄鹤楼。
黄鹤一去不复返，白云千载空悠悠。
晴川历历汉阳树，芳草萋萋鹦鹉洲。
日暮乡关何处是，烟波江上使人愁。

The poem refers to a mythical bird returning to its temple (a place of workship in Hubei, China). It is supposed to bring wealth to the building.

[edit] References

1. ^ The Straits Times, July 14 2004 (article by Joyce Teo)
2. ^ The Straits Times, March 3 2007 (article by Calvin Low)

[edit] External link

• Official site