Spotlight – September 2019

6 Spotlight 9/2019 IN THE SPOTLIGHT

A science-fiction

fantasy: inside Jewel

SINGAPORE

Wild inside

MEDIUM

Singapore’s Changi Airport, voted the world’s

best airport year after year, has exotic things to

see, including a butterfly enclosure with more

than 1,000 of the beautiful insects, and huge

gardens showing off countless flowers. This

spring, Israeli- Canadian architect Moshe Saf-

die added another attraction: a huge glass build-

ing called Jewel, inspired by the 2009 science-

fiction film Avatar. It is filled with 2,000 trees

and has the world’s largest indoor waterfall.

“I was interested in the notion that you

could take a busy place — an airport and a mar-

ketplace ... with hundreds of shops and all that

comes with it,” Safdie told the Canadian Broad-

casting Corporation, “and cohabit it with a ma-

gical park ... which is relaxing and serene, and is

the escape from all of that busyness.”

The doughnut-shaped building, which con-

nects the terminals to public transportation,

funnels the rain from its roof towards an open-

ing at its centre. Gravity then sends the water

down into the interior to form a cylindrical,

40-metre-long waterfall. Called the Rain Vor-

tex, the column of water is surrounded by a for-

est and plenty of walking trails — making this

building a globetrotter’s paradise.

butterfly enclosure

[(bVtEflaI In)klEUZE]

, Schmetterlingshaus

cohabit [kEU(hÄbIt]

, hier: zusammenbringen

funnel [(fVn&l]

, hier: leiten

gravity [(grÄvEti]

, Schwerkraft

notion [(nEUS&n]

, Vorstellung

serene [sE(ri:n]

, ruhig-heiter

walking trail [(wO:kIN treI&l]

, Wanderweg

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

NEWS AND VIEWS