Aviation Academy Singapore

Inventing a school of aeronautics. In Singapore… how fabulous it’s been!

With any place where architecture is to be designed and built, we would expect its character to be unique, for it to have an evocative power… for it to give the feeling that it’s glad to be there… for it to be sympathetic, attractive, for it to leave a good impression in the minds of those who visit it… and, then, for it to be relevant… for people to be able to say to themselves without hesitation: yes, this school offers a great image of what a school of aeronautics should be in this era of ours, the 2020s… I don’t know of any anywhere else that could offer a better image… This one, ours, is totally distinctive: we are really somewhere! To understand what that means, just think of the number of buildings that are nowhere… that have no attractive features… that make no demands… that are the same old same old, in a nutshell, anything but captivating and optimistic…

Our school of aeronautics has not been parachuted in. It has a backstory: it has adopted earlier buildings and loved them. It has protected them from the overwhelming sun and arranged them around old trees. It has sought the play of light, backlighting, and reflections to reveal the fleeting beauty of the different hours of the day… As far as everything else goes, all functions have been respected and are happy to go beyond being charming to being… useful.

Jean Nouvel