Sentosa Resort hotels – click to enlarge

There’s a proverb that goes back as far as the ancient Greeks which suggests that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” (*) – and that is particularly true of architecture.

Buildings that some of us see as stunning, others see as a waste of space – or worse, a blight on the landscape.

In Australia, for example, an apartment complex on the edge of Sydney Harbour won architectural awards – but was derided by others as “an overblown bread toaster”.

Another example? I’m quite fond of Art Deco (as longtime readers of this blog would know) – but to others, it is a cheesy, dated, parody of style.

So what’s that got to do with today’s Featured Travel Pic?

The way these blog posts are created is that I (Graham) write the words, based on an image that we have taken on holidays, while my wife (Shirley) cleans up those images and makes them suitable for publication.

When I suggested this image, Shirley went “Really? This one?”

Obviously, she’s not a fan.

And yet, to me, these building have a certain style that grabs me.

They are accommodation buildings in the Sentosa Resort complex in Singapore – and I have to tell you, I could never afford to stay there.

The freestanding tower to the left is the Crockfords Tower – opened initially as an ‘invitation only’ all-suites hotel – and it runs upwards of a thousand dollars a night or $7,000 a week.

(By contrast, Shirley and normally budget about that for a month, including air-fares 🙂 )

The building to the right between the tower and the roller-coaster contains other Resort World hotels – the Michael, the Genting, the Festive, Hard Rock and more – plus upmarket fashion, a convention centre, Legoworld … all surrounded by lush tropical plants and gardens.

And yet the view from the upper floors includes an industrial port and noisy roller-coasters.

As I say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

(*) Oh, by the way – despite what you may have beard, Plato WASN’T the first person to use that proverb. In fact, what he said was much more complicated. He argued that Beauty was an idea, or form – and that beautiful things were a consequence.

(The theory of forms is that two levels of reality exist – that which we can see, feel and touch as well as the world of forms which stand above, and give the visible world its meaning.)

Anyway, the first use of the actual phrase “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” wasn’t until 19th century Irish novelist Margaret Wolfe Hugerford used in her novel Mollie Bawn.

Just thought you’d like to know 🙂