Raffles hotel, Singapore

A magnificent restoration of a colonial building. I should have done more detail of the stairs, but I was thinking more about the $60.00 for two small glasses of beer. I sort of lost my rhythm:-)

Raffles Hotel Singapore - pen and ink wash

The downside of using a water soluble ink, is that when the sketch book gets damp, all sorts of bleeding and blotching takes place.

But, my sketch books are partly diaries and mostly just memory joggers and the bleeding soggy looking corner that appears on most of the pages in this book reminds me that it came from a leaking air-conditioner in the the small mini-van that took me up Mount Bromo in central Java. (But that's another story).

Joking aside, Raffles must be one of the top, period style hotels in the world.
I have read somewhere that the are no rooms available at Raffles, only suites. They start at about $700 a night.

Raffles, Singapore - Looking to the atrium roof.

What do you reckon? even when I am on holiday I can't keep from taking photos of architectural details, and even when I am supposed to be talking about drawing I am sneaking them in. What a boring old fart I am turning into.

Still, you must admit this is a beauty. When you get an open space in a building like this that reaches past a few floor levels it is called an atrium.
Looking up we can see what is a hammer beam roof truss that has been truncated above the top tie beam and a glass monitor, or monitor roof has been added.
In the old days this brilliant example of tropical architecture would have had glass louvres to help remove the hot air, but still provide light for the space below.
Again in pre AC days the fans(punkas) were operated manually by punka wallahs.

Raffles Hotel Singapore - Looking to the front of the same area from under the stair landing.

Raffles is named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore in 1819. Raffles was previously a Governor of Java and during his service there he lead an expedition to re discover the ancient temple of Borobodur.

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"The art of drawing which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing... should be taught to every child just as writing is... " John Ruskin 1819-1900