Marina Bay Sands

Three soaring towers rise from the waterfront, joined at the top by what looks like a vast ship balanced across their roofs, a deck longer than the towers are tall. Below spread a mall, a theatre, and a sweep of waterfront. This is Marina Bay Sands, the building that has become the symbol of modern Singapore.

It opened in 2010 as a giant integrated resort, combining a hotel, a casino, shops, restaurants, theatres, and a convention centre in one enormous complex. Bold and expensive, it quickly became the defining image of the city's skyline.

The design, by the architect Moshe Safdie, is what makes it unforgettable: three curving hotel towers carrying a single long platform, the SkyPark, across their tops, like a surfboard laid over three pillars. It is engineering as spectacle.

On top sits the famous infinity pool, a long stretch of water that seems to spill over the edge into the sky, with the city beyond. The pool is reserved for hotel guests, but a public observation deck on the same level lets anyone take in the view.

That view is the main draw for visitors not staying the night. From the deck high above the bay, the whole city spreads out: the towers of the business district, the gardens, the water, and the ships waiting offshore, especially fine at sunset.

At the foot of the towers, on the bay, a nightly free show of light and water plays out, with beams, music, and fountains over the water. Crowds gather along the promenade to watch, and it has become one of the city's signature evening events.

Inside, a vast luxury mall runs along a canal where you can ride a small boat indoors, beneath shops and restaurants. The complex is built to keep visitors spending, but the scale and polish of it are a sight in themselves.

Across a bridge sits a separate, lotus-shaped building, an art and science museum that is part of the same development, so the two striking structures frame this corner of the bay together.

The complex anchors a whole district of modern Singapore around the bay, linked by waterfront promenades to gardens, a giant observation wheel, and the financial towers, all within an easy walk. The area is designed for strolling, especially in the cooler evening.

It is, frankly, a temple to spending as much as a sight, and not everyone warms to its glossy, commercial character. But as a statement of the city's ambition and wealth, and for that rooftop view, it is hard to ignore.

A few practical notes. The observation deck is ticketed; the light show below is free; the infinity pool needs a room. Sunset is the best and busiest time on the deck, so book ahead, and combine the visit with the nearby gardens and the evening show.

Stand on the deck at dusk, with the pool and towers behind you and the whole bright city below, and you grasp what the building is for: to announce, in steel and glass, the arrival of a small island as a global city. When you come back down to the promenade, the lights play on across the water.