Gateway Center

Location: Singapore City, Singapore

The 37-story Gateway twin towers were completed in 1990 just as Singapore was becoming established as a world city. Kellogg Wong, working with I. M. Pei, contributed over a period of many years to this effort, as master planners and as architects for numerous Singapore landmarks. The Gateway is a powerful display of urban commitment. Designed to accommodate increasingly sophisticated international business presence in the city, the towers enrich the city at both skyline and street levels.

Vertical notches further define and dramatize the angular exterior. Internally, the notches multiply corner offices and conference rooms. The same geometry unifies the plaza created by pulling the tower back from the sidewalk, centered around a cooling fountain, which creates an inviting open space amid downtown congestion.

The towers are twin identical trapezoidal structures that by ingenious placement appear alternately as true twins or as distinctly different. Viewed from the front, they present a symmetric open “gateway” to Singapore.  As the angle of view varies, the forms present an ever-varying geometric composition.  The buildings have become a distinctive landmark in Singapore.

In Affiliation with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners