Eight years ago, contemporary artist Kumari Nahappan sent two gigantic bronze apples to One Farrer. Today, Apollo and Artemis sit proudly at the entrance, their red and green visage welcoming visitors to the hotel and hospital.
It’s only fitting then that Professor Maurice Choo, chairperson of The Farrer Park Company (which owns One Farrer Hotel), enlisted Kumari again for a new sculpture. The Burung Ranggong soars over the sixth floor of the premises and connects the swimming pool with the open space.
Nicknamed Saranggong, Malay for stork, it differs from Kumari’s usual flora. “I adopted a different approach. The movement, precision and angles had to be accurate, and the challenge was to have it connected to the stalk while being present in space at the same time.”
Kumari took inspiration from the area. In Singapore’s older maps, Serangoon was called Saranggong, taking its name from the storks that lived by the river. Traditionally, the stork is a symbol of birth and motherhood and represents trust, loyalty and fidelity. In China, it’s also associated with prosperity and longevity. These qualities resonated with Professor Choo.
Creating an accepted form for the sculpture took 10 weeks. Using stainless steel and bronze, Kumari considered several factors, including engineering, scale and weight. She worked with a foundry in Thailand to enlarge the form and met the team weekly to direct enlargement and proportion. The greatest challenge, however, was working with One Farrer to hoist “the completed sculpture onto the sixth floor by the requested date!”
One Farrer Hotel’s sixth floor is the Saranggong’s nest now, forever in flight but rooted to the ground. It may be just a bird, but Kumari’s hands and One Farrer’s vision make the stork celebrate the ordinary, much like the two apples on the ground floor.
