Officially the building is called Parkview Square, but nobody calls it that in Singapore. And in the cave(nous) lobby was the world-famous Atlas Bar.

“Gotham City”

Locally, Parkview Square is often referred to as the Gotham City or Batman’s building, due to its Art Deco architectural style that resembles the fictional Gotham City from the Batman series.

The lobby is designed in Neo Art Deco style and features a 15m-high ceiling with hand-crafted details.

Parkview Square was designed by the US firm James Adams Design, together with DP Architects of Singapore and was completed in 2003. It was the last major project by the late C. S. Hwang, a Taiwanese tycoon, who was the founder and chairman of Chyau Fwu Group. When it was built, everyone questioned the location. But with the opening of Duo, the old man’s long term vision of the sleepy area and prediction of the Beach Road/Ophir-Rochor Corridor was coming true. The building is now the signature of the rejuvenated area.

Scattered around the building are numerous sculptures, even originals from Dali and Botero. But what was really interesting was the Art Museum on the third storey of the building that featured the collections of art about sharks collected by Hwang’s brother-in-law, George Wong. Here’s the real world crazy, rich Asians for you.

In the center of the plaza is a statue of a golden crane with its head lifted, pointing towards the direction of Mainland China, its wings in pre-flight mode. On the pedestal, a Chinese poem is written:

黄鹤楼

故国旧有黄鹤楼
北望神州几千秋
黄鹤展翅飞万里
伟哉狮城见鹤楼

The poem refers to a yellow crane looking towards the direction of the famous Yellow Crane Tower 黄鹤楼 in Hubei and eager to fly the thousands of miles back — Depicting the homesickness of the owner. The poem also appears as an Easter egg in Original illustration of the Chinese version of StarCraft 2.

The statue was placed there for fengshui purpose and supposed to bring wealth to the building.

Atlas Bar

Atlas Bar in the lobby of the building has a unique 3-storey gin tower housing over a thousand gins. The tower used to hold a wine chiller from which a female bartender dressed as a fairy would retrieve bottles on request by means of a flying wire apparatus. It was repurposed in 2012 to feature the world’s largest gin collection, and has raked in accolades that included Bar of the Year at the 2019 World Gourmet Awards, and fifth spot in the Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2019 list.

Spicy fried cauliflower

Paprika aioli, pickles

We also ordered some Belgian pomme frites that came with a condiment of horseradish bacon mayo. As posh sounding as it may be, it was still just not shoestring or thick cut fries.

King crab salad

Potato, roasted fennel, smoked tomato, romaine, radicchio

ATLAS warm madeleines

Homemade jam, unsweetened cream

Well, the food was not what you are here for. The drinks were, but as I am officially not drinking alcohol any more, I could not show you the number of drinks my group was having. Bring your friends visiting from overseas, they will be impressed with everything here.

Atlas Bar
600 North Bridge Rd, Parkview Square, Singapore 188778
Tel : +65 63964466

Date Visited : Sep 2021