The Gardens by the Bay have been lauded as a world-class attraction, a masterpiece of construction which has won international recognition – and multiple awards – for their design and sustainability. They have also been described as “hypernature,” an ostentatious and theatrical display of controlled nature (Heathcote 2013). Either way, the Gardens represent a particularly interesting case study to examine Singapore’s relationship with nature and its position as a tropical country. This essay will first pursue two different tracks of discussion – one regarding the construction of the ‘tropical’ as an colonial idea and the other the role of green spaces in the city – and later tie them together in a critique of the Gardens by the Bay, in particular the two iconic conservatories. This paper will explore the thresholds between the biomes and the tropical realm, and between the urban city and the Gardens as a whole, revealing a seemingly contradictory impulse to locate the Gardens in the tropics, while simultaneously transcending climatic limitations to transport the visitor into foreign locales... 

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