ingapore boasts an elite club so secretive most people don't know it exists. The more then 300 strong Pyramid Club members are Singapore's top ranking movers and shakers. Jake Lloyd-Smith sheds some light.
Riddle of the Pyramid
Goh Chok Tong, Singapore's Prime Minister, wanted to throw a special kind of party. The task at hand was to pay tribute to a group of politicians who had served the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) in Parliament but were required to stand aside to allow the introduction of fresh faces. The evening was meant to be memorable and required a venue to match.
Mr Goh chose the Pyramid, an elegant colonial-era mansion a short distance from the city-state's main shopping district along Orchard Road. The 140-strong audience enjoyed prawn and salmon salad starters, followed by abalone and shark's fin soup that night in May 1997, the local paper reported.
The snippet is one of just a handful of mentions in recent years of one of the more important but least-familiar parts of Singapore's formidably successful establishment. The Pyramid is the after-hours home for more than 300 of the country's top movers and shakers, and anyone who is anyone is said to be a member.
In its well-tended grounds and tranquil rooms, leading civil servants, politicians, businessmen and senior military officers meet to exchange news, develop friendships and, in effect, bind the country's decision-makers more closely together. 'It's where the real action in Singapore takes place,' one non-member suggests.
Although the Pyramid's membership list might read like a Who's Who of Singapore, the institution goes out of its way not to attract attention. There is no listing in the phone book and no existence in cyberspace beyond a few mentions by outside contractors who have worked at the site.
Requests for information typically run into a wall of genuine ignorance. 'I have never heard of it,' says an executive of a marketing firm with nearly a decade's experience in promoting the memberships of other less-exclusive clubs across the region.
More at http://www.thinkcentre.org/article.php?id=1088
Riddle of the Pyramid
Goh Chok Tong, Singapore's Prime Minister, wanted to throw a special kind of party. The task at hand was to pay tribute to a group of politicians who had served the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) in Parliament but were required to stand aside to allow the introduction of fresh faces. The evening was meant to be memorable and required a venue to match.
Mr Goh chose the Pyramid, an elegant colonial-era mansion a short distance from the city-state's main shopping district along Orchard Road. The 140-strong audience enjoyed prawn and salmon salad starters, followed by abalone and shark's fin soup that night in May 1997, the local paper reported.
The snippet is one of just a handful of mentions in recent years of one of the more important but least-familiar parts of Singapore's formidably successful establishment. The Pyramid is the after-hours home for more than 300 of the country's top movers and shakers, and anyone who is anyone is said to be a member.
In its well-tended grounds and tranquil rooms, leading civil servants, politicians, businessmen and senior military officers meet to exchange news, develop friendships and, in effect, bind the country's decision-makers more closely together. 'It's where the real action in Singapore takes place,' one non-member suggests.
Although the Pyramid's membership list might read like a Who's Who of Singapore, the institution goes out of its way not to attract attention. There is no listing in the phone book and no existence in cyberspace beyond a few mentions by outside contractors who have worked at the site.
Requests for information typically run into a wall of genuine ignorance. 'I have never heard of it,' says an executive of a marketing firm with nearly a decade's experience in promoting the memberships of other less-exclusive clubs across the region.
More at http://www.thinkcentre.org/article.php?id=1088
