Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, who had spent a lifetime being the architect of Singapore's prosperity, has died at the age of 91.He transformed the small port city into a wealthy global hub

The city-state, seemed unprepared for the scale of the outpouring of grief since their 91-year-old first prime minister died on Monday.

More than 250,000 mourners had paid their respects by mid-afternoon Friday, according to an official count, up from about 150,000 at midnight Thursday.

R.I.P. to a great statesman who had served his generation and nation with excellence.

I once explained to a Singapore visitor (Chinese-Malay origin) when we were on the BAHNHOFPLATZ the role of Alfred von Escher and his relevance for Zürich and he then stated "this then is YOUR Lee Kuan Yew" and then told me about the Singapore statesman. OUR big man stands in front of Züri-HB, so that LKY should stand in front of the main part of Changi Airport

Then you probably made mountains out of molehills.

LKY was one of a kind you know...

• turned a small island without water or ressources, surrounded by unfriendly neighbours into a first world country. In just 30 years!
• influenced many leaders of the world and almost all US presidents in the last 30 years asked him for his opinion in geopolitics
• LKY inspired Deng Xiaoping to reform China and lifted millions of people out of poverty.

And still, in one of his books he said "there shall never be any statues of him or any streets named after him in Singapore".

I think comparing Alfred Escher to LKY is like comparing a fingerpainting by a 3 year old to the mona lisa

Lee Kuan Yew was amazing person who transformed his country together with fellow politians.

They have a good system in place for their country with more than one deputy ready to step into place & politians swap position for future safeguard.

Condolences to his family, friends & country.

LKY of course WILL have HIS one in Singapore within 25 years.



and the Airport will be known as Singapore LKY Airport

... Or, of course, Singapore will respect LKY's wishes and not erect tawdry monuments to the man.

God knows, nobody in Singapore ever dared countermand a LKY order while he was alive.

The national university already during his lifetime renamed their school for public policy after him. That is the sort of thing that matches the man and his legacy.

For those who are not too familiar with him, this interview during Vietnam war and why Singapore decided to not actively support the US in the war shows him at his best:

Interesting factoid, in case anyone needed convincing about the economic miracle that is Singapore: its per capita gross domestic product grew from $511 to $55,183 in the half century from 1963. Singapore's per capita GDP is now higher than those of each of the U.S. and U.K., each of which were on much higher bases in 1963 (e.g. Singapore's growth rate has been about six times that of the U.S.).

I guess LKY can be forgiven some idiosyncratic views on chewing gum and the length of men's hair.

I was aware of that. It's the only example of commemoration (albeit still in his lifetime) that I could think of. Apparently there's an orchid named after him, too. And that's about it.

LKY National Airport would be a distinct improvement on Changi, though. The latter is in a similar vein to London's Waterloo Station, which for a while greeted Eurostar passengers arriving from France...