Commentary: Great symbolic as James Dyson swaps Brexit Britain for a villa in the sky

LONDON: When Brexiters and free trade buccaneers seek a modern model of flexibility, they usually land in Singapore, the small island that has built a position as a financial hub and technology center.

The city's most prominent new immigrant is James Dyson. The inventor announced in January that he was relocating his company's headquarters in Singapore, which manufactures expensive bagless cleaners and noisy hand dryers.

Now, he would have bought the most expensive apartment in the city at the top of the Guoco Tower, in the financial district of Tanjong Pagar. The announced price of 73.8 million Singaporean dollars gives Sir James five bedrooms, three floors, a private pool and a wine cellar.

READ: James Dyson buys a penthouse in Singapore: what does he get for 73.8 million Singaporean dollars?

Sir James has not, however, abandoned his interest in the United Kingdom. He is supposed to own more land than the queen. He also created the Dyson Institute, a UK-based engineering training school that is sorely needed – but not Singapore.

DYSON BROKEN THE MOLD

If there was a criticism of the bad days of British engineering, it was that the management was living in its own world of paneled conference rooms and cash dinners, while the workers organized strikes for cups of tea in the canteen.

They lived in different worlds – the detachments of Tudorbethan and the houses of council – and the investments stagnated.

Then come vulture capitalists and corporate looters, and the remains of the biggest names in engineering are sold or sent to the administration.

Sir James broke this mold with a company that makes modern, well-designed products and builds contemporary factories. But then he discovered Asia.

READ: Dyson seeks to hire "significantly" more electronics and digital marketing engineers in Singapore

Dyson, one of the few British companies to emerge in the sector of designed consumer products, is no longer British.

IT IS NOW A VILLA IN THE SKY

Is there a connection between a multi-million dollar penthouse and the seeming impossibility of engineering and manufacturing in the UK? If there is, it is not a question of style.

While once the bosses have bought old homes or historicist homes, Sir James is resolutely modern. The Guoco Tower was designed by Chicago-based architects SOM, the firm that defined the mid-2000s appearance of American companies.

The marketing photos show a modernist villa covered in marble and wood, covered with floor-to-ceiling glbad and producing vertiginous vertigo as well as the usual gray walls and carpets, as well as modern steel and glbad furniture. as well as large sofas.

Maybe Sir James will add some notes of the sinister yellow of his bagless cleaners or his pine to the sound of a Dyson hand dryer to break the monotony minimum. Or maybe not.

GREAT SYMBOLISM

Should we perhaps let Sir James sink into his fortune while he bows in his private pool? Should we celebrate its success?

Or should we feel a little ardor in the industry who talks about a tough Brexit and gives up the consequences?

Or could we really begin to understand the luxury penthouse as an architectural symbol of our time? The Romans had their arches of triumph, the Gothics their spiers of cathedral; we have the urban penthouse, an overextruded tower claiming to be a home.

The horizons of London and New York are cluttered with unsold apartments to the heights of generic glbad blocks that cast a shadow over those of us who live downstairs.

For a moment, it seemed to me that the superabundance of super-luxurious penthouses could signal the end of the wild speculations that turned the skies over our cities into trumps.

But perhaps there is a symbol in British penthouses that are empty as Brexit looms, while one of our wealthiest and most prosperous citizens takes a 99-year lease for a vision who despises the most profitable casino in the world.