In years past, Lee Kuan Yew's office was famous among visitors for its arctic air conditioning and Spartan furnishing. A few Chinese scrolls apart, there was little decoration and sometimes barely a sheet of paper to be seen. Singapore's founding father first moved into the office on the second floor of the former British governor-general's residence in 1971, having already served six years as Prime Minister. He retired in 1990 to become Senior Minister and later Minister Mentor, but still works out of the same rooms.
The L-shaped office may have changed little over the years, but at...