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Architecture of Las Vegas

Interest in the Architecture of Las Vegas began in the late 1960s, when in 1967 architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown travelled to the city accompanied by students in order to study its architecture. They wrote, with Steven Izenour, a report in 1972 on the subject entitled Learning From Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. This report, and its thesis that Las Vegas showed the way for architecture in the late 20th century, drew the attention of the architectural world to the city. A quarter of a century later, for a BBC program (a segment of The Late Show entitled “Virtually Las Vegas” broadcast on BBC Two on 1995-01-16) Venturi and Scott Brown revisited the city, and revised their opinions.

In the 1970s, Venturi et al. observed that the city had then been structured around the automotive culture that was dominant at the time, with all of the buildings oriented towards the highway. It was the norm for buildings to have “rhetorical front and conventional behind”, in other words a decorated façade visible from the highway but a less decorative aspect where not visible. The casinos and motels also sported ground-level parking at the front, between the building and the highway, a feature that Venturi considered to be distinctive. They also drew a contrast between the artificially lit and air conditioned interiors of the buildings and the heat and glare of the “agoraphobic auto-scaled desert” (Venturi, Scott Brown & Izenour 1977, p. 49) outside. The mixture of styles, ranging from what they termed “Miami Moroccan” to “Yamasaki Bernini cum Roman Orgiastic” (Venturi, Scott Brown & Izenour 1977, p. 80), they did not view as chaotic but rather as a necessary result of Las Vegas as one of what they termed “the world’s ‘pleasure zones'” alongside the likes of Marienbad, the Alhambra, Disneyland, and Xanadu and its positioning as a place where a visitor with an ordinary life could indulge in escapist notions of being “a centurion at Caesar’s Palace, a ranger at The Frontier, or a jetsetter at the Riviera” (Venturi, Scott Brown & Izenour 1977, p. 53) for a few days.

In the 1990s, Venturi and Scott Brown observed that the automotive-driven architecture of the 1960s had been transformed into a more pedestrianized form, in part as a result of the growth in visitors that it had experienced over the years. The distinctive neon lighting, that in the 1960s had had Venturi et al. talking of Vegas as a city of signs, had been replaced by giant television screens, which Venturi bemoaned. In their original book, and in the later 1977 revised edition, they had focussed upon characterizing Vegas in terms of how most if not all built objects in the (then) city in one way or another functioned as signage. In the 1990s, Mark C. Taylor opined that the similarities between Disney and Las Vegas that Venturi et al. had touched upon in the 1970s had grown immensely over the years, with much of the urban space being thematized and devoted to fantasies upon fantasies and “worlds within worlds”. He observed that this architectural link to Disney had even been made concrete, with the MGM Grand Hotel directly mimicking (albeit with some differences) the original Walt Disney World.

Taylor also observed the replacement of neon with the televisual, to create a vast visual space in which “the virtual becomes real and the real becomes virtual”. As an example of this he propounded new Freemont Street, where “city planners have converted the train terminal that was inspired by the glass architecture of Parisian arcades, into a computer terminal”, with a 1,500 feet (460 m) canopy comprising 1.4 million computer-controlled lights and lasers.

Las Vegas Architecture
The Building and Structure category in Las Vegas provides historic information on buildings and structures in Las Vegas (buildings listed in National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) for Clark County , Nevada).

The latest architectural project issued by the firm is licensed by the Nevada State Board of Architecture . The American Institute of Architects, Nevada chapter gives AIA Nevada Excellence in Design awards to appreciate the achievement of development throughout Nevada. The project can be found listed in Las Vegas Architectural Guides and Collections ( see Awards ), a resource provided by the UNLV Architecture Studies Library .

Downtown
“Downtown Las Vegas Area” is the name assigned by the Nevada Gaming Control Board NGCB which includes the Downtown Las Vegas area casinos and the Stratosphere Tower which is located 2 miles (3.2 km) from Fremont Street. The city of Las Vegas uses the term Downtown Gaming for the casinos near the Fremont Street Experience. The land is part of the 110 acres (45 ha) that were auctioned on May 15, 1905 when the city was founded.

Currently downtown Las Vegas is the only place in Las Vegas where the casinos are clustered around an outdoor pedestrian zone. Caesars Entertainment has announced plans to build a similar venue with an observation wheel similar to the London Eye near the Flamingo Las Vegas.

In fiscal year 1988 the ratio of revenue for the Strip compared to downtown was less than 3:1. In FY2008 the ratio is over 10:1. However, downtown rode the massive increase in tourist spending from 2004 through 2007 that swelled the non-gaming revenue of the area. Non gaming revenue and income hit an all-time high in FY2006.

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The population of the city of Las Vegas has increased from 249,000 in 1990 to over 600,000 in 2010. In the interim three major hotels have been constructed inside the city limits (Stratosphere Las Vegas, Suncoast Hotel and Casino and Rampart Casino). The downtown casino district with over 1100 employees has remained important to the city. Since the majority of the casinos remain outside the city limit many people have been promoting the idea of a Consolidated city–county government as a more equitable way to share revenue.

Entertainment
The Las Vegas Strip is well known for its lounges, showrooms, theaters and nightclubs; most of the attractions and shows on the Strip are located on the hotel casino properties. Some of the more popular free attractions visible from the Strip include the water fountains at Bellagio, the volcano at The Mirage, and the Fall of Atlantis and Festival Fountain at Caesars Palace. There are several Cirque du Soleil shows, such as Kà at the MGM Grand, O at Bellagio, Mystère at Treasure Island, Zumanity (for ages 18 and older) at New York-New York, Criss Angel Mindfreak at the Luxor, and Michael Jackson: One at Mandalay Bay.

Many notable artists have performed in Las Vegas, including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Wayne Newton, Liza Minnelli, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace, and in more recent years Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Barry Manilow, Cher, Elton John, Bette Midler, Donny and Marie Osmond, Garth Brooks, Jennifer Lopez, Reba McEntire, Mariah Carey, Shania Twain and Olivia Newton-John have had residencies in the various resorts on the Strip. The only movie theatre directly on the Strip was the 10-screen Regal Showcase Theatre in the Showcase Mall. The theater opened in 1997 and was operated by Regal Entertainment Group, until its closure in 2018.

Shopping
Bonanza Gift Shop is billed as the “World’s Largest Gift Shop”, with over 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) of shopping space.
The Shoppes at The Palazzo feature luxury stores including the only Barneys New York department store in Las Vegas.
Fashion Show Mall is adjacent to Treasure Island and opposite Wynn Las Vegas.
Grand Canal Shoppes is a luxury mall connected to The Venetian with canals, gondolas and singing gondoliers.
The LINQ Promenade is an open-air retail, dining, and entertainment district located between The Linq and Flamingo resorts that began a soft open in January 2014. It leads from a Strip-side entrance to the High Roller.
Miracle Mile Shops is part of the Planet Hollywood hotel.
The Forum Shops at Caesars is a luxury mall connected to Caesars Palace, with more than 160 shops and 11 restaurants.
Crystals at CityCenter is a luxury high-fashion mall at CityCenter.
Harmon Corner is a three-story retail center located next to Planet Hollywood with shops and restaurants.
Showcase Mall is next to MGM Grand, and displays a 100-foot Coca-Cola bottle.
The Park, a short east-west street between the Park MGM and New York-New York resorts is a park-like boulevard lined with retail shops and restaurants, leading to T-Mobile Arena.

Education
Primary and secondary schools
Primary and secondary public education is provided by the Clark County School District, which is the fifth most populous school district in the nation. Students totaled 314,653 in grades K-12 for school year 2013–2014.

Colleges and universities
The College of Southern Nevada (the third largest community college in the United States by enrollment) is the main higher education facility in the city. Other institutions include the University of Nevada School of Medicine, with a campus in the city, and the for-profit private school Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. Educational opportunities exist around the city; among them are the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Nevada State College run by the Nevada System of Higher Education, Desert Research Institute, The International Academy of Design & Technology Las Vegas and Touro University Nevada.

Firm
Marnell Corrao Associates
Tate Snyder Kimsey Architects

Architects of Las Vegas
Here is a list of famous architects who have built and designed buildings in the Southern Nevada region.
Jon Jerde
Wayne McAllister
James McDaniel
Antoine Predock
Homer Rissman
Veldon Simpson
Martin Stern, Jr.
Paul Williams (architect)
Gary Guy Wilson

Source From Wikipedia

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