New casino resort icon Wynn Las Vegas may
have launched this citys latest architectural chapter, but leave it
to MGM Mirage to blast it into orbit. The companys $7 billion,
66-acre Project CityCenter development is going to be the largest
single, privately financed construction project in U.S. history.
Still, size alone isnt what makes the undertaking remarkable.
Were bringing on
a team of architects as opposed to one architect, and no one has
ever tried that, said Alan Feldman, MGM Mirages senior vice
president for public affairs.
The MGM Mirage
team is a whos who of celebrity architects and their firms working
together in a collaborative effort thats predicted to result in the
evolution of a dynamic urban environment of breathtaking visual and
physical energy.
Situated between
the Monte Carlo and Bellagio casino-hotels, the project centers
around a 7 million-square-foot, 4,000-room hotel-casino designed by
Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the New Haven, Conn.-based firm
responsible for the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur,
which from 1998 to 2004 claimed the title of worlds tallest
structure.
At a more modest
600 feet -- the legal cap, owing to Federal Aviation Administration
restrictions -- architect Cesar Pellis Las Vegas creation will be
considerably smaller.
The real drama
will be in the buildings role as counterpoint to the surrounding
urban density, as well as in its innovative sculptural form: two
interconnected, crescent-shaped glass towers hovering above a
low-rise, 150,000-square-foot casino; a collection of 15 to 20
restaurants; and a 2,000-seat theater for a Cirque du Soleil
show.
It is context ...
and hierarchy that will allow you to perceive scale, so that its
not just a slab of glass, said J.F. Finn, a senior associate with
the Amsterdam-based architectural firm Gensler, which is overseeing
project leadership in conjunction with MGM Mirages Design
Group.
What counts,
explained Finn, is the cumulative effect of so many buildings
against such a flat backdrop. The design team is also aiming to
create finer detail than that found at the Wynn Las Vegas, he said,
pointing, by way of example, to glass fretting and coloration
techniques that will create an added textural aesthetic not found
elsewhere in the city.
Straddling the
Strip and serving as a gateway to the development will be a
400-room, five-star Mandarin Oriental hotel by Kohn Pedersen
Fox.
Meanwhile,
London-based Norman Foster, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect
who redesigned Berlins Reichstag, is handling the exterior of
another 400-room hotel to be operated by Andrew Sassons Light
Group, creators of the Light and Caramel nightclubs at the
Bellagio.
Alongside these
two accommodations additions to the Strip will be an
air-conditioned shopping district, nicknamed SoBella, short for
South of Bellagio, which will gradually rise up next to a main
boulevard leading 900 feet into CityCenter, right to the front door
of the Pelli casino.
Replete with
water fountains, pedestrian promenades and an outdoor amphitheater,
portions of SoBella will be covered by glass to let in sunlight by
day and to allow streetlamps to light it at night.
The urban fabric
will be stressed throughout, according to Finn, with plazas, mews
and a series of enclosures providing intimate pedestrian
routes.
CityCenter also
will offer high-end neighborhood essentials -- supermarkets, dry
cleaners, cafes and bars and galleries and clubs -- for residents
of luxury condominiums and condo-hotels by Rafael Vinoly and James
Cheng to be situated on the far side of the complex, just off of
Harmon Avenue.
Bob Stefko, a
senior associate at Gensler, said the five condominium towers,
while sharing some of the same architectural vocabulary as the rest
of CityCenter, will express their own aesthetic
qualities.
Instead of
staring at unimaginative, flat rooftops, for example, condo
residents will look out upon curved glass surfaces radiating
different hues amid the open, low-lying SoBella shopping district,
he explained.
But whether all
the energy and excitement at CityCenter will make it down to the
street level is an open question, according to Denise Scott Brown,
the architect and urban planner who with Robert Venturi wrote
Learning From Las Vegas, a seminal work on signage in Vegas and its
effect on the architectural vernacular.
Youre just
communicating colors and mixtures of colors as if you were doing an
abstract painting, said Brown of CityCenters glass-tower-style
architecture. Thats what people have gotten bored with in the past,
and we think they will again.
Brown also
wonders whether the towers will loom too large over SoBella, and if
the shops and public spaces will come together in a cohesive and
coherent manner, unlike other planned urban developments such as
Shanghais Pudong streetscape.
Sources say
renowned architect Daniel Libeskind has signed up to design the
SoBella promenade and streetscape areas. While that may be good
news in terms of added stature and talent, the addition comes late
within a 20-month design phase that started in December 2004; it
also may hint at tension among various architectural
teams.
More importantly,
as soaring construction costs recently forced MGM Mirage to
reformulate its budget for CityCenter -- now $7 billion, up from
the previous $5 billion -- the new financial reality is affecting
design decisions, according to Finn and Stefko.
Seeing
green
Also in question
is just how the additional costs may affect the ambitious goal MGM
Mirage has set in having CityCenter becoming the first casino
project to be certified by the Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design.
LEED and its
Green Building Rating System is a voluntary national architectural
and construction standard for high-performance, sustainable
buildings.
Nellie Reed, a
LEED-accredited associate professional with Gensler, declined to
comment on the impact of rising costs on CityCenters environmental
goals. Sustainable design is not hindering aesthetic opportunities,
Reed said. Sustainability is working hand in hand with
aesthetics.
Rising
construction costs remain a concern; however, thanks to brand
recognition and financial prowess, MGM Mirage should be able to
weather the storm, said Brian Gordon, a principal at Las Vegas
economic and real estate research firm Applied Analysis.
A number of
developments will fail, according to Gordon, although he remained
upbeat on the prospects of the high-density condo sector as a
whole.
Were looking at
the largest pool of hotel rooms planned to come online in the next
five years than ever seen in any five-year period, he
said.
Central to this
expansion is CityCenter and an MGM Mirage brand whose mass appeal
will complement nearby boutique-oriented projects such as Bruce
Eichners $1.8 billion Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino and the W and
Las Ramblas projects, which are both slated for development along
the Harmon Corridor.
Project
CityCenter is going to have a profound impact on the entire tourist
corridor, said Feldman, citing the 20 projects now under way. It
already has.
Still, can Las
Vegas handle 90,000 or 100,000 units, as is presently forecast, and
is there reason to believe that this is truly a new era in urban
living?
The architecture
is still the skin, Feldman said. On the inside its still going to
be all Vegas, but the Vegas of a new century.
To contact
the reporter who wrote this article, send e-mail to [email protected].