Mark Lamster on Las Vegas’s CityCenter

I was there the week after Macworld Expo. Crystals (the high-end shopping mall) is a disaster inside; it feels like a maze. Aria is nice; its casino has an intriguing modern decor. Vdara seemed like a billion-dollar empty tower. CityCenter as a whole strikes me as a fundamentally bad idea — a massive complex in Vegas that doesn’t feel one bit like Vegas.

Lamster, attending the grand opening for architecture critics:

The absurdity of CityCenter’s urban gesture of separating its buildings now becomes apparent. The PR team has arranged for SUVs to take journalists from the Aria to the Mandarin Oriental for a cocktail party. The buildings are maybe 150 feet from each other.

(Via Kottke.)

★ Friday, 26 February 2010