BlackGezinti

GOING UP: Making a Statement

No longer cartoony, Las Vegas architecture takes on sophisticated air

The World Market Center, scheduled for a July opening, will be the centerpiece of a $1 billion campus consisting of furniture showrooms and trade show space. Photo by Jane Kalinowsky MGM Mirage's Project CityCenter, which is to be built on the Strip between Bellagio and the Monte Carlo, will include residential, hotel, commercial and entertainment facilities. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF EHRENKRANTZ ECKSTUT & KUHN ARCHITECTS Wynn Las Vegas offers a curving, classy counterpoint to the skyline of the northern Strip. "There is a great deal to that project. It's got a kind of simple form with a tower that has a kind of elegant profile to it, and it has a very sleek and very polished look to it," notes David Frommer, an architect and assistant director of planning and design at UNLV. Photo by Jane Kalinowsky

Near the Spaghetti Bowl, to the immediate east of Interstate 15, drivers can't help but sneak a peek at the swooping, dramatic profile of the World Market Center furniture mart.

Not far away, the graceful elegance of the Wynn Las Vegas resort punctuates the skyline of the ever-changing Strip.

And, still on the drawing board but destined for the center Strip, the MGM Mirage's Project CityCenter will change the way visitors and locals alike make use of Southern Nevada's busiest pedestrian street.

Three examples of Las Vegas architecture, each dramatic in its own way, each another link in the continuing evolution of Southern Nevada design.

Not all that long ago, "Las Vegas architecture" meant gaudy, cartoony or circusy. Today, Southern Nevada architects say, it's apt to be synonymous with sophisticated, classy and elegant.

How sophisticated is Las Vegas' architectural scene these days? So sophisticated that internationally renowned architect Frank Gehry -- whose works include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles -- last week announced that he'll be designing an Alzheimer's disease research center proposed for downtown.

And, in May, about 25,000 architects and design professionals from across the United States will examine Las Vegas' architecture firsthand during the American Institute of Architects national convention.

Brad Schulz, a principal with KGA Architecture and local chairman of the convention, says it wasn't difficult to sell Las Vegas to the organization's officers.

"I think architects are very excited about what happens here," he says. "It's a very dynamic place."

Thomas Schoeman, president of JMA Architecture Studios, agrees.

"Any time I have someone come in from outside of the state in the design profession, they are literally amazed at the quality of places like Bellagio or The Venetian that have really raised the bar," Schoeman says.