MGM Mirage has recruited a who's who of celebrity architects for its Project CityCenter Strip development.
Big-name designers have become big-time business and MGM Mirage is placing bets that Cesar Pelli, Sir Norman Foster, James KM Cheng, Rafael Vinoly and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates will add glamour to its $5 billion, 66-acre project.
Situated between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio casino-hotels, with 1,200 square feet of Strip frontage, the complex of hotels, residences, shops and casinos is scheduled to open by November 2009. Perini Building Co. is the general contractor, and Tishman Construction is the project manager. The 18 million-square-foot undertaking will be roughly the size of Rockefeller Center, SoHo and Times Square combined.
"Something like this has never been envisioned before," said Art Gensler, chairman of the nation's largest design firm, Gensler, which is also serving as executive project architect. "This is truly a unique attempt to bring urbanism to the center of a community."
Plans call for a 60-story, 4,000-room hotel-casino; two 400-room non-gaming hotels; 500,000 square feet of retail shops, dining and entertainment venues; and 1,640 luxury condominium units.
MGM Mirage is currently nine months into a 20-month design cycle. Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, the firm responsible for Lower Manhattan's Battery City Park, is the master-plan architect.
"Many of these firms have not visited Las Vegas at all," said Bobby Baldwin, president and chief executive officer of Mirage Resorts. "(Project CityCenter) will be an integrated high-rise neighborhood."
The shift from gaudy, theme-park architecture to sleek steel-and-glass buildings is a gamble. Exploding volcanoes, pirate shows and pyramids have long defined the Strip's image for millions of visitors. But MGM Mirage is banking on a more upscale, sophisticated visitor that wants to live and play in a dynamic, urban setting created by big-name architects.
"Everything else around is the un-architecture," Rafael Vinoly told the New York Times, referring to the challenge of working in Las Vegas. "It's a cartoon. It's a horror show. But it is something that is interesting to see. It's an education."
Vinoly's involvement consists of a curved 1,000-unit hotel-condo building set atop pylons near the northwest edge of the Project CityCenter site. The 400-foot-tall elevated tower consists of two blocks of residences wrapped in glass, appearing as though they are floating above the Strip.
Vinoly is best-known for Philadelphia's Kimmel Center and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
The heart of CityCenter revolves around a 7 million-square-foot hotel-casino created by Cesar Pelli, architect of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the world's tallest buildings.
The scheme calls for two crescent-shaped glass towers connected by a low-rise. The buildings, which house a combined 4,000 rooms, will have a stepped-back facade to minimize their massiveness. With floor-to-ceiling views, brows at each level help provide shading.
The horizontal grid additionally downplays the height of the 600 foot- and 515 foot-tall towers, while giving them a sculptural quality.
"We are rethinking the typical paradigm and creating a focus on the skyline," said Fred Clarke, a principal with Cesar Pelli & Associates of New Haven, Conn. "Architecture is the theme."
James KM Cheng, known for his work in Vancouver, British Columbia, is designing a twisting 100-unit residential tower.
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, which was set to design a new stadium for the National Football League's New York Jets, is doing the exterior architecture for a 400-room Mandarin Hotel.
London-based Sir Norman Foster, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect who redesigned the Reichstag in Berlin, is handling the exterior of another 400-room hotel operated by Andrew Sasson's Light Group, creators of the Light and Caramel nightclubs in Bellagio.
The architects all share a flair for edgy, kinetic designs that make cultural statements. MGM's roster of celebrity designers adds some high-octane branding power to the development. None of the architects, however, come from Las Vegas.
"Throughout its 100-year history, Las Vegas has been transformed by a series of significant developments reflecting the creative energies of its visionary builders and entrepreneurs," said Terry Lanni, chairman and CEO of MGM Mirage. "Project CityCenter represents what we feel is a significant new direction for our city and our company."
MGM Mirage has recruited a who's who of celebrity architects for its Project CityCenter Strip development.