Learning from Las Vegas

When was the last time you were in Las Vegas?

If you haven't been in the last 10 or 15 years, you are in for a surprise.

When Robert Venturi, the famous architect and writer, wrote about Las Vegas in the late 60's/early 70s, he saw a built environment that was very unique. I think we can all conjure up images of the "Las Vegas Strip" with all its garish lighting, loud and obnoxious signage, and horrible architecture. Mr. Venturi called this the "decorated shed." This kind of building is cheap, quick, and easy to construct, and found itself being contructed all over the country. While cities looked at the types of buildings that were being built in this way, the lack of appropriate architectural guidelines and well-planned zoning regulations, developers found that they were able to build these kinds of builidngs in almost every commercial zone in the country.

But ironically, Las Vegas has learned from Las Vegas.

Let me give a very brief history of Las Vegas. Las Vegas was originally populated by Spanish missionaries who maintained a small outpost here along the old Santa Fe trail to Los Angeles. In the mid-1800s, Mormon pioneers acquired the land and water rights and began farming the area. Las Vegas remained a small farming community until the 1950s, when the introduction of casinos and other elements. The promoters of the casinos were able to draw people from Los Angeles to take the trip up to Las Vegas. The popularity of the place increased with the promulgation of Hollywood movies about the old west, and people came to Las Vegas looking for a sense of the historic old west. The picture on the right is an old map of Las Vegas ca. 1908 (you can click on it for a larger image).

In the 60s, the owners of the casinos changed tactics. They wanted to appeal to a more wealthy crowd, pulling in the high rollers to their high-class casinos done in the tradition of some of the great casinos of the world. They also wanted to emphasize the decadence and wealth of the place, so one started seeing places like Caesar's Palace, the Sands and Sahara, and places like that. It basically turned Las Vegas into a large night club... This image persisted until the mid 1990s.

Las Vegas has learned from its history. Now buildings are going up that have become icons unto themselves. Why waste time on a huge sign (they have them anyway) when you can turn your entire building into an advertisement?

So what? Las Vegas is Las Vegas, right? What does that have to do with our little community out here in southeast Texas?

I would submit that we are under the same pressures that they are under. While we will probably not have anything quite this garish, there are more insidious ways that developers have of making inroads into our community. The strip mall was for years denegrated as the natural outspring of the decorated shed, and now big-box retail establishments are even starting to forgo the decoration and going straight to the shed. None of this is condusive to the creation of a community: it is destructive to the way a community feels, which is essential to retaining the unique little distinctions that make our community what it is.



If that is the case, and these strip malls seem ubiquitous, how do we stop it? We learn from Las Vegas. We demand a character that helps augment our community, rather than diminishes it in the name of profit. We demand quality in construction and design. We form a group of citizens and professionals to review the architecture of each new commercial development for compliance with an overall plan set up to ensure quality and harmony. And we remain constantly vigilant against poor design and shoddy workmanship. In this manner, we can encourage developers to buy in to our community, and not just get the quick profit that seems to be the dirving force of all the developer's decisions.



The truly ironic thing is that spaces that speak to the quality of the community are also those that lease for the higher rents, allowing an even greater profit margin for the developer...