The art critic Dave Hickey, praising his adopted hometown, wrote that “America is a very poor lens through which to view Las Vegas, while Las Vegas is a wonderful lens through which to view America. What is hidden elsewhere exists here in quotidian visibility.” That description came to mind after a recent conversation about whether Las Vegas could possibly bounce back from a crisis that seems to specifically threaten indoor environments—although this week’s photos of Floridians playing blackjack behind plexiglass dividers suggest that the city will bounce back whether it should or not. For now, though, the pandemic presents an existential crisis for Las Vegas, probably the most architecturally important American city of the past half century, having pioneered the inversion of indoors and outdoors that Rem Koolhaas describes in
#127: Night Society
#127: Night Society
#127: Night Society
The art critic Dave Hickey, praising his adopted hometown, wrote that “America is a very poor lens through which to view Las Vegas, while Las Vegas is a wonderful lens through which to view America. What is hidden elsewhere exists here in quotidian visibility.” That description came to mind after a recent conversation about whether Las Vegas could possibly bounce back from a crisis that seems to specifically threaten indoor environments—although this week’s photos of Floridians playing blackjack behind plexiglass dividers suggest that the city will bounce back whether it should or not. For now, though, the pandemic presents an existential crisis for Las Vegas, probably the most architecturally important American city of the past half century, having pioneered the inversion of indoors and outdoors that Rem Koolhaas describes in