{"id":4668,"date":"2010-09-28T11:53:06","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T19:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=4668"},"modified":"2019-05-20T09:04:15","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T17:04:15","slug":"citycenter-gets-a-visitor-deploys-vdara-death-ray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/citycenter-gets-a-visitor-deploys-vdara-death-ray\/","title":{"rendered":"CityCenter gets a visitor, deploys Vdara Death Ray"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"He’s not just any sightseer but the type of East Coast tastemaker MGM Resorts International<\/strong> CEO Jim Murren<\/strong> hoped to impress: New Yorker<\/em> architecture critic Paul Goldberger<\/strong>. Heretofore, Goldberger’s most memorable pronouncement in re<\/em> Vegas came 13 years ago, when he gazed upon the Strip and found it a gaudier version of downtown Bucharest<\/strong>. Ouch!<\/p>\n

Goldberger was drawn back for a gander at CityCenter<\/strong>, although his report is considerably more cursory than one would like. It also perpetuates the misinformation that MGM itself (and not its Dubai World<\/strong> joint venture) was nearly pushed into bankruptcy during the project’s turbulent completion. Perhaps the most heretical verdict<\/a> Goldberger renders is his enthusiasm for Daniel Liebeskind<\/strong>‘s design for Crystals<\/strong>, whose shapes “inject the normally dreary precinct of a shopping mall with a shot of adrenaline<\/em>.” (More customers would be a greater adrenal jolt.)<\/p>\n

If he really wanted to get zapped, the critic could have exposed himself to the Vdara Death Ray<\/a>, which must be #87,062 on the list of Botched CityCenter Details. What’s the over\/under on how much longer Murren can go without giving CityCenter CEO Bobby Baldwin<\/strong> the sack? Ever the optimist, Baldwin<\/span> A company spokesman sees the Death Ray as a marketing opportunity<\/a>, cheerily telling Steve Friess<\/strong>, “Vdara is being discovered, and that’s always a struggle in this economy<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Pondering the metaresort’s Rubiks Cube<\/strong> of interlocking, angular shapes, the New Yorker<\/em> scribe writes, “you can, at least, imagine seeing it every day without getting sick of it<\/em>.” A backhanded compliment, admittedly, but one for which I can vouch. CityCenter may be functionally problematic but it’s a never-ending source of eye candy. By contrast, I’m already tired of Fontainebleau<\/strong> and the damned thing isn’t even finished. CityCenter is seen as a response to a problem Goldberger diagnoses thusly: “it\u2019s been clear for a while that Las Vegas<\/strong> has been running out of themes. The trouble is that its effects rely entirely on dazzlement, an over-the-top gigantism<\/a> that gets old fast<\/em>.” (*cough<\/em>*Venelazzo<\/strong>*cough<\/em>*)<\/p>\n

\"\"As to whether CityCenter succeeds<\/strong>, Goldberger is quite equivocal. Those who think Cesar Pelli<\/strong>‘s Aria<\/strong> is getting a bad rap<\/a> will find an ally, although Goldberger isn’t enamored of the hotel’s enormity. He saves his harshest criticism for Sir Norman Foster<\/strong>‘s jinxed Harmon Hotel<\/strong> (left<\/em>), which he likens to a huge modem, concluding that Foster was flummoxed by his Strip surroundings and responded with a tentative psuedo-attempt at flamboyance. As an urban environment, CityCenter’s pedestrian-averse design is flunked, with Goldberger finding very little “city” or “center” there. Noting the gradual acceptance of cutting-edge architecture, Goldberger concludes with a shrug that “CityCenter is the Las Vegas you already know, but in modernist drag.<\/p>\n

A shark crashes the party<\/strong> this week on CSI<\/em>, at what looks suspiciously like Encore<\/strong><\/span>. (Note the quick cut-ins of a Paris F. Hilton<\/strong> lookalike.) As much as we might like to see\u00a0one of these bad boys chow down on some douchebags — maybe working its way from Ditch Fridays<\/a> to Wet Republic<\/a> to Rehab<\/a> over the course of a weekend, it would be devouring Las Vegas’ prime money-spending demographic. Still, CSI<\/em> (and the recent Pirahna 3-D<\/em>) are clearly tapping into a popular mainstream fantasy.<\/p>\n

Everybody out of the pool!<\/strong> The tribal-lending pool, that is. Just when tribal casinos had gained respectability in the eyes of Wall Street<\/strong>, the financial struggles of Mohegan Sun<\/strong> and Foxwoods Resort Casino<\/strong> are scaring bankers away again. Face it, if you’re into a sovereign entity for hundreds of millions and have scant recourse other than to eat a lot of debt, you’ll think twice about writing those kinds of loans next time. Then again, it doesn’t seem to deter Wall Street from repeatedly underwriting certain bad credit risks in gaming’s private sector, does it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He’s not just any sightseer but the type of East Coast tastemaker MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren hoped to impress: New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger. Heretofore, Goldberger’s most memorable pronouncement in re Vegas came 13 years ago, when … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,56,133,28,105,59,64,140,53,11,9,20,17,143,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4668"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24194,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions\/24194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}