Date of publication from publisher's web site. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Introduction: Las Vegas as America -- Wild West (1941-1946) -- Sunbelt modern (1946-1958) -- Pop City (1958-1969) -- Corporate modern (1969-1985) -- Disneyland (1985-1995) -- Sim City (1995-2001) -- Starchitecture (2001-present) -- Conclusion: America as Las Vegas.
Summary:
"The Las Vegas Strip has impersonated the Wild West, with saloon doors and wagon wheels; it has decked itself out in midcentury modern sleekness. It has illuminated itself with twenty-story-high neon signs, then junked them. After that came Disney-like theme parks featuring castles and pirates, followed by replicas of Venetian canals, New York skyscrapers, and the Eiffel Tower. (It might be noted that forty-two million people visited Las Vegas in 2015--ten million more than visited the real Paris.) More recently, the Strip decided to get classy, with casinos designed by famous architects and zillion-dollar collections of art. Las Vegas became the "implosion capital of the world" as developers, driven by competition, got rid of the old to make way for the new--offering a non-metaphorical definition of "creative destruction." In The Strip, Stefan Al examines the many transformations of the Las Vegas Strip, arguing that they mirror transformations in America itself. The Strip is not, as popularly supposed, a display of architectural freaks but representative of architectural trends and a record of social, cultural, and economic change." -- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.