Las Vegas: The Latest Architecture and News

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BIG and HNTB have just won the competition to design an Athletics ballpark in Las Vegas. Situated along the iconic Las Vegas Strip, the ballpark for the Athletics Major League Baseball team promises to uphold the values of the “Entertainment Capital of the World.” Nestled between Tropicana Avenue and Reno Avenue on Las Vegas Boulevard, the ballpark boasts 33,000 seats in an open-air stadium sprawling across nine acres.

Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG), the developer behind the recently opened The Sphere at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, has announced that plans for a similar project in London have been withdrawn for lack of support from London’s planning officials, as reported by The Guardian. The plans were initially announced in 2018, with planning permission filed in March 2019. The 300ft-tall structure, having a capacity of 21,000 seats, was to be located in Stratford, east London. In November 2023, following a combination of unfavorable comments in planning officer reports and opposition from residents, London’s mayor Sadiq Khan withdrew his initial support.

The Sphere at the Venetian Resort, previously known as the MSG Sphere, opened to the public with a series of concerts headlined by Irish rock band U2 on September 29, 2023, in Las Vegas. Designed by stadium specialist architecture office Populous, the project was first announced in 2018. Measuring 34 meters in height and 157 meters in width, the venue, whose building costs rose to $2.3 billion, is labeled the world's largest spherical structure, with its exterior clad in a high-resolution LED screen. The project, located east of the Las Vegas Strip and connected to the Venetian resort complex, is designed to host various events, including music, film events, and even some sports. To reveal the complete experience of this venue, new interior images showcase the intricate details and immersive atmosphere within.

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Las Vegas, sometimes known as Sin City, is perhaps the most famous desert metropolis where people gamble, and indulge in entertainment, and other vices. Each year, the city is visited by hundreds of millions of tourists who come to see its flashing lights and round-the-clock nightlife. Las Vegas has garnered so much attention that even Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown sought to study its urbanism, concluding with their theories on duck and decorated shed buildings in the early 1970s. But 50 years later, Vegas is still a city that constantly reinvents its architectural identity.

Earlier this month, a series of cities worldwide have revealed various initiatives that would help them better understand the effects of climate change and shape a more environmentally conscious environment. From several American cities creating digital twins to help curb carbon emissions to the city of Brighton mandating bee bricks to foster biodiversity and Central Park becoming a laboratory for studying climate change adaptation in urban parks, cities take on a multidisciplinary and multi-scalar approach to environmental issues.

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Videos

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Which building is better, the duck or the ornamented shed? More importantly, what kind of architecture does the average American prefer? In their landmark 1972 publication Learning From Las Vegas, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi probed these questions by turning their back on paternalistic modernism in favor of the glowing, overtly kitsch, and symbolic Mecca of the Las Vegas strip. From a chance encounter during a meeting in the Library of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania and shared trips to the strip to critically shaping a new generation of architects, discover the hidden details of the romance and city that defined postmodernism in this latest episode from 99% Invisible.

The Madison Square Garden Company has unveiled images of its proposed MSG Sphere in London, a next-generation venue seeking to “redefine live entertainment” through an array of technology geared towards transformative, immersive connections between artists and audiences.

To accompany the London scheme, an MSG Sphere will also be located in Las Vegas. Both are to be designed by Populous, a global firm responsible for a large number of stadia and arenas across the globe.

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