LAS VEGAS:THE SUCCESS OF EXCESS

Generations of tourists and critics have come to Las Vegas to experience the show that is the city. For the public at large, that show is synonymous with gambling, entertainment and casinos. For art and architecture culterati, the city means all of the above as well as a source of pop references right up there with rock'n'roll and the movies. This book is a journey along the Strip and down Fremont Street, taking in the famous casinos and hotels and tracing the development of Las Vegas as an urban theme park. An essay charts the increasingly elaborate and manipulative strategies employed by casino designers to pull in the punters and keep them spending and looks at the other Las Vegas: the fortified neighbourhoods and banal suburban shopping malls which stretch out into the desert for miles on either side of the Strip.