Love in Las Vegas: An Introduction of Spaces of Desire to Sin City
View/ Open
Abstract
“Falling in love, according to Socrates, is both madness and a
revelation of the world as it really is.” - Perez-Gomez, Built Upon Love.
Perhaps this is exactly what Las Vegas so desperately needs: a
revelation among its inhabitants and visitors alike, a reawakening
from the perpetual illusion of the Strip. It is only through
understanding the city’s present identity and current function
as a business that people may come to believe in what Sin City
could still grow to be. Sin City blatantly advertises eroticism and
desire, but many of its promises of erotic fulfillment fall flat once
you pass through the elaborate facades of Las Vegas’s casinos
and resorts.
Through my proposal for sequential spaces of desire (placed
intermittently along the Strip) I hope to provide visitors and locals
alike with a new way to view love and desire. I hope to personify
the city through my architecture and provide the city with a body
underneath its elaborate dress, behind the glamorous facades.
By developing a narrative and journey that will take participants
into previously unexplored, virgin terrain, I aspire to embody
emotion through architecture and provide an experience unlike
any other to be found along the Strip. By pushing the limits of
architectural fiction and fantasy, I hope to make the soul (Psyche)
dance, intertwined once again in a loving embrace with her
beloved Eros, god of desire and love.
The city’s insistent demand for instant gratification and
immediate pleasure has resulted in the creation of a business,
not a community. Sin City may be the pleasure capitol of the
world, but it knows nothing of love and meaningful encounters.
Las Vegas is a city without a love story.