welcome to themerica™ :: an MFA design thesis by dave gottwald :: academy of art university

the venetian macau’s grand canal shoppes are very similar to the original design in las vegas—yet about double the total size (something like 149,000 square meters, spread over two stories).

rather than a single, winding route with a few forks, the space forms a circular ring shape in which three main canal routes are connected by a series of plazas. this forms roughly a hub-and-spoke format (similar to disneyland, actually) with the main escalators, down to the casino on the ground floor, in the center.

i’ve wandered through the the venetian in las vegas a couple of times before, so the concept here was not foreign to me—but the signage certainly was.

it was oddly curious to see traditional chinese characters pointing me towards st. mark’s square (not piazza san marco?), for example, given marco polo’s travels to china during nearly the same italian period depicted in this thematic environment.

the false skies i first saw at shopping malls in dubai are used here to the same ends—a sense of timelessness and indoor-as-outdoor that confuses the eye and confounds the understanding.

forced perspective is carefully employed to give all the shop facades added verisimilitude, combined with vibrant color hues and ornate detail work at every turn. despite being patently fake, the overall design is certainly impressive.

these canals really distort the senses—i was here about two or three hours but it might just as well have been two or three minutes (or two or three days, for that matter). part of this is not only in the lighting and setting, but the overall din; shoes scuffling, patrons talking, children shouting, and all of it echoed and thus amplified.

this also made the setting noticeably less peaceful that outdoor thematic venues such as a disney theme park, and made it harder for me to suspend disbelieve and succumb to the illusion.

more than anything, it was the timelessness that i fell prey to, which i suppose, in a casino/shopping complex is the desired effect. i don’t enjoy gambling—but if i did, i would have felt the urge probably as pressing as my persistent hunger and thirst. the one thing i didn’t feel was tired, however. like wasting away the wee hours in front of a computer monitor, the omnipresent artificial light stimulates (well, more like pokes and prods) the cortex and fights off circadian rhythms from taking hold.

bright blue, chlorinated waterways with singing gondoliers; a synthetic, backlit clouded blue sky; electric lampposts subtly flickering like candles—what would marco polo make of this place; moreover, what would he think about having never left china at all?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 5:47 pm and is filed under field notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.