Wednesday, January 6, 2016 10:30 am
-
10:30 am
EST (GMT -05:00)
Of
the
thesis
entitled: The
Generic
Spectacle
Abstract:
The completion
of
the
CityCenter
resort
on
the
Las
Vegas
Strip
in
2009
by
MGM Resorts
marks
the
single
largest
privately
funded
development
in
American history.
It
also
marks
a
departure
from
all-encompassing
themes
of
kitsch, masquerading
as
a
self-sustaining
city
with
condominium
towers,
an
extensive public
art
program
and
a
fire
station.
However,
the
development
ultimately fails
to
deliver
on
its
touted
claims
of
a
“pedestrian
focused
urban
plan”, devoid
of
the
essential
public
amenities
that
allow
cities
to
meet
the needs
of its
citizens.
French theorist Guy Debord prefigures this subsequent downgrading of ‘having’ into merely ‘appearing’ within contemporary capitalist society with the release of The Society of the Spectacle in 1967. During the same time period, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour would release Learning from Las Vegas, identifying the increased prominence of the sign within the emerging “American commercial vernacular”. Rem Koolhaas followed with ‘Relearning from Las Vegas’ in 2001, a study of the Las Vegas Strip comparing then-and-now along with an accompanying text in which he credits Learning from Las Vegas as the first in a trend of books about cities. In the accompanying text, Koolhaas also states that the seminal study was “a manifesto for the shift from substance to sign...decipher[ing] the impact of substance on culture”.
This culminates in what I am proposing as “The Generic Spectacle”, a hypothesis that describes the widespread proliferation of Las Vegas Strip-style urbanism in countless contemporary city centers. The writings of Guy Debord and Rem Koolhaas will comprise a framework in which the development of the region will be theorized, supported with contributions from the fields of economics, sociology, and geography. Subsequently, the history of development in the Las Vegas region will be divided into three distinct parts in order to define the pre-existing conditions that generate The Generic Spectacle.
The first includes the foundations of the spectacle as defined by Debord, with the aligning of State and economic interests alongside incessant technological renewal. It will be argued that the modernist concept of ‘tabula rasa’ would underscore these two foundations. Secondly, the widespread liberalization that occurred in postwar America would reinforce Las Vegas as the center of resurgent capitalism with a service-based leisure economy as its primary vehicle. A powerful convergence of capital would give rise to increasing monopolization and result in an all-encompassing resort campus building typology. Finally, the manufacturing of fantasy inherent in the themed environments of the Strip serve to obscure a troubling duality of freedom, one that is reinforced by the close proximity of Las Vegas and the United States Air Force. A prevailing sense of destruction is apparent throughout the history of the region with the constant razing of buildings for larger resorts and the systematic dismantling of a collective public under the ongoing processes of neoliberalism.
Through a review of the development of the Las Vegas Strip, this thesis will theorize convergence, the erasure of labour and historical context along with the broader implications of the Generic Spectacle as it pertains to the fields of architecture and urbanism.
The examining committee is as follows:
French theorist Guy Debord prefigures this subsequent downgrading of ‘having’ into merely ‘appearing’ within contemporary capitalist society with the release of The Society of the Spectacle in 1967. During the same time period, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour would release Learning from Las Vegas, identifying the increased prominence of the sign within the emerging “American commercial vernacular”. Rem Koolhaas followed with ‘Relearning from Las Vegas’ in 2001, a study of the Las Vegas Strip comparing then-and-now along with an accompanying text in which he credits Learning from Las Vegas as the first in a trend of books about cities. In the accompanying text, Koolhaas also states that the seminal study was “a manifesto for the shift from substance to sign...decipher[ing] the impact of substance on culture”.
This culminates in what I am proposing as “The Generic Spectacle”, a hypothesis that describes the widespread proliferation of Las Vegas Strip-style urbanism in countless contemporary city centers. The writings of Guy Debord and Rem Koolhaas will comprise a framework in which the development of the region will be theorized, supported with contributions from the fields of economics, sociology, and geography. Subsequently, the history of development in the Las Vegas region will be divided into three distinct parts in order to define the pre-existing conditions that generate The Generic Spectacle.
The first includes the foundations of the spectacle as defined by Debord, with the aligning of State and economic interests alongside incessant technological renewal. It will be argued that the modernist concept of ‘tabula rasa’ would underscore these two foundations. Secondly, the widespread liberalization that occurred in postwar America would reinforce Las Vegas as the center of resurgent capitalism with a service-based leisure economy as its primary vehicle. A powerful convergence of capital would give rise to increasing monopolization and result in an all-encompassing resort campus building typology. Finally, the manufacturing of fantasy inherent in the themed environments of the Strip serve to obscure a troubling duality of freedom, one that is reinforced by the close proximity of Las Vegas and the United States Air Force. A prevailing sense of destruction is apparent throughout the history of the region with the constant razing of buildings for larger resorts and the systematic dismantling of a collective public under the ongoing processes of neoliberalism.
Through a review of the development of the Las Vegas Strip, this thesis will theorize convergence, the erasure of labour and historical context along with the broader implications of the Generic Spectacle as it pertains to the fields of architecture and urbanism.
The examining committee is as follows:
Supervisor:
Adrian Blackwell,
University
of
Waterloo
Committee Members:
Marie-Paule
Macdonald,
University of
Waterloo
Lola Sheppard, University of Waterloo
Lola Sheppard, University of Waterloo
The
committee
has
been
approved
as
authorized
by
the
Graduate
Studies
Committee.
The
Defence
Examination
will
take
place:
Wednesday
January
6,
2016
10:30AM
ARC
2003
A
copy
of
the
thesis
is
available
for
perusal
in
ARC
2106A.