Luxe Life Blog

MGM CityCenter Part 5: Meet the architects, and what’s still to come

Posted November 20, 2009 • 1:52 p.m.

CityCenter at night.

Photo: Kirvin Doak Communications

Today is Part 5 of our five-part series on MGM’s CityCenter, opening next month on the Strip. The links to Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 are at the end of this story.

It’s already been dubbed the newest wonder of the world. Now it’s time for the architects, who took MGM’s dream and vision and turned it into the reality of CityCenter, to take credit.

Architect Cesar Pelli, who brought Aria with its retail, dining and entertainment extravaganza Crystals to life, said: “It is a shimmering world of reflections. With Aria, there was much interchange of ideas. The gathering of so many creative people energized us all and made us aim for higher goals. Buildings shape the places where we work, where we live, and they can serve to make our lives richer and more enjoyable.”

Back in 2004, CityCenter was just a blank canvas that with energy and talent would become the creation of the most ambitious and visionary development ever conceived in the world’s most dynamic, entertaining and exciting city. How does someone design an entire city inside a city that already exists?

MGM executives traveled the world to assemble a dream team of the world’s foremost architects and two of America’s foremost builders. The design phase alone took 20 months. The world’s largest architectural firm led the process, managing seven world-class architects, 45 interior designers and hundreds of consultants.

Pelli Clark Pelli has created four of the world’s largest private developments: New York’s World Financial Center, Kula Lumpur City Centre in Malaysia, the Canary Wharf complex in London and Hong Kong’s International Finance Center. The firm was selected to create Aria. Rafael Vinoly of RV Architecture, who has designed the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Jazz Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center and the Montevideo, Uruguay, International Airport, was selected for the nongaming, nonsmoking Vdara Hotel and Spa.

Chicago-based architect Helmut Jahn, who designed the Sony Center in Berlin and the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels, was given the responsibility of the unique residential development Veer Towers. He said: “They symbolize spirit and optimism. By leaning them, they became a sculpture with a strong iconic value.” Two large-scale commissioned works by Richard Long titled Circle of Life and Earth each measuring 80 feet high and 50 feet wide are drawn on mud walls from Red Rock. New York-based Kohn Pederson Fox conceived the sophisticated sanctuary of the nongaming Mandarin Oriental at the entrance to CityCenter, with the public spaces designed by interior designer Adam Tihany.

Studio Daniel Libeskind, who won the World Trade Center competition in 2003 and worked on the Denver Art Museum and Jewish Museum in Berlin, was the exterior architect for Crystals. David Rockwell, who was instructed to make the modern building inviting, engaging, intriguing and relaxing, handled the interior architecture. David is well known here in Las Vegas with a variety of leading restaurants and theatrical staging. He designed last year’s Oscars show, the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, the Film Center at New York’s Lincoln Center and The W hotel in Manhattan.

London’s Foster+Partners, who designed the Hearst Tower in Manhattan and the Beijing Airport, was selected for The Harmon Hotel, which is still to come. The Harmon has been designed and conceived as the world’s most exclusive boutique hotel, with 400 superb hotel rooms in its curving 28-story facade as another gateway to CityCenter. It will be operated and managed as a hip and exclusive property by The Light Group, who run the Bank in the Bellagio and Jet in The Mirage, along with numerous restaurants. It, too, is a nongaming property. A stainless steel aluminum and lacquer single rose in full bloom, from artist Isa Genzken, stands 26 feet tall, weighs more than 1,000 pounds and will be at the porte-cochere.

The Harmon, which is set to open late next year, will be the final building of CityCenter.

This morning, MGM Mirage officials proudly announced that it has earned its fifth and sixth Gold Ratings from the U.S. Green Building Council with the certifications of The Mandarin Oriental and the Veer Towers. It’s the highest LEED achievement by any development in Las Vegas and now makes the 18 million-square-foot metropolis one of the world’s largest sustainable communities.

“From its inception to design, development and construction, we had one single goal in mind, which was to create CityCenter as a destination that is not only built in an environmentally sustainable manner but also operates every day with an equal commitment to conserving natural resources” said City Center CEO and President Bobby Baldwin. “With this new total of six LEED gold recognitions, we’re very close to sharing with the world a remarkable demonstration that a community can be both beautiful and sustainable.”

Some of those environmentally sustainable highlights include the first energy generation on the Strip with a natural gas co-generation power plant providing electricity while reducing emissions and using the waste heat to provide domestic hot water; the world’s first fleet of stretch limos powered by clean burning natural gas; and water conservation of as much as 43 percent within buildings and 60 percent in outdoor landscaping, a savings of 50 million gallons each year. The energy savings in CityCenter would be enough to power nearly 9,000 homes. Guests are cooled from the ground up rather than wasting down-energy cooling from empty ceiling space. Even the slot machines have bases serving as vents!

It’s now just 10 days to the Dec. 1 opening of the Vdara Hotel and Spa to be followed Dec. 3 by the Crystals. The Mandarin Oriental opens Dec. 4, with the Aria following on Dec. 16 as the grand official opening gala for the entire 70-acre complex.

Click HERE for Part 1, click HERE for Part 2, click HERE for Part 3, and click HERE for Part 4 of our five-part series posted each day this week. Next week, we have our chat with Eva Longoria Parker, the Desperate Housewives star who is opening her new Beso restaurant and Eve nightclub in Crystals.

The world’s newest wonder is in a countdown of just 250 hours before the doors are opened for the first time to visitors from around the globe. I’m predicting that all people will say is one word -- “wow!” -- and then nothing follows because they’re struck speechless.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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