Repositioning Chinatown Las Vegas : theming authenticity and theory of boring architecture

Abstract

China's surging economy compels cities worldwide to employ an extreme form of reverse colonization. A race is in progress to build the world's largest Chinatown. St. Petersburg and Dubai's are under construction and London is talking about it. Las Vegas belatedly joins the competition. The city already boasts the fist planned Chinatown - although it's just a strip mall. Learning from the success of its Chinatown Plaza, I propose an instant "Worlds' largest Chinatown" in collaboration with the newly formed International Chinatown Development Corporation. Situated in the capital of theming, Chinatown Las Vegas offers something different. The Paris Hotel Casino doesn't come with Parisians, but Chinatown Las Vegas comes with the Chinese. How can Chinatown exploit its themed people to market its notorious otherness? The success of current architectural practices of them- ing rests on its ability to mask the banal with signifiers of the exotic. The effects of this "shock and awe" approach, however, are short lived. My project offers an alternative; I begin with the banal to not end there. Instead of designing every aspect of the new Chinatown, I will populate the site with ready-mades; "carpet theming" by copy-paste. Preserving all existing buildings on the site, multistory Platforms (parking structures) fill current parking lots. Chinatown Signage (Chinatown Plaza roof multiplied) blankets the site, pinned to the ground by Cores (infrastructure towers). With: 3 components 1 square mile 1 manual (25 examples) 20,000 Chinese an infrastructure for guerrilla programming is deployed. The architect fastens the parts as the themed population begins the occupation.