In 1962, using a $10.6 million loan, Jay Sarno began building a resort on a 34-acres property on the west side of the Las Vegas strip. His vision was to emulate life under the Roman Empire, to literally come up with a palace in which everybody staying at the hotel would feel like a Caesar. Jay Sarno was the first man to recognise exactly why people visited Las Vegas: It wasn’t the gambling that attracted people; it was the fantasy. He understood that if the majority of people in the world could live like Ceasar, they would in fact, live like Ceasar.
Four years later, on the 5th of August, 1966, Jay Sarno and his financial partner, Nate Jacobsen had spent 25 million dollars on Caesars Palace and were ready for the opening. A Las Vegas newspaper trumpeted its opening with the headline: “Golden Age returns: Roman Empire reborn in Las Vegas” For this, they set aside another million. Attendees consumed two tons of filet mignon, drank fifty thousand glasses of champagne and enjoyed the largest order of Ukrainian caviar ever placed by a private organisation. True to the theme of escapism Serno so carefully managed to construct, guests were greeted by “long-legged Greco-Roman pony-tail-wigged cocktail waitresses, who were instructed to walk up … and say, ‘Welcome to Caesars Palace, I am your slave.’ ” (Land, Land, and L, 2004)
As Venturi and his research team observe in “Learning from Las Vegas” (Venturi, Brown, and Izenour, 1972), there are plenty of similarities between Rome and Las Vegas considering the general urban planning and choreography of the two cities. Both of them leading the way of the pedestrian tourist in their own superimposing ways: strikingly beautiful, tall, detailed churches in Rome, acting as landmarks on one’s path around the city. Casinos and their huge, screaming signs in Las Vegas guide you, in a much more extravagant, straightforward way, towards their entrances. Rome’s churches and piazzas are open to the public; the pilgrim walks from church to church. The gambler in Las Vegas similarly walks from casino to casino. Is there perhaps a stronger, historical connection between the way these two cities function than the one Venturi refers to?
Caesars Palace undeniably shaped the idea of what the city could offer to visitors. It wasn’t just about entertaining anymore. Sarno revisited the vicious lust of each and every slave in the ancient society of Rome had: be free to experience the life of his King. What would it feel like to live like Julius Caesar, even for a few days? To escape the tedious, monotonous routine of daily life and find yourself in a Palace? How can the organisation of one of the most brutal and hated monarchies altered to form the basis of a more innocuous one; the idea of this very city’s entertainment industry?
The twentieth anniversary commemorative issue of the Caesars Palace Magazine boasted: “Caesars Palace is an incredible simulation of ancient Rome. Only better.” Copies of classical statuary stand around the fountains near the entrance including a copy of of Giovanni Bologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women, located in front. The reference to the Roman legend of rapine and conquest (which appears again in frieze inside the Palace) invites fantasies of sexual conquests in the minds of guests. Costumed servers standing in as slaves, scantily clad cocktail goddesses were instructed to say “I am your slave” and respond to drink orders with “Yes, master” In the 14 ultra-luxurious hotel suites named after notable founding figures of the empire (one of them named “Mark Antony”; neither a founder nor an emperor), guests experience what they can imagine are Roman luxuries. The art deco, glamour-Hollywood decor creates a lavish atmosphere where guests can lounge on round beds under mirrored ceilings, sip wine in a private bar or soak in sculpted bathtubs. In the Roman Fantasy Suites, a fibre-optic display in the living room ceilings is designed to recreate the night sky as it is believed to have looked on the evening of the birth of Caesar Augustus. Huge fountains appear throughout the Palace; water is the vital element of the Oasis in the dry Nevada desert. Augustus claimed to have found Rome a city of mud-brick and left it a city of marble, while Sarno built a marble palace and casino empire in the sands of Las Vegas.
True to the american consumerism ideals, The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace offer a now striking collection of 160 retail shops and restaurants adjacent to the hotel, at the heart of the Las Vegas Strip. Whereas the thematics of Caesars Palace refer to exploitation and oppression while capitalising on the myth of a hedonistic and decadent Rome, the Forum Shops invoke an elegant and opulent Rome where consumption becomes an edifying “cultural” activity. In contrast to the overt eroticism and make-believe cruelty of the casino experience, the Forum Shops’ piazzas, fountains, designer shops and restaurants clad with a Roman façade produce a refined, orderly and harmonious urban image. No masters, no slaves and no hint of sexual violence or exploitation. Instead, shoppers and mere visitors enter a Rome that mirrors the aspirations and lifestyles of the elite and middle classes who emulate them. The architecture of the Forum Shops plays with the tradition of using Roman architectural elements to emphasise the glory and magnificence of the ancient city. In the midst of this simulated authenticity a few traces of what Charles Jencks has termed double-coding in postmodern architecture (Jencks, 2002): at one all-year-round swimwear shop, LA-style palm trees reflect on the Ionic columns that frame the store’s entrance and at the Warner Brothers Studio Store (sign reads “Warnerius Fraternius Studius Storius”), statues of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Wile E. Coyote wear the outfits of the senators and athletes decorating neighbouring roofs. These camp, ironic and often straightforward references indicate a sense of humour on the part of the various architects that worked on the Forum project. It would be impossible to maintain the illusionism of the Caesars Palace experience without the occasional acknowledgment of the fiction. Additionally, such humorous remarks remind guests that gratification and happiness is what Caesars Palace sets to offer and not the realities of the urban life back where they come from: an escape from reality.
After Caesars Palace, the merging of film, entertainment and retail industries in such a concentrated volume, a new kind of themed architectural identity was give to Las Vegas. One that responds to the public’s desire for historical gaudy reproductions, ideas of luxury relating back to the ancient Rome slavery ideals and new retail experiences. A combination of showy, playful and mix and match architecture now create the very image of Las Vegas in one’s thoughts. Hotels on The Strip intended to make you feel that you are in Paris, Venice Egypt, New York, a pirate’s island or -given that these reproductions have become famous in their own right- that you are, simply, in Las Vegas. But for a while now, it’s been clear that Las Vegas is running out of themes. Today, what Vegas relied on, the effect of dazzlement, gets old fast. In addition, the residents of one of the fastest growing city in the United States are now uncomfortable about its reputation as a place where billions of dollars are being spent on “tacky buildings”. In 2004, after several years of talk about whether modern architecture could be fitted in the Las Vegas environment, MGM Resorts International decided to turn a 66-acre site into a showcase of modern architecture, CityCentre, rafted by a glamorous selection of starchitects including Daniel Libeskind, Rafael Viñoly, Helmut Jahn and Norman Foster. The idea was to bring a 21st century smart urban planning twist to the development in Las Vegas, a “counterpoint to the kitschiness”. Twelve years later, CityCentre sits uncomfortably on the Las Vegas Strip; its sophisticated design that anywhere else could give a breath of fresh air and even contribute to a city’s architectural image, seems to be lost in translation.