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The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream
The Las Vegas Strip has impersonated the Wild West, with saloon doors and wagon wheels; it has decked itself out in midcentury modern sleekness. It has illuminated itself with twenty-story-high neon signs, then junked them. After that came Disney-like theme parks featuring castles and pirates, followed by replicas of Venetian canals, New York skyscrapers, and the Eiffel Tower. (It might be noted that forty-two million people visited Las Vegas in 2015 -- ten million more than visited the real Paris.) More recently, the Strip decided to get classy, with casinos designed by famous architects and zillion-dollar collections of art. Las Vegas became the "implosion capital of the world" as developers, driven by competition, got rid of the old to make way for the new -- offering a non-metaphorical definition of "creative destruction." In The Strip, Stefan Al examines the many transformations of the Las Vegas Strip, arguing that they mirror transformations in America itself. The Strip is not, as popularly supposed, a display of architectural freaks but representative of architectural trends and a record of social, cultural, and economic change.
Al tells two parallel stories. He describes the feverish competition of Las Vegas developers to build the snazziest, most tourist-grabbing casinos and resorts -- with a cast of characters including the mobster Bugsy Siegel, the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and the would-be political kingmaker Sheldon Adelson. And he views the Strip in a larger social context, showing that it has not only reflected trends but also magnified them and sometimes even initiated them. Generously illustrated with stunning color images throughout, The Strip traces the many metamorphoses of a city that offers a vivid projection of the American dream.
Al tells two parallel stories. He describes the feverish competition of Las Vegas developers to build the snazziest, most tourist-grabbing casinos and resorts -- with a cast of characters including the mobster Bugsy Siegel, the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and the would-be political kingmaker Sheldon Adelson. And he views the Strip in a larger social context, showing that it has not only reflected trends but also magnified them and sometimes even initiated them. Generously illustrated with stunning color images throughout, The Strip traces the many metamorphoses of a city that offers a vivid projection of the American dream.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2017
About the author
Stefan Al
23 books24 followersStefan Al is a New York-licensed architect, tenured professor, and the author and editor of ten books including Dwelling on Earth, Supertall, and The Strip, which won a Silver Medal at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and he has appeared on CNN, NPR, and the Science Channel. A former TED Resident, he has designed buildings and masterplans worldwide, including the 2,000-foot Canton Tower—briefly the world's tallest. He lives with his family in a century-old house in New Jersey.
Inspiration for Dwelling on Earth
I've lived in strikingly varied homes: a Dutch row house, a communal student residence in Delft with kitchens built for connection, a tiny Barcelona apartment, a compact Hong Kong pencil tower, and American suburban homes from California to New Jersey. Living in these spaces revealed how deeply they shaped my daily life, relationships, and worldview. That personal journey sparked larger questions about how homes influence our social bonds and environmental footprint—and what the full arc of human habitation, from rock shelters to skyscrapers, can teach us about building tomorrow's homes.
Inspiration for Dwelling on Earth
I've lived in strikingly varied homes: a Dutch row house, a communal student residence in Delft with kitchens built for connection, a tiny Barcelona apartment, a compact Hong Kong pencil tower, and American suburban homes from California to New Jersey. Living in these spaces revealed how deeply they shaped my daily life, relationships, and worldview. That personal journey sparked larger questions about how homes influence our social bonds and environmental footprint—and what the full arc of human habitation, from rock shelters to skyscrapers, can teach us about building tomorrow's homes.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 18, 2020
Absolutely fascinating. I spent two decades in Carson City, only made it down to (suburban) Vegas a couple of times, but of course they were often in the news even up north. So I had a sense of the architectural history, of the more and more interesting themes, the implosions, the mafia-financed era then and the speculative investments that financed the more recent era. I had a sense of the Mousetrap, the Cattle Chute, the attempt to choose which demographic of tourists to go after, the attempts to get them to lose more money gambling rather than just spend some money on lodging, dining and shops....
But the author has done so much research, and analyzes all the fields (not only architecture but psychology & sociology, history, marketing, construction, legislation, etc...) that I learned a *lot.* The writing is engaging, accessible, lucid. The book is beautiful - just the right size, with plenty of pictures of key references, notes, and iconographic-style maps of the Strip on the endpapers.
Way back in the 1940s, "While the Old West Texaco gas station was a complete fiction, it was nevertheless sensitive to what a gas station would have looked like if cowboys had driven cars."
A bit later, it was learned that "the elderly actually liked distance between them and their extended families, and would go as far as Arizona to achieve it."
I want to read Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form.
A lot of times the architects and designers made special efforts to be as accurate as possible to hold to a theme. For example not using cow leather in a resort designed to honor the Taj Mahal. Or Wynn's Treasure Island which had a restaurant dressed up as a pirates' library, "raising fascinating questions about buccaneer literacy...."
Much more recently, during the era when LV hired 'starchitects' and professional artists, Jenny Holzer installed a "266-foot-wide LED panel scrolling her 'truisms'... including: "It's not good to operate on credit." (:snort:)
One thing the book does not do is talk about the history of LV off the Strip. There is one mention that service workers were (at least in the early 2000s), paid a living wage. And there is a bit about how the Mormons, who don't gamble, were nevertheless involved in LV. Nor does it talk about casinos elsewhere in the state, and I find those also fascinating. Reno tries to be a mini LV, Carson City to be a mini Reno, and Elko to be a mini CC. All towns in Nevada have at least a 'Grandma's' box with some slot machines and kitsch upon which to spend your winnings... gambling is a pastime. The author does talk, though, a bit about Vegas' influence elsewhere in the world, particularly Singapore.
It also doesn't talk much about the failures of speculative financing. Somehow, until the recession of 2009, things were held together pretty well. The housing bust did hit the city, especially the ordinary ppl who thought they were living the dream by buying their own house, *very* hard. But the author kind of glosses over that and even gives us glossy photos from as recently as 2014. I want a sequel!
But the author has done so much research, and analyzes all the fields (not only architecture but psychology & sociology, history, marketing, construction, legislation, etc...) that I learned a *lot.* The writing is engaging, accessible, lucid. The book is beautiful - just the right size, with plenty of pictures of key references, notes, and iconographic-style maps of the Strip on the endpapers.
Way back in the 1940s, "While the Old West Texaco gas station was a complete fiction, it was nevertheless sensitive to what a gas station would have looked like if cowboys had driven cars."
A bit later, it was learned that "the elderly actually liked distance between them and their extended families, and would go as far as Arizona to achieve it."
I want to read Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form.
A lot of times the architects and designers made special efforts to be as accurate as possible to hold to a theme. For example not using cow leather in a resort designed to honor the Taj Mahal. Or Wynn's Treasure Island which had a restaurant dressed up as a pirates' library, "raising fascinating questions about buccaneer literacy...."
Much more recently, during the era when LV hired 'starchitects' and professional artists, Jenny Holzer installed a "266-foot-wide LED panel scrolling her 'truisms'... including: "It's not good to operate on credit." (:snort:)
One thing the book does not do is talk about the history of LV off the Strip. There is one mention that service workers were (at least in the early 2000s), paid a living wage. And there is a bit about how the Mormons, who don't gamble, were nevertheless involved in LV. Nor does it talk about casinos elsewhere in the state, and I find those also fascinating. Reno tries to be a mini LV, Carson City to be a mini Reno, and Elko to be a mini CC. All towns in Nevada have at least a 'Grandma's' box with some slot machines and kitsch upon which to spend your winnings... gambling is a pastime. The author does talk, though, a bit about Vegas' influence elsewhere in the world, particularly Singapore.
It also doesn't talk much about the failures of speculative financing. Somehow, until the recession of 2009, things were held together pretty well. The housing bust did hit the city, especially the ordinary ppl who thought they were living the dream by buying their own house, *very* hard. But the author kind of glosses over that and even gives us glossy photos from as recently as 2014. I want a sequel!
April 22, 2017
What a wonderful book! Especially helpful was a brief review at three end of each era tying past events to the era that was just discussed. The small end chapter did a good job of summarizing the events from 1930's to present. There was no obvious repetition, and this book would be for ANY fan of architecture subjects whether they've been to Las Vegas or not. Particularly interesting, as well, was all the space devoted to the evolution of signage - I had never connected this with architecture before. Love this book!
August 22, 2017
This is the best picture book I have ever read.
January 1, 2026
vegas is a fantastically unreal place
November 11, 2022
I believe I first heard about this on a 99pi episode. I added it to my list years ago and finally read it on a whim before a semi-last minute Vegas trip. I finished it upon landing, and couldn’t be happier to have read it in this timeframe. It explores the sociology of 20th and 21st century America, as seen through the city of Las Vegas and it’s architecture. The history of the city in imbued throughout and I find myself wanting a book like this for every city in the US and the world.
August 12, 2017
I wish I can remember the other book I had read on the history of Las Vegas because that one was much better. One thing I learned from this one, I don't have to worry about getting dengue fever if I visit. The author mentioned dengue three times within the book.
February 27, 2021
Despite the ponderous title, The Strip really hits the sweet spot: it’s both a thorough and insightful history of the architecture of the Strip and an accessible read for anyone with modest knowledge of modern architecture who has visited Las Vegas. This book explains how the Strip developed, who the key figures were in the development, and why the casino mix today exists. There are also a ton of color photos throughout the book that help explain its highly visual subject matter.
November 16, 2021
Another simple mind trying real hard to make some sense out of a complicated world. Symbols and signs, the gods are speaking to him.
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September 20, 2021An illuminating history of Las Vegas as seen through the evolution of its architecture. Coinciding with my first trip to the city, this helped give some sense to its maze of postmodern consumerist absurdity and highlighted its place in the “American Dream”. Here’s a smorgasbord of selections:
“Las Vegas underscores America’s entrepreneurial spirit to the extreme. A story of both waste and innovation, of failure and triumph, this book shows how a city tuned to the convulsions of the commodity economy and the fickleness of desire grew from a little desert town into one of the world’s most visited cities… Las Vegas is a microcosm of America.”
“From its inception in 1941, the Strip has mutated beyond even its own wildest dreams. In the 1940s, Strip developers dressed like cowboys, some packing real guns, built hacienda-style casinos that broke ground with moving neon displays as big as windmills. By the 1950s, casino builders replaced the wagon wheels with Cadillac tail-fin forms, and pumped underwater Muzak into exotically shaped pools. The 1960s neon signs, as tall as twenty-story buildings and as long as two football fields, were ripped down in the 1970s when the emphasis shifted to the buildings themselves, and chandeliers the size of trucks. By the next decade, the chandeliers had been replaced by a ten-story, laser-eyed Sphinx and a fiery volcano spewing piña colada scent. Charmed by the world’s famous cities in the late 1990s, Las Vegas built replicas, including the Eiffel Tower, New York skyscrapers, and Venetian canals. But in the new millennium, a mere decade later, replicas were out and serious architectural originals, which housed museum-quality collections of authentic art, were in.”
“It took an Italian immigrant to bring the Las Vegas “casino” back to its etymological roots. Casino originally meant “little house” in Italian, and referred to a small country villa, or a luxurious pavilion built for pleasure, typically in the grounds of large palaces, such as Villa Giulia in Rome, built by the Pope. These pavilions had a somewhat public function as places to listen to music, to dance, and to gamble.”
““In the treacherous sunlight we see Venice decayed, forlorn, poverty-stricken, and commerceless—forgotten and utterly insignificant,” wrote Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad (1869), ambivalent about all the fuss over old Europe. Today, the pressure of tourism makes the real Venice more like a theme park, overflowing with tourists, while rising prices force out locals. Franci hinted: “Haven’t you ever had the impression that Venice also has unfortunately turned a bit into Las Vegas?””
“Even the city of Boston, full of historic landmarks that stand as a testament to the founding of the United States of America, is currently building a Wynn casino.”
“City governments around the world now aspired to boost their economies with a dash of casinopolitanism. Even Singapore, the country that traditionally saw casinos as a moral hazard, now wished to build its new central business district, the Marina Bay, around a Las Vegas-style casino… With revenue from Singapore’s two casinos alone expected to surpass the revenue of the entire Las Vegas Strip, one thing was clear: in the Strip’s cosmopolitan age the most extravagant casinos operated no longer solely in Las Vegas, but had been unleashed into the world.”
— The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream by Stefan Al
https://a.co/8zR1hbN
“Las Vegas underscores America’s entrepreneurial spirit to the extreme. A story of both waste and innovation, of failure and triumph, this book shows how a city tuned to the convulsions of the commodity economy and the fickleness of desire grew from a little desert town into one of the world’s most visited cities… Las Vegas is a microcosm of America.”
“From its inception in 1941, the Strip has mutated beyond even its own wildest dreams. In the 1940s, Strip developers dressed like cowboys, some packing real guns, built hacienda-style casinos that broke ground with moving neon displays as big as windmills. By the 1950s, casino builders replaced the wagon wheels with Cadillac tail-fin forms, and pumped underwater Muzak into exotically shaped pools. The 1960s neon signs, as tall as twenty-story buildings and as long as two football fields, were ripped down in the 1970s when the emphasis shifted to the buildings themselves, and chandeliers the size of trucks. By the next decade, the chandeliers had been replaced by a ten-story, laser-eyed Sphinx and a fiery volcano spewing piña colada scent. Charmed by the world’s famous cities in the late 1990s, Las Vegas built replicas, including the Eiffel Tower, New York skyscrapers, and Venetian canals. But in the new millennium, a mere decade later, replicas were out and serious architectural originals, which housed museum-quality collections of authentic art, were in.”
“It took an Italian immigrant to bring the Las Vegas “casino” back to its etymological roots. Casino originally meant “little house” in Italian, and referred to a small country villa, or a luxurious pavilion built for pleasure, typically in the grounds of large palaces, such as Villa Giulia in Rome, built by the Pope. These pavilions had a somewhat public function as places to listen to music, to dance, and to gamble.”
““In the treacherous sunlight we see Venice decayed, forlorn, poverty-stricken, and commerceless—forgotten and utterly insignificant,” wrote Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad (1869), ambivalent about all the fuss over old Europe. Today, the pressure of tourism makes the real Venice more like a theme park, overflowing with tourists, while rising prices force out locals. Franci hinted: “Haven’t you ever had the impression that Venice also has unfortunately turned a bit into Las Vegas?””
“Even the city of Boston, full of historic landmarks that stand as a testament to the founding of the United States of America, is currently building a Wynn casino.”
“City governments around the world now aspired to boost their economies with a dash of casinopolitanism. Even Singapore, the country that traditionally saw casinos as a moral hazard, now wished to build its new central business district, the Marina Bay, around a Las Vegas-style casino… With revenue from Singapore’s two casinos alone expected to surpass the revenue of the entire Las Vegas Strip, one thing was clear: in the Strip’s cosmopolitan age the most extravagant casinos operated no longer solely in Las Vegas, but had been unleashed into the world.”
— The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream by Stefan Al
https://a.co/8zR1hbN
December 26, 2022
Engaging architectural history of Las Vegas. I should start off that I am not a gambler and the ersatz Venice struck me as wrong in everyway when I have visited in the past. But this book approaches the evolution of the strip from a design perspective. Vegas has always been about profits and the thesis is Vegas is just American design but easier to see due to the continual re-development of resorts. I am awe struck that Vegas really did not exist until 1940 and is now a city of over 2 million, driven by tourism. The original resorts were on the wild west theme and catered to the nearby military and a small flow of tourists driving from Los Angeles. They were simple motels with pools and a stable. But after the war, huge amounts of mafia money came in, along with the post-war prosperity. Clark County, Nevada was libertarian to the point of being the only state in the country to allow gambling. In 1952, the sands opens - the design inspired from the Cadillac automobiles. Huge property designed by Wayne McAllister - focusing on car culture with a huge canopy for driving to the entrance. In 1955 was the first of many boom bust cycles - 4 new resorts opened and three went bankrupt. The next innovation - the Hacienda - opened by Warren "Doc" Bayley also ran an airline to bring in tourists. The peak of Vegas was the 1960s - where the neon signs were as large as the buildings. This is when Stardust and horseshoe were built and there was a race for the biggest, brightest signs all fueled by mob and teamster pension money. Starting in the 1970s, Howard Huges and corporations enter the space. More conservative, many of the new resorts looked like glass office buildings of the international school. In response, came the Disneyland of the late 1980s - this included the Excalibur, Mirage (with volcano), Treasure Island (just different enough from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean) and Luxor. It was a shift to family entertainment - which would be short lived. The profits have always been in gambling - either high end wales or the masses - but always gambling. This led to the next era of Sim City - New York, New York, Paris, and Venetian. There were even plans for a London and San Francisco hotels before the next bust happened. Ironic aside - when the USPS issued a stamp with the statute of Liberty it actually used the Vegas version.
February 10, 2021
I liked it, it was easy to read, and I looked forward to picking it up every day. My only quibble would be that it was heavy on the history and light on the architecture—I'm a huge fan of architecture, and am dreaming of the day I get a nice thick book that spends some time actually looking at the details of the casino architecture, instead of just mentioning "looks like Venice," and including a picture of the exterior.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
July 7, 2018
3.5 stars. An episode on the “99% Invisible” podcast piqued my interest in this book. It’s a fascinating exploration into how Las Vegas architecture has both reflected and influenced American culture. The writing’s a bit choppy and repetitive though, thus the lower rating.
April 18, 2022
Both informative and beautiful. Las Vegas good as America goes.
September 26, 2022
Very academic but very interesting.
August 17, 2024
Less of a picture book and more of an academic essay but it rocked
January 26, 2025
Good thesis, and Sefan Al really won the lottery with the cover. So stylish.
March 22, 2019
A unique perspective on the history of Las Vegas.
When looking for books to read before my first Vegas trip, many were focused on crime bosses, celebrities, drugs, etc. This book instead focuses on the iconic buildings of the quintessential resort town, dividing the history of Las Vegas into several eras based on specific architectural themes and aesthetic values. Crime bosses and celebrities still play a part of course, but so do overarching historical trends, which the author explores with great interest.
When looking for books to read before my first Vegas trip, many were focused on crime bosses, celebrities, drugs, etc. This book instead focuses on the iconic buildings of the quintessential resort town, dividing the history of Las Vegas into several eras based on specific architectural themes and aesthetic values. Crime bosses and celebrities still play a part of course, but so do overarching historical trends, which the author explores with great interest.
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February 22, 2018725.76 A3164 2017
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews