A Cultural Gamble

High culture and big-time kitsch clashed in Las Vegas this weekend, and both survived without a hitch.

That’s the surprising truth revealed by two new Guggenheim museums that open Sunday at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino--the first major venue for a museum of national standing in a city known more for easy pleasures and fast action.

Designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the two structures are radically different in scale and appearance. The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum’s compact, muscular steel shell evokes a strongbox for high art--its hard-edged form embedded into one side of the casino’s grandiose, Italianate lobby. The massive, 63,700-square-foot Guggenheim Las Vegas is a much bolder statement by two of the world’s most celebrated architects--Koolhaas, who designed the cavernous, warehouse-like space, and Frank Gehry, who designed the installation for its inaugural show, “The Art of the Motorcycle.”

Together, they offer a compelling view of contrasting styles. Both buildings challenge preconceived notions about the role of art in a landscape of pop culture. Both projects reignite old questions about the relationship between architecture and art. In addition, each architect represents wildly different sensibilities. While Gehry’s work is intuitive, Koolhaas’ is more cerebral.

The fact that this creative friction has not produced architecture of lasting importance may be beyond the point in a city that is continuously picking up and disposing of the latest trends. There are some meaningful architectural moments here, and that in itself is noteworthy.

Of the two museums, the Guggenheim Las Vegas is the more impressive. To get to it, you must first pass through the hotel lobby and the casino. From there, you slip around escalators that lead up to the main shopping arcade before finally reaching the entry to the museum: a set of military-gray roll-up steel doors that look as if they might lead to the loading dock.

Clearly, Koolhaas wants to remind us that money and commerce--not lofty ideas about beauty and culture--remain the central focus here. The main room, which is seven stories tall, is essentially a steel frame that leads up to a translucent glass and corrugated-metal ceiling. A concrete trench that houses two lower-level galleries cuts lengthwise across the main floor. An enormous steel door dominates the room. Painted in bold black and orange stripes, it looks like an escape hatch big enough for a nuclear submarine.

The entire museum serves as a hyper-functional machine for viewing art. The door pivots open and shut to allow for easy installation of exhibitions. A mechanical gantry can be used to lift sculptures in and out of the space. Large floor panels--some glass, others galvanized steel--can be placed over the trench to create additional floor space.

The effect is a radical reversal of how we normally think of art. On the most obvious level, Koolhaas is creating a blunt sanctuary from the garish ornaments and endless ringing of slot machines that fill the city. But the design is also a more subtle play on old Modernist themes. To the Modernists, such vast Industrial Age structures were the equivalent of medieval cathedrals. As such, they were models for a new, more honest architectural aesthetic. The clarity of that aesthetic--stripped of all unnecessary ornament--represented the birth of a new social order.

Such notions of architectural honesty were a myth, of course. The famous I-beam detail on the facade of Mies van der Rohe’s 1958 Seagram building, for example, was merely a decorative flourish, despite its industrial look.

Koolhaas’ design plays with such expectations--the idea that anything is more or less real than anything else. The mechanical gantry looks as if it is meant to carry ships, not artwork. The door seems wildly over-scaled. To drive home the point, the louvered skylight is decorated with a translucent reproduction of the Sistine Chapel--an element of whimsy that underscores that sense of illusion.

But in raising such issues, Koolhaas is also questioning the role of the art institution in our culture. Museums are, in part, promotional instruments. By placing their seal of approval on a work of art, they increase its value. Here, the value of things becomes more illusive.

Set inside this conceptual framework, Gehry’s sensuous, sculptural forms seem almost too wild.

On the main floor, the installation includes four gallery spaces, each wrapped inside a flowing curtain-like form. A large, towering glass box straddles the trench at one end of the room. A chain-link mesh curtain frames the other. In between, three towering, curvaceous forms--their skins clad in mirrored steel--fill up the room.

The tension between these forms and the hard edges of Koolhaas’ box is palpable. Yet Gehry makes subtle gestures toward fusing the two into a cohesive composition. The transparent structure of the glass box links the two sensibilities, while the mirrored steel reflects fragmented images of the surrounding structure.

There is a playful dance going on here, between masculine and feminine, Apollonian and Dionysian themes. But the overall effect is slightly cluttered, and it may be too fussy for Las Vegas. The one moment of calm here, in fact, is in Gehry’s gallery forms, where the soft white undulating walls pick up the dramatic, elongated shadows of the motorcycles--one of the few moments you actually notice the exhibition itself.

If you are really in a contemplative mood, however, head over to the Guggenheim Hermitage. Dubbed the “Jewel Box,” the intimate 7,660-square-foot museum is a more concise version of Koolhaas’ vision. In this space, it is the art that the architect must contend with. Koolhaas’ design is literally carved out of the Venetian’s main facade. An enormous plate of steel cuts through one end of the bridge that spans the hotel’s main entry. At the other end, the bookstore--whose walls and shelves are made of milky, translucent plastic--is imbedded in what was once a VIP lounge; an elaborate chandelier and some of the gaudy molding can still be seen amid the volumes of art books.

The art, meanwhile, is encased inside a long, rectangular Cor-Ten steel box, which is divided into four galleries by a series of 6-foot-thick, hollow steel walls. The walls can pivot to create a variety of configurations, including a continuous loop throughout the space.

As in the larger museum, however, that sense of an impenetrable vault for viewing art is not quite what it seems. The enormous panels are set slightly off the ground, so that a sliver of light passes underneath, creating an eerie sense of weightlessness.

Conceptually, it is a clever idea. Where the design falls short, however, is in the details. The steel plates have a polished finish that looks similar to fine leather but detracts from their toughness. Koolhaas also originally imagined the ceiling as a translucent plastic skin, a wonderful notion that would have echoed the sliver of light below. But that version was dropped, and the final one--a folding plane of blond wood panels--gives the galleries an air of refinement that recalls a high-end boutique.

Ultimately, it does not help that Koolhaas’ design has to compete against the exquisite beauty of the Hermitage’s collection of late 19th century and early 20th century masterpieces. Only the strongest architectural statement could hold its own amid such art.

Of course, nothing in Vegas endures. Architecture and art here will only last as long as they can hold the public’s attention--and make money. Koolhaas and Gehry have proven that serious architecture can survive amid the vulgarity of Las Vegas. Whether this is a temporary foothold remains to be seen.