On my second day in Hong Kong, I decided to take a ferry to nearby Macau, the world's gambling capital (its gaming revenues surpassed former global mecca Las Vegas in 2005). Ever since the local casino monopoly was opened to foreign operators seven years ago, American-style mega-resorts have been popping up on the burgeoning "Cotai Strip."
The Sands Macau opened in 2004, The Wynn in 2006, and the MGM Grand followed in 2007. That same year brought the arrival of The Venetian Macau, the city's first major themed casino resort. Accordingly, it's where I spent much of my day wandering around.
The Venetian Macau is a manifestation of the very same phenomenon that I witnessed at the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort—a sort of copy-of-a-copy degradation. Just like the Main Street U.S.A. at that park strives to be a "100% copy of the American original," so too does this $2.4 billion, 980,000 square meter mega-resort strive to replicate the Las Vegas original (opened in 1999). Designed by Wimberly, Allison, Tong and Goo (WATG), the original Venetian Resort is of course itself a replication capturing the essence of Venice and the romance of the Italian Renaissance.
In the initial Vegas design, every effort was made in name of "authenticity"—the publicity materials routinely boast of the scrupulous attention to detail with regards to the architecture, fine art and finishing touches.
All of these designs in turn were the basis for the Macau casino hotel. The theme is no longer Venice; the theme is The Venetian itself.
Just as the original Disney park "Magic Kingdom" model has become a global brand, replicating itself across three continents (albeit through varied mutations that reflect local culture, economy, geography and climate), so too has the exotic Las Vegas mega-resort now been transformed into an self-contained, exportable thematic package.
If theming is by definition always referential, what happens when its design language is fully internalized, drawing not on external visions but rather caught in a narcissistic navel gaze? Where the only reference is the reference? The themes of the twenty-first century are not times and places of old; they are themes of already established design properties—themes of themes.