Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas A-B
Aria Resort & Casino
3730 South Las Vegas Boulevard,
Las Vegas, Nevada 89158,
United States
Phone: (702) 590-7757
Website: aria.mgmresorts.com/en.html
About the Casino
To say that Aria is unlike any Las Vegas casino hotel that has come before it is an understatement of huge proportions. It is, quite literally, a game changer from a design perspective and may very well chart the future of what you'll see in the city for decades to come.
As the centerpiece of the CityCenter development, the 4,004 room Aria is a modernist wonder; visually delightful in just about every way. Granted, this is all a matter of taste, but has been a long time since a Las Vegas hotel made such an immediate and lasting impression on me.
The exterior of the building is deceptive. At first glance it looks like a fairly basic glass and steel skyscraper. But look closely and you'll start to note the intersecting curves and echoing angles that make up an almost silky shape. It's certainly a welcome change from the bland, slab sided boxes that most Vegas hotel towers have become.
But it is inside where the place really takes off. The interior spaces are simply stunning, with a soaring lobby filled with lots of natural light, sculpture (art and architecture), and plants combining to create a warm welcome. Check out the huge reception desk with the giant window behind it - that's a Maya Lin (designer of the Vietnam War Memorial) art piece hanging in front of it.
The casino is just off the lobby and it stretches off in a 150,000 square-foot semi-circle making it the second largest gaming space in Las Vegas (behind only the MGM Grand). If you can ignore the slot machines and table games for a minute, you can really start to appreciate the design details here. It's dark - darker than just about any other casino on The Strip - but there are shafts of natural light that peek in here and there and provide interesting offsets to the heavy use of wood, metal, stone, glass, and fabric around the room. It's as if the whole thing is one big art installation, with sinewy colored glass structures, fabric covered walls, and copper and wood clad support columns everywhere you look. It is, without a doubt, the most visually dramatic casino in town.
See Aria full review courtesy of Rick Garman's Vegas4Visitors.com
