They're not fucking around in Vegas. Or are they? The MGM Mirage CityCenter—"an unprecedented $7 billion urban metropolis...defined by spectacular architecture, renowned for premier experiences and unrivaled as the address to live and live it up," as the flacks have it—starts construction today with an impressive stunt: pouring 10,000 cubic yards of concrete, delivered all at once by convoy, for the foundations. Previously announced architects for the mega-project include Cesar Pelli, KPF, Sir Norman, and Rafael Vinoly. But today's press release includes the stirring news that David Rockwell, Helmut Yawn, and our very own Daniel Libeskind have been added to the muy caliente mix. And what does MGM have the erstwhile master-healer doing?

"[a] retail district [that] will feature international luxury brands and high-end couture under a crystalline canopy of unprecedented brilliance."

Perfect.

· MGM MIRAGE Sets Project CityCenter Foundation With 'Big Pour' [Yahoo]

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Hmmm. Dallas broke ground in high style last December for Santiago Calatrava's troika of bridges over what is generously called the Trinity River. But the bids only came in last week. Turns out the whole project will cost $400 million. Turns out, too, there's no reason to replace the old bridges.

The entire purpose served by the three signature bridges, then, will be the aesthetic statement that boosters believe they will make for the city.

Blame Bilbao. Then say it with us: Adios!

· First Things Last [Dalllas Observer]
· A Special Dallas Welcome for Calatrava [The Gutter]
· America to Calatrava: Adios [The Gutter]

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A Tuesday midday mystery. A Reader calling himself "Avant Garde" writes in with the following non-tip, reproduced in its entirety:

Norman Foster - MFA Boston.

Is AG just catching up with the ancient news that Foster has been hired to do a massive re-do of that venerable Boston dame? Or maybe he's hinting that, as we've just noticed, there's a passing Blotteresque familiarity about the image above (pianissimo...)? Or, maybe—we hope—he's tipping us off that something really nasty and awesome is about to break in Beantown. Yes, that's it. That's definitely it! Still, a shout from a more prolix tipster would be most welcome.

· Building the New MFA [MFA]

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While we're stealing from Archinect letting Archinect inform us of the important news of the day—news we all need to know, mind you, so the profession can advance into a prosperous and responsible future where none of us have to worry, morning, noon, and night, about getting eaten by clowns—we might as well be inspired to act by steal something good. Brad—Brad!!!!—is holed up, caring for the kids Britney-style while Angelina tries not to push, but he's not too busy to personally call for entries in a misguided—Sustainable? The whole fucking place is sinking—competition for New Orleans.

Speaking of, where did our brother Reed Kroloff go?

· Brad Pitt: The Voice of Green...New Orleans! [The Gutter]

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As we wait, with the world, on tenterhooks for the non-announcement of the non-news that NYC gallerist and bon vivant Henry Urbach is taking over the architectural curation at San Francisco's creatively named MoMA, we see, too, that he is a day late and a dollar short. The outgoing regime has already picked a winner for the rooftop garden competition, and it's an uninspiring thing, redolent, in its provincial way, of Philip Johnson's classic garden at the real MoMA. Maybe it's irony. Like you, sometimes we miss it. But we're sure Henry would have wanted something much cooler.

· SFMOMA Picks Firm to Design Roof Garden [SF Chronicle]
· Their Loss, Our Gain: NYC Expels an Architecture Gallerist [The Gutter]

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In light of our newly acquired Thetan clarity, it has come to our attention that our much-documented pain at the shuffles over at Unbeige was, perhaps, a touch premature. We can admit now that we hadn't waited for the blogthrob dust to settle, hadn't seen what the newbies were capable of. Today, our eyes were opened, our minds changed. Because half of them just broke into the L. Ron Hubbard sperm-storage facility known as the Celebrity Center, just to see the building. And girlfriend's got balls.

My e-meter readings are taken in the corner of a sitting room with an ivory grand piano. When I’m forced to grip metal cylinders and recall a traumatic moment myself—I conjure visions of vicious German Shepherds—I observe how well the scarlet curtain swags match the red in the carpet. The auditing classrooms are upstairs, on a level painted entirely in pastoral motif, with glossy-eyed rabbits prancing along the chair rail. The world-famous purification program, a regimen which releases toxins so violently that students have been known to have drug flashbacks, takes place in a pristine black-and-white tiled spa.

· Why Scientology is Good for Hollywood [Design Observer]

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Good ideas never die. And was there ever a better idea than to suspend a glass-bottomed walkway over a near-mile-deep drop to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in order to draw tourists to your out-of-the-way reservation and then fleece them?

· A Cliff Hanger [Popular Science, via ANN]
· Our People Call it Corn [The Gutter]

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No sooner had we, in a fit a literary whimsy, referred to The Aura, if you must, as "Danny Libeskind's Sacramento cockscraper" than to our rescue and delight came a generous and informative Reader:

i was at that thing last night. unimpressive. danny's sellout is complete. cock jokes abounded. see attached: the limited-edition promotional sketch of the thing put to its natural use...

Attached, indeed.

· Department of Precrime: Danny L. Edition [The Gutter]

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Our dearest RoPog hits the blinged-up Gehry on the head again with a take on his latest LA "downtown rejuvenation" project, which is—to parse her prose—a pile of buildings, some of them pink, some of them not. A quick scan down the page tells us, a no-more-informed reader than any of RoPog's other fans, that it will be a little bit Brooklyn Ratner, a little bit Walt Disney, and a little bit Mulberry Street. Quite, but isn't architecture there to do something else? Create greater meaning? Bring people together? Yes, Frank said, Yes.

He said his goal was "to develop the beginning of a community that has the body language of a community and has the scale of a community."

· Los Angeles With a Downtown? [NYT]

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We were forced, at overlord-point, to miss last night's Cameron Sinclair Architecture for Humanity-organized panel discussion publicity rally in Chicago. Which is why we are, as ever, grateful for those more inclined to take on these more academic of issues, these loftier of thoughts, while we continue to sharpen our swords and tighten our slings. From a Dear Reader, utterly un-averse to this note-taking we hear is catching on quite well (but can't quite manage to enjoy), a Report on La Kroloff:

I attended the event in Chicago last night, which was mostly civil throughout but got briefly nasty in the middle and again at the very end.

The speakers, in order, were

Thomas Murphy, Urban Land Institute
Reed Kroloff, dean, School of Architecture, Tulane University
John Norquist, President and CEO, Congress for the New Urbanism
Kate Stohr, co-founder, Architecture for Humanity
Ned Cramer (moderator), Chicago Architecture Foundation

Murphy gave a decent overview of the problems faced in the re-building of New Orleans, as did Kroloff. Kate Stohr followed John N. with an account of her organization's work on the Gulf coast, which has consisted mainly in providing one-to-one building and instruction-for-dealing-with-the-bureaucracy services to displaced residents---all in all, very admirable work, but not strong on planning and/or policy. Cramer let the audience do Q and A at the end with an even hand. Stohr and Cramer are apparently both former employees of Kroloff (I presume at Architecture Mag), and Murphy and Kroloff have apparently worked together in New Orleans. John was therefore somewhat on his own, though the audience appeared to me much more curious than hostile; and it was only at a couple of points (including the end) where bad feeling really overflowed.

More thoroughness, con dis, after the jump.

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