Debating Architecture In Las Vegas

"On the Strip, a giant black glass pyramid sits next to a fairy tale-inspired castle with brightly colored turrets. A faux-Deco rip-off of Manhattan's skyline stands down the street from respectful if miniaturized copies of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

Is this jarring mishmash of architectural styles necessarily a bad thing? To the tens of millions of tourists who flock here annually, the answer apparently is no.

Yet this is one of the questions being asked of downtown's rising urban center, Union Park, and two of its anchor structures, the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute and the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, which feature radically different designs."

"The Brain Institute, designed by nationally renowned "starchitect" Frank Gehry...broke ground in February 2007 and...is taking shape. Exposed steel beams, some straight and some curved, can be seen shooting off at odd angles at what will be the front of the building.

The $360 million Smith Center isn't scheduled to break ground until late this year or early next, with a rough completion target date of 2011.

But designs show the center, to be located cater-cornered from the institute, about half a block away, will look dramatically different."