The city of Las Vegas has two facades that represent two views of itself and the geographic region it inhabits. The first is the infamous Las Vegas Strip, the city of lights. On the strip, the desert is treated almost as an empty canvas. One can be anywhere, Paris, Italy, Rome, New York, Egypt, the Middle East, anywhere but Vegas. The Strip revels in the paradise of another, it portrays only the explicitly exotic, only that which is different from its own location. It is a place of escape.
While the Strip separates itself from the Mojave Desert, the rest of Vegas builds itself up from it. In contrast with the singular, self-contained resorts of the strip, the resident shops are strip malls, and many residences are town homes. Ranges of angles, monolithic, and earth-toned. Architectural Sierras.
The geographic Sierras serve as a constant backdrop. The muse for shape, color and texture.
What plants are purposefully put by residents and businesses replicate those of the desert or those that the region has become known for. Namely, these are cacti, palm trees and black and red rocks.
Things just blend. With the things around them and with the environment. They grow out of the desert.
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