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Scintillant Cities: Glass Architecture, Finance Capital, and the Fictions of Macau’s Enclave Urbanism
Tim Simpson
2013-10-10
Source PublicationTheory, Culture & Society
ABS Journal Level3
ISSN0263-2764
Volume30Issue:7-8Pages:343-371
Abstract

This article analyzes articulations among urban enclaves, finance capital, and glass architecture by exploring MGM’s corporate investments in the Las Vegas CityCenter development and the Chinese enclave of Macau. CityCenter is an unsuccessful $9 billion master-planned urban community financed by MGM and Dubai World. Macau is a former Portuguese colony and Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China which has, since its return to the PRC in 1999, replaced Las Vegas as the world’s most lucrative site of casino gaming revenue. Taken together, CityCenter and Macau are illustrative of the political economy and cultural logics of financialization. Foreign investment from Las Vegas entrepreneurs has vitrified Macau, transforming it into a phantasmagoria of glass resorts. Macau in turn plays a crucial functional role in capitalism’s recomposition in East Asia, similar to the autochthonous role of the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa in the historical origins of capitalism. In order to ‘read’ the cities of Las Vegas and Macau, I explore intertextual legibilities among fictitious capital that relies on glass fiber-optic technology to enable grand architectural projects; expressionist fictional representations of glass architecture and its utopian transformative potential; and glass buildings that themselves dissimulate in a manner not unlike fiction.

KeywordArchitecture Benjamin Castells China Finance Post-fordism Urbanism
DOI10.1177/0263276413504970
Indexed BySSCI ; A&HCI
Language英語English
WOS Research AreaCultural Studies
WOS SubjectCultural Studies
WOS IDWOS:000328103000017
PublisherSAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 1 OLIVERS YARD, 55 CITY ROAD, LONDON EC1Y 1SP, ENGLAND
Scopus ID2-s2.0-84890403466
Fulltext Access
Citation statistics
Document TypeJournal article
CollectionFaculty of Social Sciences
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION
Corresponding AuthorTim Simpson
AffiliationUniversity of Macau, China
First Author AffilicationUniversity of Macau
Corresponding Author AffilicationUniversity of Macau
Recommended Citation
GB/T 7714
Tim Simpson. Scintillant Cities: Glass Architecture, Finance Capital, and the Fictions of Macau’s Enclave Urbanism[J]. Theory, Culture & Society, 2013, 30(7-8), 343-371.
APA Tim Simpson.(2013). Scintillant Cities: Glass Architecture, Finance Capital, and the Fictions of Macau’s Enclave Urbanism. Theory, Culture & Society, 30(7-8), 343-371.
MLA Tim Simpson."Scintillant Cities: Glass Architecture, Finance Capital, and the Fictions of Macau’s Enclave Urbanism".Theory, Culture & Society 30.7-8(2013):343-371.
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