Clone
Las Vegas
United States, 2004

Mandalay Bay, at the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip, opens in 1999 on the site of the former Hacienda Hotel. The complex presents itself as a tropical vision of luxury, with a gold coloured tower, water features, and an expansive beach and pool landscape that in Las Vegas almost functions as a stage set in its own right. Hans Wilschut photographs the site during its construction phase. In his image, he leaves out names and identifying signs, making the complex appear more anonymous and less like an advertising image. What remains visible is the bare logic of the structure itself: scale, repetition, façade, and the promise of an artificial world still in the making.
It is precisely this double character that fascinates him. Next to the main tower, a second building appears that almost reads as a miniature copy of the larger volume, as if the same architectural idea were being repeated once again at a different scale. In this way, it becomes clear how Las Vegas produces not only buildings, but also endless variations on the same desire.
The site has since taken on a heavier charge as well. Since shots were fired from the hotel in 2017 at visitors attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival, Mandalay Bay has come to signify not only leisure and excess, but also a place where architecture and collective memory painfully converge.