The Las Vegas Wedding Chapel is an anomaly.

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The Las Vegas Wedding Chapel is an anomaly.
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As much as the Vegas wedding chapel is iconic, it
is also a pariah. Functioning as a space in which
the most sacred of ceremonies -marriage- takes
place, the Vegas wedding chapel is nonetheless
associated with debauchery and simple
entertainment. This project can serve as a key
model of reconciliation between polar value
systems.
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100,000 weddings are performed in Las Vegas each
year
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The Vegas wedding chapel serves an incredible
variety of religions, ethnicities, economic
backgrounds, and ages, with a high volume of
couples passing through the same space in any
given day or night. The chapel can act as a
mediator between these different demographics
through a strategic manipulation of program,
circulation, and form.
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EXISTING CONDITIONS
Understanding the conditions of the existing
wedding chapels is vital to figuring out how the
Wedding Chapel can relate to its context and how
it should function
The analysis will include _where the chapels are
located. _who owns them _when they were
established _who designed them _if/how they been
renovated _what programs occupied the sites
before _what their profits are (vs. other
churches) _when they are open _when the weddings
take place _whether there is competition between
the chapels _what the marketing strategies of the
chapels are
I will also analyze the program around these
sites, and evaluate the potential to expand the
program of the wedding chapel.
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EXISTING CONDITIONS
I also will look at Las Vegas in general to
understand the greater scale of the city and the
unique conditions that could affect the design of
the Chapel. These include _the materials used
in the city, particularly their desired affects
(eg glossiness, color) in relation to cost _the
definition of luxury according to the above
relationship _the changing face of Las Vegas
architecture with the expansion of casinos and
hotels _recent changes on the urban scale
OMA studied the changing density of the Strip as
casino hotels have exploded in scale.
The Chapel Strip and its development can be
mapped in a similar manner.
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CEREMONY AND CIRCULATION
I will investigate how the couples move through
existing wedding chapels how they arrive,
register, where they wait before the ceremony,
how they proceed through the ceremony, and where
they go afterwards. Are these spaces public and
shared or private and intimate? Plans of these
wedding chapels and mappings of their use will
result in a model for determining the program and
circulation of the Wedding Chapel.
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20,000 is the average amount spent on a
traditional American wedding
At the Little White Wedding Chapel, 55.00
includes the chapel fee, ceremony, traditional
wedding music, a minister, and witnesses
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DEMOGRAPHICS OF COUPLES
Getting married at a Las Vegas wedding chapel is
regarded as a spontaneous, often irresponsible or
rash decision. I plan to research the
demographics of those who get married at these
chapels and how they compare to those who get
married elsewhere, in the city, state, country,
and beyond. This research allows for an
understanding of who is going to be occupying and
using the space of the Wedding Chapel.
The demographic research will include _religious
backgrounds _hometowns _ethnicities _amount of
time they stay in Vegas _reasons for getting
married in Las Vegas
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DEMOGRAPHICS OF COUPLES
A significant number of couples renew their
wedding vows in Las Vegas wedding chapels. I will
determine whether this phenomenon is specific to
this city and what effect it has on the
architecture or program of the Vegas wedding
chapel, as well as the marriage ceremony itself.
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Celebrity marriages in Las Vegas wedding chapels,
for decades, have brought both a luster and
notoriety to these places. The architecture of
the wedding chapel can exploit this connection to
the media.
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RELIGION
I will analyze the religious aspects of the Vegas
wedding, or the manner in which weddings are
consciously or unconsciously religious or
traditional. Some of the questions to be
answered are _how many of the ceremonies are
civil ceremonies, and how many religious? _what
aspects of the ceremony are tied to
religion? these included the rituals of wedding
music, the walk down the aisle, the minister,
the ring, etc. _how does religion affect the
design of the building? are the details
specifically christian, as in the steeple, altar,
etc. are their architectural details that
reference other religions? _what are the
religious backgrounds of the couples? _what are
the religious affiliations of the chapel
owners? _what is the relationship of these
chapels to other churches in the city?
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CIRCULATION AND USE
The Las Vegas wedding chapels have an increasing
amount of people that move through the space,
with marriages at least every half an hour over a
24/7 time period. I will look at buildings that
have a similar high circulation of people through
a given space. These structures may or not
increase in scale or program depending on how
increasing numbers of people move through. These
include _gas stations _supermarkets _airports
These precedents can be abstracted to map
movement and space usage, and then be compared to
an equivalent mapping of existing wedding
chapels. The use of movement through larger
churches and religious edifices, particularly for
marriage ceremonies, can be used in contrast or
comparison to these precedents to determine the
planning of a new Wedding Chapel.
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SCALE
The scale of the Vegas wedding chapel is dwarfed
by typical churches and cathedrals, yet still
retains aspects of these precedents
architecture, in plan, form, and detail, albeit
in a distorted manner. As the scale of casino
hotels grows exponentially, and the number of
wedding grows at a similar rate from 59,423
weddings in 1985 to 122,259 in 2005 I shall
determine whether the scale of the Wedding Chapel
shall change accordingly, and how this scale
might affect or distort program and form.
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SIGNIFICATION
The inevitable element of this project is the
issue of signification, especially beginning with
Venturi and Scott-Browns Learning from Las
Vegas. A variety of theorists, including Dave
Hickey, OMA, Venturi, and others shall serve as
theoretical backbone for the thesis. The subject
of ornament, as investigated through the Function
of Ornament class last semester, can be applied
to this thesis through a range of articles that I
read for the class. These include articles by
Kracauer, Loos, Giedieon, Wigley, and
others. This literature shall be used in
contrast to more basic documentation and history
of Las Vegas, the wedding chapels in Vegas, and
the architecture and detail religious structures,
as well as precedents to be explained.
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RESULT
The thesis preparation document should be a
compilation of all of this research, put together
in a clear and compelling graphic form that is
insightful both as an abstraction of information
and a method of making an argument for what the
specific program of the Wedding Chapel should be.