page_title: Westgate Las Vegas
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Westgate Las Vegas / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: The UNESCO Headquarters building as seen from the Eiffel Tower
context_page_description: The Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino is a hotel, casino, and timeshare resort in Winchester, Nevada. Located near the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip, it is owned by Westgate Resorts and operated by Paragon Gaming. It opened in 1969 as the International Hotel, and was known for many years as the Las Vegas Hilton, then briefly as the LVH – Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, until taking its current name in 2014. From 1981 to 1990, it was the largest hotel in the world.
context_section_description: Martin Stern designed the hotel in the International Style of architecture. Architect Stefan Al described the building's aesthetics as a milestone in the corporatization of Las Vegas: "Characterized by its rectilinear forms and bare surfaces, stripped of ornamentation, this elite form of architecture stood miles away from the Mafia-tainted neon of existing casinos." Architecture critic Alan Hess also noted the simplicity of the International (and the nearby Landmark Hotel) in comparison to older casinos: "As singular, self-contained forms, they showed none of the complexity of the different pieces and sequential additions that made the original Strip visually and urbanistically richer."
  The Y-shaped plan for the hotel tower was inspired by the UNESCO Headquarters building; it was chosen to maximize the number of rooms that could be fit into a square plot while allowing each room to have a satisfactory view. This design was imitated by later Las Vegas hotels such as the Mirage, Mandalay Bay, and Venetian.
  The International has been cited as the first Las Vegas "megaresort" (though that distinction is often instead credited to the Mirage, opened in 1989). It was the first to house all of the hotel's functions in a single large structure, whereas earlier casinos had housed them in separate buildings. The design of the property, along with the next Kerkorian/Stern project, the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, had a major influence on the development of the modern casino resort. As gaming historian David G. Schwartz describes it:
  The casino resorts designed by Kerkorian and Stern became the favored models for both the next generation of Strip resorts and the resorts that, after 1978, could be found throughout the United States. When you enter a casino with a sweeping porte cochere, attached parking garage, barn-like casino/entertainment/retail complex, and high-rise hotel towers, you are in a design first realized by Stern and Kerkorian.
caption: The UNESCO Headquarters building, which inspired the Y-shaped plan for the hotel tower
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