There You Go, Dressing Your City Up Like a Two Dollar Whore

"...consumerist heaven, design netherworld. The new Marriott sums it up: look-at-me architecture, glitz rather than good taste, and the extinction of the regional differences that gave American cities their special sense of place. Won't somebody move this building to Dallas?" 

- Blair Kamin | Pulitzer Prize winning architecture critic 
Excerpted from: "Why Architecture Matters: Lessons From Chicago"

Last week I was returning home after an evening in Dallas and was visually assaulted by yet another hilarious example of Dallas architecture. For my non-Texan friends, I know you think I live in Dallas. I don't. I live in Fort Worth. Thirty suburban choked miles in between separate cities that could not be more different in attitude and culture.

The Omni Hotel - Dallas, TX
[Photo: Dallas South News]

I worked in uptown Dallas for five years and became accustomed to seeing a new building being erected on a weekly basis. It would then be adorned with something to make it stand out from every other new building, generally utilizing some crazy Vegas style lighting scheme.  The new Omni has taken that look to a whole new level. The entire frame is covered in multi-colored LED lights and looks like someone got drunk, ate a bunch of Skittles, and then barfed on a wall. Even better, this rainbow colored barf changes color and can display logos of various kinds. Yay! Branded Skittle barf! Genius manuver.

According to this NBC 5 article "Dallas Lights: Distraction or Attraction?"  there are certain people in Dallas who think things have gotten a bit out of hand and the lighting is just too much. I, on the other hand, think it is perfect. Dallas needs its own architectural identity. There is an oft used phrase here in Texas that you can "put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig."  Downtown Dallas was ripe for even more lipstick. It was time to add obnoxious, non-sensical usage of color, light, and flash to create attention for a downtown area where absolutely nothing interesting is going on under the hood. Nothing. Downtown Big D is about as exciting underneath the visual glamour as a Community College campus at 11pm on a Monday night.

In its defense Big D's style works for them. You can tell so much about the personal style of the residents of a city by looking at their architectural styles. Maybe it is that we psychologically gravitate toward cities that reflect our personal tastes and ideals. Maybe it is that subsequent design is created to appeal toward the target market in that area. Either way, Dallas fits many Dallasites. You know that super-hot chick with the awesome fake party pontoons, collagen plumped lips, and hair extensions dressed up in a hot pink and purple tube dress? Yes, she is here and you would not think twice seeing her out for the evening. But that same woman walking around in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco? Foolish. Or a person visiting from the Castro.

Three of the Twenty "Most Eligible Chicago Singles of 2011"
[Photo: Chicago Magazine]

I hail from Chicago, where the thought of outlining one of our tallest buildings in green neon like Dallas would make most of the population feel faint.  We also tend to look like our city and we dress up like it as well. Just a simple scan of Chicago's social scene yields a sea of people coated in cashmere, covered in razor sharp tailored black on black, with vintage diamonds and wristwatches adorning their cocktail laden hands. What Chicagoans are not is flashy and neither is our architecture. The lipstick on our pig is generally more of Bobbi Brown's Rose Brown than MAC's Viva Glam.  The architectural beauty of the city doesn't need neon. It's pleasant and engaging to walk around and be human in that space. When you are in Chicago you have a feel for not just the city itself but for the people that reside within it. I so often hear from people who travel to my hometown how beautiful they find it and how much they love the attitude and culture. Architectural design is no small part of that feeling.  People don't live in Vegas, they visit it. People live in Chicago AND visit it.

The cast of "Most Eligible Dallas"
[Photo: Bravo TV Official Site]

Dallas, on the other hand, tends to be the exact opposite of the great urban spaces of the world and a significant portion of its social scene reflects that. A scan of the Big D social scene yields bright splashes of color on barely there frocks, diamonds the size of small foreign countries, a preponderance of plastic after-market body parts, and the kind of overall look that makes you say "WOW" without even realizing you said it out loud. It's bright, flashy, often very sexy, exciting, and generally is characterized by total sensory overload.

The new Omni, in all of its flash, fits in well with the overabundance of brightly coated things in Dallas. The downside is I hardly ever hear how much people love Dallas, its attitude, or its beauty. Dallas doesn't inspire, even if the buildings are fighting so hard for attention it is like Nikki Minaj was a design consultant. But not everybody wants to be inspired. Some people just like to be entertained, and for that Dallas is winning. Well, Dallas' football team isn't winning, but that is another great example of a building unparallelled in excess and grandeur and nothing inside seems to be working as a cohesive unit.

As for people getting upset about how bright Dallas has become I recommend they do one of two things:

1. Embrace the fact that they have an identity now that doesn't just say "Welcome to Dallas" it SCREAMS it in your face and then punches you in the eyes. Then it tries to hump your leg. Why is it humping your leg? Because the Botox has seeped too far into the frontal cortex and Big D doesn't know why it feels sexy but it does. So sexy! Oops, nip slip. Let's go to VEGAS!!! What's your name again?
   
2. If it's too bright at night for any normal person coming to Dallas to handle and convention tourism dollars are declining then take a page from Fort Worth's book. During the late night the downtown buildings scale back all their lighting to minimal so the residents can sleep. Yes, downtown Fort Worth has residents. Lots of them. They live, work, shop and play without ever moving their cars. I was one. People living in an urban environment? Weird, isn't it?