The Carpets of Vegas: Floorscapes at the Casino

Have you checked out The New Yorker, and specifically The Talk of The Town? You're in for a treat because the 4/5/10 issue titled At The Casino FLOORSCAPES by Lauren Collins discusses carpet and more specifically 'psychedelic' Casino carpet as interpreted by New York-based photographer named Chris Maluszynski.

In addition to the article, there's a companion Slide Show: The Carpets of Vegas published on March 29, 2010 which offers a glimpse of 8 bold, kaleidescopic patterned casino carpet floorscapes. I suggest you look through them first then return to Lauren's article.

In the slideshow summary as well as the full article, you may notice that I'm quoted...

Collins quotes Christine B. Whittemore, who runs a blog called Carpetology: “A lot of the busyness of the patterns may be about keeping people active, as too much relaxing may not inspire gambling.”

Talk about excited!

I spoke with Lauren Collins on March 22nd. She had noticed several stories covered here in the Carpetology Blog about casino carpet and wanted to further discuss big, bold and busy carpet patterns to put into perspective Maluszynski’s show “Feared and Loathed: The Carpets of Las Vegas” which opened April 1st, 2010, at the 25CPW gallery, on Central Park West in NYC.

Thanks to the annual Surfaces show, I've seen my fair share of casino carpet in Las Vegas. What's more is that I toured the Wynn and the Encore this past February and was able to share some of those insights with Lauren. The carpet photo you see in Carpet Style Trends 2010 is from our starting point for the tour in the Wynn. Its sister in the neighboring Encore featured the same red background but with butterflies.

I love Maluszynski's characterization of three categories of Vegas Casino Carpets:

1. geometric shapes

2. organic shapes

3. themed shapes

Can you think of other categories?

In her article, Collins mentions David G. Schwartz, the director of the Center for Gaming Research, who has posted on his blog the die is cast pictures and an essay on Casino Carpet: The Quest & Conundrum. Definitely check those links out.

Thanks, Lauren, for a really fun conversation and for the opportunity to contribute to your article.

I wonder if I should relaunch A Foot's Perspective with a Casino Carpet angle?