Martin Stern Jr. Explained

Martin Stern Jr.
Birth Date:April 9, 1917
Occupation:Architect

Martin Stern Jr. (April 9, 1917 - July 28, 2001) was an American architect who was most widely known for his large scale designs and structures in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is credited with originating the concept of the structurally integrated casino resort complex in Las Vegas.

High-rising Las Vegas

Martin Stern Jr. designed the International Hotel, which later became the Las Vegas Hilton, and the first MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, two pivotal Martin Stern Jr. projects with entrepreneur Kirk Kerkorian in 1969 and 1973, which set the pace for the transformation of Las Vegas from a low-rise sprawl of motels, clubs and parking lots into an extravagant high-rise metropolis.

The Daily Telegraph (London) wrote of the first Stern and Kerkorian project in its September 2001 eulogy to Stern: "The International, whose tri-form 30-floor tower contained 1,519 rooms and became the most imitated building on the Las Vegas Strip, provided the model for the Bellagio, Treasure Island, Mirage and Mandalay Bay, among other hotels." When it was completed, the International was the largest hotel in the world.

The first MGM Grand, with more square footage than the Empire State Building and in its turn the largest hotel in the world, burned in 1980 in what is considered the worst disaster in Nevada state history. As the Telegraph observed, this loss only seven years after the hotel was completed was devastating to Stern. The MGM Grand was nonetheless rebuilt within eight months and reopened. It was sold in 1985 and rebranded as Bally's and is now Horseshoe Las Vegas.

Construction magnate Del Webb was another major client with whom Stern worked on many projects, including twenty years of elaborate stages of expansion of the Sahara Hotel and Casino between 1963 and 1983.

Commissions

The extensive Lied Library and Architecture Studies Library inventories of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Department of Special Collections document more than one hundred Martin Stern Jr. projects between 1951 and 1989, several of which — including the near-legendary Xanadu envisioned in 1975 — were never built. Dreaming the Skyline: Resort Architecture and the New Urban Space is an online collection from UNLV Libraries Digital Collections that includes several hundred images of Stern's work, including architectural plans and photographs.

Nearly half of Martin Stern Jr.'s projects were in Nevada while another quarter were in California. The rest were in other states including Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Utah, and in at least three other countries: Australia, Japan, and Slovenia, which was then part of Yugoslavia.

The following partial listing by decades sketches less than one third of Stern's work.

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

Notes and References

  1. Web site: UNLV Libraries Digital Collections: Results. digital.library.unlv.edu. 2018-09-16.

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