Lanny-yap: Photo Series | Las Vegas Carpets

04 September 2010

Photo Series | Las Vegas Carpets

Years ago, while in Las Vegas covering the World Series of Poker, [Chris] Maluszynski found himself as enraptured by the drama unfolding below the tables as above them. Originally from Sweden, now based in New York, Maluszynski spent four years roaming Sin City’s kaleidoscopic corridors with his camera. “The carpets definitely play a big part in keeping the town as surreal as it is,” said Maluszynski by e-mail. “Thought has been given to the carpeting by people who want to create this special atmosphere, [one] that defines Vegas as a gambling city.”

That’s a theory backed up by Dave Schwartz, Director of the Center for Gaming Research, at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Schwartz theorizes that “casino carpet is known as an exercise in deliberate bad taste that somehow encourages people to gamble.” Schwartz also points out that the busy carpets are not without design: There are floral designs at Mandalay Palace, abstract pointillist floors at Paris and, at Caesars Palace, the wheel – the Roman symbol of the “relentless capriciousness of fortune.”

As he trod the psychedelic multilevel-loop carpets of Vegas, Masulynzski’s thoughts flashed back to the Vegas experienced and described by Hunter S. Thompson: “You’re in a prison of sensory impressions. I was trying to rest my eyes, and I looked at the carpet and thought, Shit, I can’t do it there, either,” Maluszynski recently told The New Yorker.

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04 September 2010

Photo Series | Las Vegas Carpets

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