Learning from Lisbon
Over the past several years, Portugal has been having a Moment. The tiny country of 10 million — about the size of Indiana, with a population just a bit larger than Los Angeles County — has been called the California of Europe. It’s easy to see why: It’s on the continent’s west coast, boasts balmy weather, fresh food and wine and a buzzing tech economy. It’s luring American retirees and its share of digital nomads, who can work on their laptops in truly splendid urban spaces.
But maybe the better comp is — are you sitting down? — Southern Nevada. Sounds insane. Maybe it is insane. But stick with me a minute. Portugal’s great advantages are the same as ours — good weather and solid urban amenities matched with a relatively low cost of living. Portugal attracts expats from across Europe, Brazil, Portugal’s former African colonies and, increasingly, the United States. Las Vegas, too, is increasingly filled with ex-pats — ours have cashed out of California for less traffic and bigger, cheaper homes.
At first glance, the Portuguese capital and Las Vegas don’t seem to have much in common. The former is one of Europe’s oldest cities and the erstwhile center of a global empire. The latter, one of the youngest major cities in the world, is the capital of casinos, Cirque shows and showgirls.
But these cities, which have historically moved in very different directions, are now approaching each other. Lisbon has become what Vegas has always been — a tourist attraction, a diverse, Instagram all-star filled with charming nonchalance. Like the endless parade of tourists along the Strip, Lisbon’s visitors now crowd the central square and gridded streets of the downtown Baixa district; the steep and winding streets of the Alfama, the city’s oldest quarter; and the dense alleyways of the city’s main nightlife district, the Bairro Alto.
And Vegas, believe it or not, has become what Lisbon has always been … a real city, dealing with limited land, rising housing prices and growing congestion.
Having recently returned from a week in Portugal, eager to beat the Mojave heat, I was struck by how much Las Vegas could learn from Lisbon about building a richer urban experience.
Gare do Oriente: Multimodal transit
Built for the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition, Oriente Station is part of the larger Parque das Naçōes, or Park of Nations, district — a built-from scratch, modern quarter at the northeast edge of Lisbon, bordering the Tagus River. The 2-square-mile district houses hotels, offices and apartments, plus a sports arena, casino, shopping center, gondola, aquarium and exhibition space. 
A Gothic cathedral-inspired canopy, arrayed like glass pieces of origami, is Oriente’s most dazzling design move. Even the brutalist concrete spaces of the lower levels are sculpturally invigorating. But let’s set the visuals aside and focus on function: Oriente brings together national high-speed rail, commuter rail, a subway and a bus terminal. The whole complex is easy to navigate and a pleasure to wander — there are vendors in the station, and underground passageways and overhead bridges allow you to cross out of the station without having to deal with automobile traffic.
Right now, the Las Vegas developers of Oak View Group are planning a $3 billion, mixed-use sports and entertainment project on 25 acres of land at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road, south of the Strip. Next door to the site is another parcel of land that is being floated as a potential hub for high-speed rail linking Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
Any entertainment project of that scale is a headline-grabber, but the key element is the high-speed hub. If handled well, a “Strip South” rail station would serve as a major magnet in an underutilized part of town, while also allowing high-speed trains to continue farther north, perhaps to downtown, giving visitors more than one access point to Vegas.
Add in a major city bus terminal, and easy transit links to the nearby airport (and possibly to the planned expansion of the Boring Company Vegas Loop, a network of subterranean tunnels occupied by automated Teslas), and you have the backbone of a legitimate transit system. The Oak View project, which could be developed over time to include residential units and local amenities such as a grocery store, would simply be the most immediate beneficiary.
Miradouros and city parks
Lisbon is a hilly city, and scattered throughout town are a series of parks and plazas with views. These miradouros are tourist spaces, true, but they are also spaces used by locals. They afford glamorous vistas across the Tagus River and the 25 de Abril Bridge — Lisbon’s Golden Gate Bridge knockoff — but most of all across the city itself. It’s a delight to look across the city from one miradouro and catch sight of another. 
If all the miradouros offered were a sweet view, that would be one thing. But these are urban plazas. Some are quiet and relaxing, others are lively. All are romantic. And the best ones are active. There’s a place to sit down and have a coffee or a cocktail and enjoy the view.
This is a delicate balance. These parks and plazas are not crammed with shops and restaurants like The Linq or The Park on the Strip. But they’re not empty, either. They welcome sustained human contact. There’s always a place to recharge with a bite or a beer or a scoop of ice cream. It never feels too commercial, too programmed, too much.
Now … Las Vegas isn’t built among hills (save for Henderson, perhaps), but we are surrounded by them. The mountains ringing town offer views across the city that — in their spatial grandeur — can rival Lisbon’s more intimate and vertiginous lookouts. The question is how best to use them. For instance, in my corner of southwest Las Vegas, Clark County Parks and Rec is wrapping up a small neighborhood park at the edge of the Desert Hills. The park is pleasant and looks across the whole valley; at night you can enjoy the lights of the Strip. A mile down the road, you can often spot food trucks at the dusty corner of Fort Apache Road and Blue Diamond.
So why don’t we bring these kinds of spaces together? Why don’t we design parks like this with the food trucks in mind? Why don’t we set up a small cafe — put it in a shipping container — so residents, or even adventurous tourists wrapping up a mountain bike run, can pop by for a bit. Throw in some live music, and you’re set. I’d much rather buy a cup of ice cream at this new park and enjoy it while reading a book or playing some chess than having to stop for a snack at the local gas station, which is what we all do now.
Vegas public parks and gathering spaces tend to be intensely recreational — trails up in the hills, and out in the burbs, vast acreages set aside for tennis courts, Little League diamonds and soccer fields. We do less well with smaller parks, parks where you can mingle, have a bite, bring a book, or a date, and enjoy the view.
MAAT: Unconventional art museum
When The Smith Center opened in 2012, the consensus was that Las Vegas desperately needed this conservatively designed, locals-oriented showpiece. Too much was at stake for a glitzy, trashy architectural icon, so the firm of David M. Schwarz Architects gave us a tailored, art deco treasure box that draws a connection to our own heritage — the Hoover Dam — rather than the heritage of other places. While it didn’t break new stylistic ground, that was the point: We have history here, too. And the depth of and quality of its execution were superb. It is an eminently solid building (though still stranded in the underdeveloped Symphony Park master plan), an important icon of the solidity of the city itself. But now that we have The Smith Center, our next cultural institution can afford to take more conceptual risks. 
We have good small art museums in town — the Sahara West Library, the Barrick at UNLV. But we could use something more ambitious. Not just another art museum but a place to celebrate and interrogate the city’s astonishing design creativity.
A few years ago, Lisbon opened a spectacular museum on the banks of the Tagus. The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, or MAAT, designed by British architect Amanda Levete, is a swooping and glittering shell-like structure, clad in 15,000 tiles.
The hybrid nature of the museum frees it from having to contain or represent a “definitive” collection in art or architecture or technology. Instead, the museum is free to showcase many things: On my visit, there were high-tech, interactive exhibits of how individual consumption choices effect climate change; photo and art collections from neglected Black neighborhoods on Lisbon’s periphery; and an immersive gallery filled with giant curving video screens depicting everyday life in cities around the world. This latter multiverse exhibit is a trippier, more surreal experience than Meow Wolf.
A hybrid museum here could redefine the creative intersections that make Las Vegas so singular. What we need is not a repository of art — go to the Met or the Smithsonian for that — but something more experimental, a place not just to showcase artistic creativity but to nurture it, to make it. Imagine a museum of maker spaces, where we can not only see bits of the costumes, stage designs and contemporary interior decoration that define Las Vegas but can see artists and craftsmen making it, talking about it, teaching it. Who wouldn’t welcome exhibits of, say, LED signs, or a scale model of the miraculous tilting stage for Kà, or an exhibit on the third-straw intake pipe at Lake Mead that helps keep the whole city going. A hybrid museum would legitimate Vegas’ unique contributions to American culture without trying too hard to be respectable.
Where to put it? Cashman Field? Adjacent to the Rio? Behind the High Roller wheel at The Linq? Down on Water Street? Out by Ikea? Surprise us! In Lisbon, major institutional buildings are often tucked away in unexpected, out of the way places; this tossed-off quality greatly contributes to the city’s smart but carefree attitude.
Porto: Praça de Lisboa
Portugal is a small country — its architectural patrimony, though formidable, is also somehow casual. There are bigger castles and museums and cathedrals elsewhere, but the ones here feel just right. The country’s architectural modesty offers a good lesson for a desert city that builds in only two gears — banal and over-the-top. 
There’s a particularly beguiling work of architecture in beautiful and stony Porto, Portugal’s greener, wetter second city. In the center of the city sits the Praça de Lisboa, a triangular shopping arcade topped by a slanting park. The sloping site is tricky, sandwiched among the neoclassical rectory building of the University of Porto; the soaring, landmark 1750 Clérigos tower, a Baroque church spire; and an elegant, leafy street full of shops, including the beautiful Livraria Lello bookstore, one of the oldest in the world. (It’s famous now because the shop inspired J.K. Rowling, who lived in Porto in the early ’90s when she was writing the first Harry Potter novel.)
In the center of all this, the architecture firm Balonas & Menano crafted a structure that is both building and park, architecture and landscape. From some angles it’s a composition of bold concrete geometries; from others it’s a park with mature trees that lifts you out of the city, giving you a place to relax, people-watch or enjoy a drink at a bar. Walk around this corner, and the architecture comes into view; walk around another, and the building vanishes, and all you’re left with is the view to the church tower, and some chill DJ beats at the outdoor bar atop the park.
This is architecture and urban design and landscape architecture all at once. It is modern and bold and yet meshes with its complicated historic fabric; it’s confident enough to disappear altogether. There may be no better place in Porto (or Lisbon — or anywhere?) to while away the day.
Our city is starved for high quality, publicly accessible architecture like this. (Even the Springs Preserve charges an entry fee.) As downtown Las Vegas plans for a large Civic Center plaza building across the street from City Hall — a square-jawed proposal from LGA won city approval in May — Praça de Lisboa demonstrates the possibilities of great architecture: It can delight and nurture us without preening or showing off.
Spaces like these are the difference between a mature, well-considered city — which we should aspire to be — and a generic collection of places. As more people move here, as we have to get more creative with limited resources, Las Vegas has a chance to pivot decisively toward the former. ◆
