The Venetian Macau

The world's largest casino by floor area. Mock-Italian streetscape with gondolas on canals; 3,000-room resort hotel.

The Venetian Macau opened in August 2007 on the Cotai Strip — the reclaimed land connecting the islands of Taipa and Coloane — as the Macau counterpart to the Venetian Las Vegas. At opening it was the largest building in Asia by floor area and remains among the largest buildings on earth. The casino floor alone covers 51,000 square metres, but the casino is only part of the complex: the full resort includes approximately 3,000 hotel suites, a 15,000-seat arena (the Cotai Arena), a 1,800-seat theatre, over 350 shops spread across four themed shopping wings, and a gondola canal system that loops through the Grand Canal Shoppes.

The interior design replicates Venetian elements at a scale that quickly detaches from any architectural precedent: painted blue-sky ceilings (permanently simulating afternoon) over cobblestoned piazzas, singing gondoliers navigating 50-metre indoor canals, and decorative facades of the Doge's Palace, Rialto Bridge, and Ca' d'Oro scaled to fill a building that could house several actual Venetian squares inside it. The effect is either kitsch architecture of a high order or a genuinely disorientating spatial experience, depending on disposition. As a social observation of what the intersection of Chinese gambling wealth and American resort design produces, it is an authentic document of the Macau of the 2000s.

Entry is free and the building is open 24 hours, making it practical to walk through at any time. It is genuinely enormous — navigation by signage rather than instinct is advised. The free shuttle bus network connecting to the Macau ferry terminals and the peninsula makes it accessible without additional transport cost.