Aladdin Hotel & Casino

Please position yourself opposite the Jerry’s Nugget Casino signage, facing toward the Aladdin Hotel & Casino lamp.

The Aladdin Hotel & Casino originally opened on the Las Vegas Strip as the Tallyho Hotel in 1962, pivoting to the Aladdin name and branding starting in 1966. The property featured distinctive pylon signage, topped with a scroll and a sculptural sign depicting an “Aladdin’s lamp” design. This signage was the result of a heated competition between the design teams of YESCO (Young Electric Sign Company) and AD-ART, with YESCO ultimately winning the bid. AD-ART’s unrealized Aladdin signage, conceived by designer Bill Clarke, would have been a pylon topping 200 feet, capable of shooting a large flame an additional 40 feet into the sky.

Visible across the Aladdin property was its distinctive Arabian Nights theme, indicative of larger MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) inflected architecture and design trends popular in Las Vegas during the 1950s and 1960s. Additional similarly themed properties from this period include the Sahara Las Vegas, the Algiers Hotel, the El Morocco Motel, and the Casbah Motel. The expression of MENA cultural aesthetics is reflective of larger design movements such as Exoticism or Moorish Revival, which seek to distill elements of foreign cultures and implement them in everyday buildings. These design flourishes might include pointed arches, onion domes, minarets, and recessed porches. Evoking foreign cultures in architecture and design assists in transporting visitors to other locales, despite often stereotyping or misrepresenting cultural nuances in the process.