www.dezeen.com: Sphere Entertainment and Abu Dhabi's department of culture and tourism have announced that the second version of the dome-like Sphere venue will be built in the UAE.
According to the team, the venue in Abu Dhabi will "echo the scale" of the first Sphere in Las Vegas, which is 112 metres high and has a capacity of 20,000.
5 comments:
They need to stop making these stupid spheres. As someone from Nevada I’ve seen the sphere and it’s just OK. It’s super pixelated and ugly up close—and honestly is just a light polluter that pastes adds and politically biased content on a way too large scale. The fact the sphere for Dubai doesn’t have a timeline or plan yet to be built makes me suspicious if its actually going to happen especially since Dubai has a reputation for being more style over substance from a city planning point of view. The sphere adds nothing to a city in my opinion except a headache inducing add project in a goofy shape. The sphere is cool for five minutes and then it just becomes a building that will one day be torn down as a waste of resources and time. It’s just a status symbol of money which neither Las Vegas or Dubai have to prove to anyone.
The sphere is a one-of-a-kind entertainment installation… so far. The technology to create a world inside of a dome is an incredible feat and the ability to transform your entire vision to the artist's vision is captivating. The main drawback with this cutting-edge technology is the massive lights that pour out light. One of the worst things that I walk by every day is the perverse nature that the human race has cut out and stomps on nature everyday. Litter, chopped down forests, pollution all harm our resilient planet. Seeing this pollution day in, day out is awful. I want to go outside and see forests, protected lands, and the stars. Yet when I step outside at night, the world is lit up, barely seeing the few stars that are able to poke through the sky. The sphere is an even bigger light up billboard, and that is one of the things that I hate the most.
The Sphere is such an amazing feat of new technologies from different sectors all coming together to make such a groundbreaking structure. I am interested to see if having a second one will take away some of the amazement of the first, and if they decide to keep building more it might lose all of its magic altogether. I think what makes the Sphere so interesting is the fact that it's a one of one "monument", if you will, but making more would make the effect feel lesser. I am interested to see where this technology leads in the future and whether or not there will be more large scale LED surfaces. I do worry about the power consumption that things like this take, and I also understand that many people find it just ugly, so it will be interesting to see where this leads in the future.
I really don’t think there needs to be a second sphere. There probably doesn’t need to be a sphere in the first place. I’ve never seen the sphere in Nevada, but I don’t want to. It looks ugly and is probably more or less a brighter, more obnoxious billboard. If I lived near a sphere, I’d be pretty upset. Admittedly, I have to acknowledge that it really is an impressive feat of engineering and video technology. I knew that they were trying to build a second sphere in London but I didn’t know it was turned down. It makes me happy to hear that it was. I’m interested to see whether or not the sphere in Abu Dhabi is rejected as well, but it seems like progress is already underway. I hope that these spheres don’t actually become worldwide. At the very least, it would reduce the novelty that it has right now.
With this not being the first sphere rumored to be built outside of Vegas my hopes of this installation actually getting built in Abu Dhabi are not high. I have heard good things about the Sphere from my non entertainment friends with is being an installation that gets the "muggles" excited about new and innovative theater. Everything I have heard from my entertainment friends and colleagues about the sphere however has been negative. As far as I am concerned the sphere failed at its original task which was to create an immersive VMD based entertainment experience because the nature of the sphere makes designing for it expensive and resource intensive. This lack of interest is designing shows for the spear but the the vast amount of space designers have to fill has turned the sphere into a glorified billboard. Although I have never seen the shear in person and perhaps that may change my opinion as of now the spear is a capitalist form of light pollution not an entertainment venue and I would hate to have this object spread to other cities.
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