MANILA, Philippines?I spent a few days in Macau over the Christmas season. I thought the trip was going to bring back memories of those days, more than 10 years ago, when I made day-trips from Hong Kong to this old Chinese-Portuguese town known as a casino hideaway. Located in China?s Pearl River Delta, the Macau of today is a far cry from the little town I once visited, and is now known as the booming gambling capital of Asia.

The word ?casino? has long been associated with money and pleasure. But in the design field, casinos are associated with poor taste, pretense, tackiness and vulgarity. Despite the fact that the word ?casino? can still be evocative of clean, suave, cocktail-shaking glamour (thanks to James Bond), it still nonetheless connotes kitsch.

More kitsch

The skyline of Macau has changed drastically since 10 years ago, as casino hotels opened one after the other. Today, it is cluttered by massive buildings, odd-shaped structures, fluttering, multicolored LED lights and swaggering laser beams that puncture the once-quiet sky. Last year, Macau?s annual gaming revenues outstripped those of Las Vegas?, and with more new casinos opening this year, maybe Las Vegas will start earning the monicker, ?Macau of the US.? And Asia will have more kitsch.

On the more human interior space, the casinos carry through their traditional concepts of patterned polished floors, shiny brass accents, faux marbleized columns, bombastic floral arrangements, gold fittings, dripping crystals and glitzy beveled mirrors. It sounds much like the traditional casino as it could be someone?s tacky, overornate home.

Amassing visual wealth is like amassing sensorial garbage. The psychology of excess is sometimes puzzling?we leaf through books and magazines appreciating and drooling over the exquisiteness of clean, streamlined, spaces and wonder how they manage to look so pleasant. We aspire for the clarity of design and esthetics and yet it is our own clutter and overadornment that ruins what could erstwhile be a very positive and enriching visual experience. The tendency to keep everything that is given, to buy what we don?t need and to keep everything we have forever, often lead to meaningless, formless spaces devoid of true esthetics.

Game houses of gilt, glitz, bling

This is the same psychology as that of casino design, for as the gambler seeks more, he finds it all temporarily in these huge game houses of gilt, glitz and bling. For the design industry, it brings in big business, but it also breeds bad taste. Maybe we should take it all at face value, after all, the gambling industry is more about entertainment than high art. It does not seek to be virtuous about its contributions to design, it simply seeks to evoke awe and sensationalism.

Our private spaces though, are a different state of affairs. Because they are not temporary places for awe and wonder, we have to take a more tempered approach on how we dress it up. Looking at Bond, it was not the glitz of the casinos that made him so glamourous?it was the dapper suit, clean-shaven face and combed-back hair. It sounds like the better approach to our spaces.