North Texas Corporate Utopias: Las Colinas and Legacy West as Operational Ruins

Key facts

• Las Colinas was master-planned in 1973 by developer Ben Carpenter with Ernest J. Kump Associates on family ranch land near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.
• The Las Colinas Association, formed in 1973, governed architectural standards across the development.
• A 125-acre Lake Carolyn was excavated, with displaced soil raising surrounding land and storm water routed through canals.
• A Texas Legislature-created public utility district in 1972, predecessor of the Dallas County Utility and Reclamation District, financed reclamation for a 1,000-acre urban center, with $58.3 million in water infrastructure and $44.5 million in transit investments.
• The Mandalay Canal was completed in 1981, quoting Venice without its density, flooding, labor, smell, crowding, or political history.
• Williams Square, designed by James Reeves of SWA Group with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, features ninety thousand square feet of pink granite.
• Robert Glen's Mustangs of Las Colinas, nine bronze horses in a constructed stream, was installed in 1984.
• The Las Colinas Area Personal Transit guideway is listed by the Dallas County Utility and Reclamation District as closed indefinitely.
• Plano's Legacy corridor was shaped by Ross Perot's EDS development in the 1980s; Legacy West later added denser eat/work/play/live programming.
• The essay cites Louise Mozingo's pastoral capitalism, Dan Graham's Homes for America, the 1975 New Topographics exhibition, and Learning from Las Vegas by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour.