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Las Vegas has always had a taste for the spectacular, but until now it has never had a Frank Gehry building to call its own. That oversight has been rectified with the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Centre for Brain Health, which officially opened two weeks ago.

The centre incorporates two very different functions: a dedicated medical research centre for degenerative brain diseases and a 鈥渇or hire鈥� event space known as the Life Activity Centre.

The $100m (拢68m) complex also plays a key role in the proposed urban regeneration of the Symphony Park district of the city and is part of a wider municipal strategy to diversify Vegas鈥� economic infrastructure away from gambling.

Clad entirely in Gehry鈥檚 stainless steel, the south wing鈥檚 crushed, deconstructed form contrasts sharply with the rational geometry of the north block

The centre鈥檚 two distinct wings keep their distance both functionally and architecturally. The north wing contains the medical research clinic and is the far more conventional of the two. Clad in white render with glazed recesses, it is a four-storey block comprising a tapering stack of splayed and chamfered rectangular boxes. Internally, it houses the centre鈥檚 research facilities, medical offices and patient rooms.

The south wing contains the event space that can be hired out for private functions, which is intended to partially finance the centre鈥檚 research. This is where Gehry鈥檚 signature style is most in evidence. Clad entirely in stainless steel, the building鈥檚 crushed, deconstructed form contrasts sharply with the rational geometry of the north block. Its angular distortion and punched openings also give the building a distinctive sculptural quality, another typical Gehry characteristic and one that makes a bold symbol for a city trying to reinvent itself.