24822840 the World in a Shopping Mall

8/4/2019 24822840 the World in a Shopping Mall

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MARGARET CRAWFORD

The W orld ina Shopping Mall

Larger than a hundred football fields, the West Edmonton Mall is,according to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest shoppingmall in the world. At 5.2 million square feet, the world's firstmegamall is nearly twice as large as the runner-up, the Del AmoMall in Los Angeles, which covers only 3 million square feet. OtherGuinness titles the mall holds are World's Largest Indoor Amuse-ment Park, World's Largest Indoor Water Park, and World's Larg-est Parking Lot. Besides its more than 800 shops, 11 departmentstores, and 110 restaurants, the mall also contains a full-sizeice-skating rink, a 360-room hotel, a lake, a nondenominationalchapel, 20 movie theaters, and 13 nightclubs. These activities aresituated along corridors of repeated storefronts and in wings thatmimic nineteenth-century Parisian boulevards and New Orleans'sBourbon Street. From the upper stories ofthe mall's hotel, the glasstowers of downtown Edmonton are just visible in the distance.~ell-from ahovecthernallresembles an ungainly pile of over-sized b_?_~~~_p!u_!lke_d.(:r\ygjn_the_JIlidQ.!~()f.an___II,9rmousasphaltea, surrounded by an endless landscape of si~_gleJarnilyhouse~:nside,the--matr preserits-a -dizzy~ng spectacle of attractionsandiversions: a replica of Columbus's Santa Maria floats in an ar-

tificial lagoon, where real submarines move through an impossibleseascape of imported coral and plastic seaweed inhabited by livepenguins and electronically controlled rubber sharks; fiberglasscolumns crumble in simulated decay beneath a spanking new Vic-torian iron bridge; performing dolphins leap in front of Leather


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4 The World in a Shopping MallWorld and Kinney's Shoes; fake waves, real Siberian tigers, Ching-dynasty vases, and mechanical jazz bands are juxtaposed in anendless sequence of skylit courts. Mirrored columns and walls fur-ther fragment the scene, shattering the mall into a kaleidoscope ofultimately unreadable images. Confusion proliferates at every level;past and future collapse meaninglessly into the present; barriersbetween real and fake, near and far, dissolve as history, nature,technology, are indifferently processed by the mall's fantasy. ~machine.

Yet this implausible, seemingly random, collection of imageshas been assembled with an explicit purpose: to support the mall'sclaim to contain the entire world within its walls. At the opening

. ~eremony aboard the Santa Maria, one of the mall's developers,Nader Ghermezian, shouted in triumph, "What we have done

() eans you don't have to go to New York or Paris or DisneylandI : 'l . . . j 1 J J - r Hawaii. We have it all here for you in one place, in Edmonton,X:l~ lberta, Canada!"! Publicity for the Fantasyland Hotel asks,"What country do you want to sleep in tonight?"-=9ffering themerooms based not only on faraway places such as Polynesia andHollywood, and distant times such as ancient Rome and VictorianEngland, but also on modes of transportation, from horse-drawncarriages to pickup trucks.

The developer's claims imply that the goods for sale inside themall represent the world's abundance and variety and offer a choiceof global proportions. In fact, though, the mall's mixture of Amer-ican and Canadian chains, with a few local specialty stores, rig-orously repeats the range of products offered at every othershopping mall. Internal duplication reduces choice even further,ince man stores 0 erate identical outlets at different points in themall. Despite the less t an worldwide selection, shoppers still comefrom all over the world (70 percent of the mall's visitors are fromoutside Alberta) and spend enough to generate profits of $300 persquare foot-more than twice the return of most malls. The WestEdmonton Mall (WEM) dominates the local' commercial economy.If superimposed onto downtown Edmonton, the mall and its park-ing lot would span most of the central busi?ess district. Commer-cially overshadowed by the mall, long-established downtown storesnow open branches in the mall. As a esture of urban goodwill,the WEM's developers have agreed..tolmild_anillJ _eL...ma owntown. West Edmonton Mall

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6 The World in a Shopping Mall

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_ to replace some of the revenue and activity drained off by themegarnall.f

The inclusion of more and more activities into the mall hasexte~ded its operating day to twenty-four hours: a chapel offersservices bef~r~ shops open, nightclubs draw customers after theyclose, and visrtors spend the night at the mall's hotel. The mall is~ls? a workplace, with more than fif teen thousand people employedm I~Sshops: services, and offices, many of whom also eat and spendtheir free time there. In the suburbs of Minneapolis, the WEM'sdevel~pers are now erecting an even larger complex, the Mall ofAmerica, complete with office towers, three hotels, and a conventioncenter . Orange County's Knott's Berry Farm theme park wil l supplythe mall's. entertaim.nent centerpiece, "Camp Snoopy.I" The mayorof Bloommgton, Mmnesota, exults, "Now people can come hereand watch a Vikings game and stay for the weekend. It's a differentworld when you have a megamall.""

The mall's encyclopedic agglomeration of activities requiresonly the addition of housing, already present in other urban mall~egastructures, to become fully inhabitable, a world complete inItself. In a sense, the fragmented forms and functions of modernliving are being brought together under the mall' Ii hted dome.~his su~gests the possibility that the unified world of premoderntIm~s ~Ight be reconstituted through th~"JE~di~um.Etion,a~ iroruc reversal of th~ redemptive design projects imagined by -m~eteenth-century utopians such as Fourier and Owen, who sought

r um.ty through collective productive activity and social reorgani-

t ~tIOn. Although Fourier's Phalanstery merged the arcade and thepalace into a prefigurative mall form, its glass-roofed corridors wereII~tended to encourage social intercourse and foster communal erno-[trons, rather than stimulate consumption. .I

The Science of MaIlingThe WEM's nonstop proliferation of attractions, activ~ies, and im-ages proclaims its uniqueness; but, beneath i ts myriad distractionsthe mall is easi. ly recogniza.ble as an elephantine version of a generictype-:-the regI_onal shoppmg mall. Indeed, the WEM is only thelatest mcamation of a self-adjusting system of merchandising and?evelo~m~nt that has conquered the world by deploying standard-ized umts m an extensive network. And, as the state-of-the-art mall

MARGARET CRAWFORD 7is continually redefined, the WE.M's jumbled collection of imagesis already on the verge of becommg obsolete. More seamless alter-native worlds are coming off the drawing boards. Disney "imagi-neers" have recently designed an entertainment center andshopping mall for Burbank inspired by the "lure and magic of themovies." The cinematic medium, inherently fragmented and un-real, structures a sophisticated fantasy world that will be both morecomplex and more coherent than the WEM.5

Althou?h it is, for the moment, unrivaled in size and spectacle,the WEM ISnot exempt from the rules of finance and marketingthat govern the 28,500 other shopping malls in North America."These rules date from the golden years between 1960 and 1980w~en the b~sic regional mall paradigm was perfected and system~atically ~ephcated. Developers methodically surveyed, divided, andappropriated suburban cornfields and orange groves to create anew landscape of consumption. If a map of their efforts were to bedrawn, it would re:eal ~ continent covered by a wildly unevenpatter~ of ?ve~lappmg cIrcl~s re~resenting mall-catchment areas,each cI~cle.s SIze and location dictated by demographic surveysmeasurmg ~ncome levels and purchasing power. In a strangely in-verted version of central-place theory, developers identif ied areaswhere consumer demand was not being met and where malls couldfill the commercial voids." Dense agglomerations of malls wouldindicate the r~ch.es~markets, and empty spots the pockets of pov-erty: West Virginia, for example, has the lowest shopping-mallsquare footage per inhabitant in the countrv."

The size and scale of a mall, then, r~flects "threshold de-~!!!ld"-the ~inimum number of potential customers living withinthe geographIcal range of a retail item to enable it to be sold at aprofit. Thus, !Jeighborhood centers serve a local market within atwo-mile radius;commun"ity cent~~s draw from three to five miles.The next tier of 2,500 regional malls (at least two departmentstores and a hundred shops) attracts customers from as far astwenty miles away, while an elite group of 300 super-regional malls(at least five department stores and up to three hundred shops)serve a larger, often multistate, area within a hundred-mile radius.~t the p.eak of the I_>yramidsi~s the West Edmonton megamall, aninternat ional shoppmg attraction. The system as a whole dominatesretail sales in the United States and C~nada, accounting for morethan 53 percent of all purchases in both countries."


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8 The World in a Shopping MallThe maIling of America in less than twenty years was accom-

plished by honing standard real-estate, financing, and marketingtechniques into predictive formulas. Generated initially by risk-freeinvestments demanded by pension funds and insurance companies(sources of the enormous amounts of capital necessary to financemalls) the maIling process quickly became self-perpetuating, asdevelopers duplicated successful strategies. Specialized consultantsdeveloped techniques of demographic and market research, refinedtheir environmental and architectural analysis, and produced econ-ometric and locational models. Mall architect Victor Gruen pro-posed an ideal matrix for mall-building that combined the expertiseof real-estate brokers, financial and marketing analysts, econo-mists, merchandising experts, architects, engineers, transportationplanners, landscape architects, and interior designers-each draw-ing on the latest academic and commercial methodologies. Gruen'shighly structured system was designed to minimize guesswork andto allow him to accurately predict the potential dollar-per-square-foot-yield of any projected mall, thus virtually guaranteeing prof-itability to the mall's developers.

In a game with such high stakes, competition became irrelevant.The technical expertise and financial resources required for mall-building restricted participation to a small circle of large devel-opers. The pioneers-DeBartolo, Rouse, Hahn, Bohannon, andTaubman-established their own institutions: the InternationalCouncil of Shopping Centers and trade journals such as ShoppingCenter World and National Mall Monitor insured rapid circulationofinvestment and marketing information; the Urban Land Instituteworked to standardize mall-development procedures. The appli-cation of such standardized methods of determining locations,structuring selling space, and controlling customers produced con-sistent and immense profits. In their first twenty-five years, lessthan one percent of shopping malls failed; profits soared, makingmalls, according to DeBartolo, "the best investment known toman."l0 ..

For the consumer, the visible result of this intensive research-,__~iS the "mix"-each mall's unique blend often ants and department-

,\ __ store "anchors." The mix is established and rnaintainedbv restric-Y._ ', -~~ ~::~6r:i~~;!~i~:jh~;~~i;~h~~J;~h%~~f~~~b1~[~:i

mall, minute variations in the selection and location of stores can

MARGARET CRAWFORD 9be critical. Detailed equations are used to determine exactly howmany jewelry or shoe stores should be put on each floor. Sincebranches of national chains are the most reliable money-makers,individually owned stores are admitted only with shorter leases andhigher rents. Mall managers constantly adjust the mix, using rentsand leases to adapt to the rapidly changing patterns of consump-tion. The system operates much like television programming, witheach network presenting slightly different configurations of thesame elements. Apparent diversity masks fundamental homo-geneity.The various predictable mixes are fine-tuned to the ethnic com-position, income levels, and changing tastes ofa particular shoppingarea. Indexes such as VALS (the Values and Life Styles program),produced by the Stanford Research Institute, correlate objectivemeasures such as age, income, and family composition with sub-jective indicators such as value systems, leisure preferences, andcultural backgrounds to analyze trade areas. For instance, BrooksBrothers and Ann Taylor are usually solid bets for areas populatedby outer-directed achievers ("hardworking, materialistic, highlyeducated traditional consumers; shopping leaders for luxury prod-ucts") and emulators ("younger, status-conscious, conspicuousconsumers"). But since climate, geography, and local identity alsoplay a role in spending patterns, these stores may not succeed inareas like Orange County, California, where good weather allowsmore informal dress. Sustainers ("struggling poor; anger towardthe American system") and belongers ("middle-class, conservative,conforming shoppers, low to moderate income"), on the other hand,tend to be "value-oriented," making K mart or 1. C. Penney goodanchors for malls where these groups predominate. Shoppers' per-ceptions of themselves and their environment furnish more accuratepredictions of shopping habits than income. According to the Life-style Cluster system, an alternative index, even with identical in-comes, the black enterprise and pools and patios groups will exhibitvery different consumption patterns. 1 1

Through a careful study of such spending patterns, mall-builders can generate a mix that makes the difference between amere profit-maker and a "foolproof money-machine" such asSouthdale, outside ofMinneapolis, the most successful of EquitableLife Assurance's one hundred shopping malls. Southdale's man-agers are constantly adjusting its mix to reflect increasingly refined


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10 The World in a Shopping Mallconsu~er profiles. They know, for example, that their average cus-tomer IS a 40.3-year-old female with an annual income of over$33,000, who lives in a household of 1.7 people. She is willing to~peI_ldmore than $125 for a coat and buys sixpairs of shoes a yearm SIzes5 to 7. Southdale's mix reflects this ideal consumer; wom-en's clothing stores and upscale boutiques have now replaced Wool-worth's and the video arcade. The mall's decor and promotionstarget her tastes through "psychographics"-the detailed market-ing profiles which identify the customer's aspirations as well as herstated needs in order to chart "identity" as well as income. 12

Such precision in locating and satisfying consumers has becomeincreasingly important since 1980, when malls approached thesaturation point. The system demonstrated a surprising adapt-ability: in spite of its history of rigidly programmed uniformity,new economic and locational opportunities prompted new proto-types. Specialty malls were built without department stores, allow-ing a more flexible use of space. To fit urban sites, malls adoptedmore compact and vertical forms with stacked floors of indoorparking, as at the Eaton Center in Toronto and the Beverly Centerm Los Angeles. To insure financing in uncertain markets, devel-opers formed partnerships with redevelopment agencies. The GrandAvenue in Milwaukee and the Gallery at Market East in Philadel-phia ~re both joint ventures by HUD, municipal redevelopmentagencIes, and the Rouse Company. To survive in high-rent down-town locations, malls added hotels, condominiums, and offices tobecome omni-centers, such as Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, orWater .T~wer Place and Chicago Place on North Michigan Avenue.

EXIstm.g.malls renewed themselves by upgrading their decoran~ am~mtIes: Future archaeologists will read Orange County'ssocial history m South Coast Plaza's successive levels: the lowest~oors, featur.ing Sears and 1. C. Penney's, recall the suburbs' orig-mal lower-middle-class roots; the elaborate upper levels, with storessuch as Gucci and Cartier, reflect the area's more recent affluence.Open-air plazas, once thought obsolete, have been rel'ived and an~w generation of consumers now stroll uncovered walkways. 13VIrtually any large building or historic area is a candidate forreconfiguration i?to a mall. Americans regularly browse throughrenovated factones (the Cannery and Ghirardelli Square in San~rancisco), piers (North Pier in Chicago), and government build-mgs (the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C.). The imposing neo-

MARGARET CRAWFORD 11lassical space of McKim, Mead, and White's Union Station, whichc ce solemnly celebrated entry into the nation's capital, now con-:ns a shopping mall. The city of New York has even considereddeveloping the Brooklyn Bridge as a historic shopping mall, withthe brick arches of its Manhattan approach enclosing retail shopsand a health spa. 14

Although by 1980 the American landscaPe.~)y_~E.C : ! : ( ) l Y g ~ _ d . w i t l Lthese palaces of cO~~~P'p"!!g!hlhe .rest~world was still open

for develojlment,.The .fnrm ...ould ..he.exposted-iatact.. into third-world economies, with local developers providing enclosed shop-']ril'lglliai1si~iQticnov:elties fOl'-upper~dass consumers.in ..Caracasor Buenos Aires. Planners of new towns such as Milton Keynes,'"'E'nglan


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12 The World in a Shopping Mallinvolves the acquisition of commodities. If the world is understoodthrough commodit ies.jhen personal identity depends on one's abi l-ity to compose a coherent self-image through the selection of a.difitinc.t_p-~!~QDal_.~!( ) J c()IIl!li()Jliries.As central institutions in the realm of consumption, shopping

,- malls constantly restructure borhprQQ.YtJt!!nd. be,haviorintq_.!!..el.comhinations.rhat allow comnlOdltie~ to penetrate e-veuJm:the;r_into-rtaiJy life. Most directly, the mall, as its domination of retail salesindicates, fuDf!!


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14 The World in a Shopping Mallnumbingly repetitive corridors of shops. The orderly processionsof goods along endless aisles continuously stimulates the desire tobuy. At the same time, other architectural tr icks seem to contradictcommercial considerat ions. Dramatic atriums create huge floatingspaces for contemplation, multiple levels provide infinite vistas-from a variety of vantage points, and reflective surfaces bringnearand far together. In the absence of sounds from outside, these artfulvisual effects are complemented by the "white noise" of Muzakand fountains echoing across enormous open courts. The result ing'~'Y~ig~t!~_s,~_rt_alm'_~_receivesubstance only through the commod-i ties it contains."?

These strategies are effective; almost every mallgoer has felttheir power. For Joan Didion the_I.!!?:U.is..~Il~~~~e_~l!yir


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16 The World in a Shopping Malland themes. that ..!intertain.and.stimulate ..and inj;llrn",~_!!l0!"!:.~' The themes of the spectacle owe much toQisn.~J..:land and_t&krision, the most famil iar and effect ive commodifiersin American culture. Theme-park attractions are now common-place in shopping malls; indeed, the two forms converge-mallsroutinely entertain, while theme parks function as disguised mar-.ketplaces, Both ~LQ!!trQlled_,a,nQSJ!!:({f.u!Jypack.~g~.q eubJic\ sE.a,~~.~.jlUdp_ed~~trian....xperienc..es_12_._~.1}t2.~.~ependentll~.ll~t[ll.mihesalready. printed for passive consumption~Y!~.~~,y.i~ion-the other major cultural product of the fifties. ..

While enclosed shopping malls ~_pen~.i._p'a~4.riDle~_l!nd_",t:a,!he_r,~~~~y!a,_ll.~,,,ent one step further .I!nd suspeaded.realitz;Any geographic, cultural, or mythical location, whether suppliedby fictional texts (Tom Sawyer's Island), historical locat ions (NewOrleans Square), or futuristic project ions (Space Mountain), couldbe reconfigured as a setting for entertainment. Shopping malls, easily adapted this appropriation of "place" in the creation of aspecialized theme environment. I~ Scottsdale, the Borgata, an open-air shopping mall set down in the flat Arizona desert, reinterpretsthe medieval Tuscan hill town of San Gimignano with piazza andscaled-down towers (made of real Italian bricks). In suburban Con-necticut, Olde Mystick Village reproduces a New England MainStreet, circa 1720, complete with shops in saltbox houses, a wa-terwheel, and a pond. Again, the implied connection between un-expec~ed settings and famil iar products reinvigorates the shoppingexpenence.

The largeuhe _ I!1a ll, the, Illore sophisticated the simulatiQn. TheWest Edmonton Mall borrowed yet another design principle fromDisneyland: ~~I:l ti~~gompress.ion of themes. To simultaneouslyview Main Street andag_Africanjungle froIllTgrD()rrowland was~.f~a1previously reserved for science fiction. By eliminating theun_ify~ng concept of "land"-Disneyland's main organizingprinciple-e-rhe WEM released a frenzy of free-f loating images. IfDisneyland's abrupt shifts of space and time suggjsted that toc?~~e rel!lities ~g_ll!Q.~_.~~~a,~._hl!!!gi!l~(:hl!!!!1_~Js on a tele-VISIOn,the WEM, as one writer observed, was more like turning onall the channels at once.P" Again, the principle of "adjacent at-traction" ensures that these images will exchange attributes withthe commodities in the mall. The barrage of diverse images, though,may heighten the unstable relat ionship ofcommodity and consumer

MARGARET CRAWFORD 17needs to such a degree that the resulting disorientation leads toacute shopper paralysis. This discouraging prospect makes oasesof relative calm, such as the water park and the hotel, necessaryfor recuperation. Even the all-inclusive mall must acknowledgeperceptual limits.The contrived packaging, obvious manipulation, and mass-market imagery of formula malls was not without critics, partic-ularly among affluent and educated shoppers. To please this moredemanding audience, developer. lames RQ!lseexpanded the defi-nition of "adjacent attraction" to.inc.or.p_Q[!!..te"g~!!l!i~ely.~!~!()!jcand sceIJ,iclll~_.i!W? ..h~_lYm:ld.j)Lthe.Dlall. Rouse's successfulpackaging of "authenticity" 'made him a legend in developmentcircles. "E.e.stivalmark,~tpla(:es" such as Faneuil Hall in Boston,Harborplace in Baltimore, and South Street Seaport in Manhattanreject the architectural homogeneity of the generic mall in favor ofthe unique character of a single location enhanced through "in-dividualized" design. These scenic and historic areas use culturalattractions such as museums and historic ships to enliven predict-able shopping experiences. futivalmarketplaces, then, reverse thes~e.I!!E!~r~~.~l!he WEM~5~ry~iiiedl.lced and activities~O~I!.a single.theme footed in a genuine context-e-but withcomparable results , the creation of a profi table marketplace. E a = -neuil H.alll:!1tractsa?maDy_y!~i~()I"~each year as Disneyland, con-~Ro~'s sloga~~'Profit is the"thlIlgtIiat h~mlsd~e~~s into / I V ' "focus. "25 ' U

. .Public Lifein a Pleasure DomeThe shift from a market economy to a consumer culture based onintensified commodity circulati~n became apparent in the firstmass-consumption environment, the Parisian department store,which, after 1850, radically transformed the city's commerciallandscape. The enormous number of goods presented in a singlelocation dazzled shoppers accustomed to small shops with limitedstocks. By 1870, the largest of the grands magasins, the BonMarche, offered a huge assortment of goods to ten thousand CllS-)tomers a day.26 Moreover, the deJ:l~!. tm~! ..store 's fixed, prices ai-IJer~gi~al.e~.ati()Ils_()Iiliem~Eg~p1ace.11i fobligation to buy implied by the active exchange of bargaining wasEPlac~?~r.t~~ .invit~ti~~t()109k". turning th~~hoPE~r!!lt()!l passive


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18 The World in a Shopping Mall~r, an isolated individual, a face in the department-storecrowd, silently contemplating merchandise. Richard Sennett ob-served that haggling had been "the most ordinary instance of every-day theater in the city," ~iI}.g_!h~.~.Y_e.E._flQ4J11~.Ji~JJ~ro~th_er

...~.().i~lh:;but the fixed-price system "tna.,Qepl:l,~~,!~~!x.i,~t()~Jl.QJ]!l.27Department stores gradually discovered the marketing strate-gies required by this new passivity and began to theatricalize thepresentation of goods. Emile Zola modeled his Au Bonheur desDames on the Bon Marche; it portrays the modern retail enterpriseas hardheaded commercial planning aimed at inducing fascinationand fantasy. Zola vividly describes the display practices that daz-zled and intoxicated the mostly female customers: "Amidst a deepbed of velvet, all the velvets, black, white, colored, interwoven withsilk or satin, formed with their shifting marks a motionless lake onwhich reflections of sky and landscape seemed to dance. Women,pale with desire, leaned over as if to see themselves." Anothershopper is "seized by the passionate vitality animating the greatnave that day. Mirrors everywhere extended the shop spaces, re-flecting displays with corners of the public, faces the wrong wayround, halves of shoulders and arms." Zola's retail pleasure domealternates such disorienting perspectives with comfortable rest ingplaces, reading and writing rooms, and a free buffet, counteringthe escapist fantasy world with comfortable homelike spaces where

r'shoppers could reacquire a sense of control. 28 .I? fact, the shopper's dre~m wor~d was always firmly anchored\to hIghly structured economic relations. The ~?l1stant and rapidturIl()\Ter of good demanded standardized methods of organization,subjecting employees to a factorylike order that extended beyond'working hours ' into the careful ly supervised dormitories and eat ing

~".halls. A3yjthierarchyseparatedthesales clerks, drilled in middle-class IJ.lallIle.rsl:l,nd.hgllsed in attic do!mitories,from the proletariatthat staffed the workshops and stables and slept wherever theycould. Class boundaries also put limits on the "magic" of mer-chandising. For instance, stores like the Magasins Dufayel andBazar de I'Hotel de Ville, located closer to the proletat ian northernand eastern suburbs, offered more straightforward selections ofinexpensive goods to their working-class clientele.r?

The possibi li ties of material abundance and mass consumptionfirst suggested in Zola's department store also inspired a number

MARGARET CRAWFORD 19f other nineteenth-century writers and thinkers. While the natu-o . I" f c I Iii"list Zola called hIS nove _ : . . : . a poem Q . ruo erne, more spec-~ative j h i n k e : r a _ i m . a g i . n e . d . ,id~lll futUI.es in which th~ problematic~ of production withered away completely, leavmg consump-tion the dominant mode of experience. In America, Edward Bel-lamy's Looking Backwar'! outlined a.future in ~~ich reorganiz~dproduction syste~s efic~ently supphed ~eC~SSI~IeSto the enurepopulation, reducmg ~he workday or elImmatmg. the need .for I 7work altogether .l!!..Jhl~.Jahor.:ix~~,.1YQ.d9.9..Lmate.ci.alplemy-; .~ I f ,t .l '_ ' .idle masses could :now devote thernsel".e.s},()!h~,Pllr.s.uil ..of-self- .~oii-: i ji iWieSilie .i!sj) I~a:sii i :( ; ~s~~n. l~,!hUdle",;r;b.. Other 1-;riters eniarged the miniature dream world of the department store_into a full-scal~a. Inspired by temples of abundance such asWanamaker's and Macy's, the novel The World a DepartmentStore, written by Ohio department-store owner Bradford Peck,proposed an ideal state modeled after a department store that eq-uita9!ysupplied hous~ng, food, and endless goods to its contentedcitizens.3o. America after World War II seemed to promise the realizationof many such dreams. The booming consumer economy offered apreviously unimaginable prosperity, with full employment supply-ing consumers for the large-scale distribution of affordable goods,whi~ .adY~J!ing and planru


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20 The World in a Shopping Mallearlier prototypes such as the Roland Park Shop Center outside ofBaltimore (1907) and Market Square in Lake Forest (1916). Allof these forms provided convenient off-street parking. .1. C. Nichols, generally regarded as the father of the shoppmgcenter for his role in developing Country Club Plaza in Kansas City(1924), established many of the financial, management, and m.er-chandising concepts that were fundamenta.l to post,,:ar ~hoppII_Igcenters."! Nichols's 1945 Urban Land Institute publication, Mis-takes WeHave Made in Developing Shopping Centers, codified hisexperience into a list of 150 maxims, which covered everythingfrom strategies to ensure local political support to adequate ceilingheights. Although Country. Clu~ Plaza's el~orate Mediterra~eanarchitecture-complete WIth tiled fountams and wrought-nonbalconies-distinguished it from the bland exteriors oflater centers,Nichols argued against any unnecessary expenditure on decor. Thekey to shopping-center success, he claimed, lay in p~o~iding a~un-dant, even unlimited, parking. By 1950, as the vaneties of neigh-borhood shopping centers merged into a single new form-theregional mall-Nichols's wisdom was confirmed.

After several false starts, the successful prototype of the classicdumbbell format finally emerged at Northgate in Seattle in 1947:two department stores anchoring the ends of an open-air pedestrianmall, set in the middle of acres of parking. Designed by John Gra-ham, Jr., the innovative combination of easy automobile access andfree parking with pedestrian shopping offered both suburban con-venience and downtown selection. Graham's mall, a narrow pe-destrian corridor modeled after a downtown street, efficientlyfunneled shoppers from one department store to the other, takingthem past every store in the mall.32 Similar multi-million-dollarmalls multiplied, spurred on by the abundance of cornfield sites atagricultural-land prices and encouraged by Reilly's Law of RetailGravitation, which posits that, all other factors being equal, shop-pers will patronize the largest shopping center they can get to easily.This served as the rationale for ever-larger centers optimally locatedh . f new i hi h 33 6near t e exits 0 new mterstate Ig ways.

The consumers were ready, armed with postwar savings andthe benefits of recent prosperity-vital necessities in the newlycreated world of the suburbs, where the new way of life dependedon new ways of consuming. The ideal single-family home-inhab-ited by the ideal family, commuting father, housewife, and two

MARGARET CRAWFORD 21hildren-demanded an enormous range of purchases: house, car,:ppliances, furniture, televisions, lawnmowers, and bicycles. Themass production of stan~~rdized p~o.ducts found a ..narket of con-sumers primed by advertising, television, and magazmes. In a land-scape of stratified subdivisio~s, s_tatus,famil~ roles: and pers~I_Ial

~ , : : . : . . i . ~. ,. i , : u " f : . . .i~,rJi,:,i'.~~;[i~li;~,o:,s:~:~,'~:"t,:.W.s.S,; , F . i , ; ~ : i ~ ; ~ ~{/{:(,L~: .The subtl.rhitselL~.JLp_rQd1t

In 1956, the first enclosed mall-South dale, in Edina, a suburbof Minneapolis-changed all this. Although its central court sur-rounded by two levels of shopping floors was quickly surpassed bymore extravagant developments, Southdale's breakthrough designfirmly established Victor Gruen in the pantheon of mall pioneers.By enclosing the open spaces and controlling the temperature,Gruen created a completely introverted building type, which sev-ered all perceptual connections with the mall's surroundings. In-


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22 The World in a Shopping Mallside, the commercial potential of enormous spaces was realized intheatrical "sets" where "retail drama" could occur. Mall developersrediscovered the lesson of the Parisian department store and trans-formed focused indoor spaces into fantasy worlds of shopping.Southdale was covered for practical reasons; Minnesota weatherallows for only 126 outdoor shopping days. The contrast betweenthe freezing cold or blistering heat outdoors and the mall's constant72 degrees was dramatized by the atrium centerpiece, the Garden. ...Court of Perpetual Spring, filled with orchids, azaleas magnoliasx\{i\'\ f'#lnd palms. ~~~~~mting-tru :differ~~. th~~mJQ_~

tl'" 1! ! ! l2 , !h~~0 I :J1nside ..estl!bbs4ed,~" ..p',~sl~.mall trope:alLiIule.rtedJ,;::'l s p a .ce. wh?se forbidding ~xteriors,hid 'parad~ia_~~l jnt~r~!s. This

,\,~}i .. combmatl?llWaS co~pelhng enough to ensure that enclosed malls, soon flounshed even m the most temperate climates.R . " d" '\ I h' ficreatmg a secon nature was on y t erst step; the next

~3~_~NQ9JlceJb~?i~_gI,~.~~~~~Ilt. missing insuburbia the city.The enclosed mall compressed and intensified space. Glass:enao~edelevators and zigzagging escalators added dvnamic vertical anddiagonal movement to the basic horizontal plan of the mall. Ar-chitects manipulated space and light to achieve the density andbust le of a ci ty downtown-to create essential ly a far!t!!y urbanism_devoid of the city's ..negative aspe~t.s: we!l :ther, . .traffi(;,~!l1 P2()f-,.p,~~2~'The consolidation of space also altered the commercialidentity of the mall. Original ly built to provide convenient one-stops?opping, newly glamorized malls now replaced stores serving prac-tI.calneeds-supermarkets, drugstores, hardware stores-with spe-cIa.lty shops and fast-food arcades. Infinitely expandable suburbanstnps became the new loci for commercial functions expelled fromthe increasingly exclusive world of the shopping mall. Sealed offfro~. the tasks of everyday life,_sllopping became a recreationalacnvity and the mall an escapist cocoon. '. ._---

As the mall incorporated more and more of the city inside itswalls , the nascent confl ict between private and public space becameacute. Supreme Court decisions confIrmed an Oregqp mall's legalright to be defined as a private space, allowing bans on any activitythe owners deemed detrimental to consumption. Justice ~Marshall's dissenting opinion argued that since t h e 'mall had as-sumed the rol~gLa.....u::i:I:.?itionaltown. square, as its sponsors con-tinually boasted, it mustal:So -assunie'-irs-public responsibilities:"For many Portland cit izens, Lloyd Center will so COrripIeTely-sat~

MARGARET CRAWFORD 23

isfy their want~, that they w~ll have no reason to go elsewhere forgoods and services. If speech ISto reach these people, it much reachthem in Lloyd Center. "36 Many malls now clarify the extent of theirpublic role by posting signs that read: "Areas in this mall used bythe public are not public ways, but are for the use of the tenantsand the public transacting business with them. Permission to usesaid areas may be revoked at any time," thus "protecting" theircustomer's from potentially disturbing petitions or pickets. Accord-in g to the manager of Greengate Mall in Pennsylvania, "We simplydon't want anything to interfere with the shopper's freedom to notbe bothered and have fun. ".'l7

lt~pack~gi~_tb~~iu:j!!..a..s.;:de.dean~. and.contmlled.form gavethe mall greater Importance as a community and social center. Theenclosed maIEuppIledSpatlarcentra1iry,'pubitc'focus;"iirfilhumandensity-all the elements lacking in sprawling suburbs. The mallserved as the hub of.J!Q,!!!.b.wLpuhli.l::Jif~,_and,prov:ided.a.CORtmonconsumer f{)cusJ9(,the .amQXph gl l , ? sl1.!::l,:u,rbs.n New Jersev-which< h a . ' d ' a T r e a , ( l Y ' ;p;wned settlements such as Paramus, "the town Ma-cy's built" -the importance of the Cherry Hill Mall as a focal pointand an object of considerable local pride led the inhabitants ofadjacent Delaware Township to change the name of their town toCherry Hil l. Reversing the centr ifugal pattern of suburban growth,malls be~am~ magnets for concentrated development, attractingoffices, hI~h-nse apartments, and hospitals to their vicinity, therebyreproducmg a central business district .

The financiai success of the simulated downtown-in-the-suburbs also restimuiated the actual downtowns, which had pre-viously been weakened by regional malls. Newly placed urban mallsbrought their suburban "values" back into the citv. In urban con-texts the suburban mall's fortresslike structures 'literalized theirmeaning, privatizing and controlling functions and activities for-merly enacted in public streets. Heavily patrolled malls now providea safe urban space with a clientele as homogeneous as that of theirsuburban counterparts. In manv cities, the construction of urbanmalls served ~resegregate urban shopping areas. In Chicago, forexample, white suburbanites coming into the city flocked to thenew Marshall Field's branch inside the Water Tower Place mall onupper Michigan Avenue, effect ively abandoning the original Mar-shall Field's department store in the downtown Loop to mostlyblack and Hispanic patrons.i'"

. .


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24 The World in a Shopping MallIn more than one way, downtown malls cash in on the para-

doxical prospect of a new order of urban experience, well protectedfrom the dangerous and messy streets outside. Attempting a doublesimulation of New York, Herald Center, when it opened on 34thStreet, offered thematized floors named for the city's familiar sites,such as Qre~n'Yi~h Yi ! l .~g ~,c ; ~!1 !@ t.ru.:k,".Jmd-Madi~ollAv.eD..lle,which imitated. their namesakes with. businesses llPprQx.im.llti!:lgtheir c~~mercial character: sandal shops, sporting goods, and Eu-ropean boutiques. Not only were the actual places represented inname only, the "typical" goods for purchase reduced to caricaturethe rich mixtures of a real urban neighborhood. By reproducingthe city inside its walls, the mall suggested that it was safer andcleaner to experience New York inside its climate-controlled spacesthan on the real streets outside. This particular experiment failed,but did not discourage new efforts. On Times Square, a new mallproject designed by Jon Jerde, Metropolis Times Square, tries toupstage the flash and dazzle of its setting with its own indoor lightshow, featuring hundreds of televisions, neon lights and laser pro-jections. This hyper-real Times Square mall, sanitizing the sleazeand vulgarity outside, offers instead the tamer delights of shops, 39restaurants, and a cineplex open twenty-four-hours a day.

While the city began to incorporate suburban-style develop-ment, the suburbs became increasingly urban. Large numbers ofjobs have moved to the suburbs, turning these areas into new met-ropolitan regions, "urban villages" or "suburban downtowns." Su-perregional malls at freeway interchanges-such as the Galleriaoutside Houston, South Coast Plaza in Orange County, and Tyson'sCorners near Washington, D.C.-became catalysts for new sub-urban minicities, attracting a constellation of typically urban func-tions. Their current importance represents the culmination ofseveral decades of suburban growth. The evolution of the Galleria-Post Oaks suburb in Houston, for example, began in the late fiftieswith shopping centers built to serve affluent residential areas. Theconstruction of the 610 Loop freeway encouraged retail expan-sion, notably the Galleria, one of the first spectaciflar multi-usemalls, followed by officebuildings, high-rise apartments and hotels,and finally corporate headquarters. White-collar and executive em-ployees moved to nearby high-income residential neighborhoods,which generated the critical mass necessary to support restaurants,movie complexes, and cultural centers. The result now surpasses

MARGARET CRAWFORD 25down n Houston, containing the city's highest concentration oftail space,__high-rise apartme~t units, and hotels a.s well as the

state's third-highest concentration of office space. It IS also Hous-.. d . 40ton's most visrte attraction,Althoug_hthese businesses and residences are concentrated spa-

tially, they maintain the low-density suburban building pattern ofisolated single-function buildings. Parallel to the 610 Loop andalong Post Oak Boulevard rise clusters of freestanding towers, in-cluding the sixty-four-story Transco Tower. Each building standsalone, though, insulated by landscaping, parking, and roads. Side-walks are rare, making each structure an enclave, accessible onlyby automobile ..ln.-this-..atomized landscape; theGalleria,pulsingwith human llctiy!ty, has expanded its role as town center evenfurth~r, providing not only food, shopping, and recreation, but alsourban experience. For many suburban inhabitants, th~l!~!ia isthe desirable alternative to the sociallv and economically trouble(t-urban downtowns they fled. E~~~iQe!1t13.l1sh,a13tinghis vote in th~ #;)1A';~psjdeI!!@l~~~t!~!l~at th~,S?_I!!kria,symbolically verified the mall's .status..as...thehear.t of the new suburban downtown.f ' ...

Hyperconsumption: Specialization and ProliferationThroughout the period of shopping-mall expansion, economic andsocial changes were significantly altering the character of the con-sumer market. After 1970, it became evident that the postwareconomic and social system of mass production and consumptionwas breaking down...lrag!E~.I!!ingj!!:~()IIl.e,mpl()Y_Il!e.nt~andspend-~p.Il~terns into a muchmore complex mosaic. More flexible typesof production appeared, emphasizing rapid cycles of products thatquickly responded to the consumer market's constantly changingneeds and tastes. Restructured industries and markets in turn pro-duced a differentiated and fragmented labor force. The pyramidmodel of income distribution that supported the regional mall wasbeing replaced by a configuration more like a bottom-heavy hour-glass, with a small group of very high incomes at the top, and themiddle disappearing into a much larger group of low incomes. Thispicture was further complicated by an increasingly uneven geo-graphic distribution of economic development, which producedequally exaggerated differences between zones of prosperity andpoverty.

~


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I

!26 The World in a Shopping MallIn this unstable si tuat ion, the continued development of exist ing

mall types was no longer assured. Heightened competition-be-tween corporations, entrepreneurs, and even urban regions-forceda series of shakedowns in the industry. Although the system ofregional malls continued to flourish, it was clear that the generic-formula mix no longer guaranteed profits.V (Industry experts agreethat there are few regional holes left to fill, although the systemcan still absorb three or even four more megamalls.) Instead, mallse~~ bymultiplyiJlgand ..diversifying int?. as,I1lilI}.L~iff~_~e";}t-frllgments as the Illarke!; An enormous range of more specializedand flexible mall types appeared, focused on s.pe.cifi .c. .nichesin thenewfydispersedmarka:'S-uch specialization permitted more co-herent matching of consumer desires and commodity attributes ata single location, making consumption more efficient, while greaterdiversity allowed a much greater collection of commodities to bemerchandised than ever before.

Specialization occurs across a wide economic spectrum. In therichest markets, luxury malls, like Trump Tower on Fifth Avenueor the Rodeo Collect ion in Beverly Hills, offer expensive specialtygoods in sumptuous settings, more like luxurious hotels than shop-ping malls. At the other end of the market, outlet malls sell slightlydamaged or out-of-date goods at discount prices; since low cost isthe major attraction, undecorated, low-rent buildings only enhancetheir utilitarian atmosphere. New smaller malls eliminate socialand public functions to allow more efficient shopping. Strip malls,with parking in front, are the most flexible type: their false frontscan assume any identity, their format can be adjusted to any site,and they can contain any mix of products. Some strip malls focuson specific products or services-furniture, automotive supplies,printing and graphic design, or even contemporary art. In LosAngeles, more than three thousand minimalls (fewer than tenstores) supply the daily needs of busy consumers with conveniencemarkets, dry cleaners, video stores, and fast-food outlets.t"

In this overcrowded marketplace, imagery has become increas-ingly critical as a way of attracting parti . . . ..s!!!!~Jacili_tll.!!.':!gacts of eonslllllpt~ofr:'~gh a selective ..'malls express a br?f!d_V"iii~ii~[_11....1"''''-'''-'''l''''~J~.'


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28 The WorLd in a Shopping MaLLadjacent development, such as condominiums, shops, and offices,led cities from Toledo to Norfolk into private-public ventures withthe Rouse Company to build waterfront centers as catalysts forurban revitalization. This strategy can also backfire: Horton Plaza,o San Diego's spectacular, enormously profitable, and heavily ~ub-~\ l' idized ':_ll_!"baE_0~~~. . . tamed

. (0 envir~l.P.ment,1l cItY.m.)!~lf:-~!~h ..httJ.::.e,


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30 The World in a Shopping Mallthe National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., designed by I.M.Pei, is an even closer match. The huge skylighted atrium is sur-rounded by promenades connected by bridges and escalators; in-dividual galleries open off this space, placed exactly where the shopswould be in a mall. Potted plants, lavish use of marble and brass,and, in the neon-lit basement concourse, fountains, shops, and fast-food counters make the resemblance even more striking.P''

Indeed, as one observer has suggested, the entire Capitol Mallhas been maIled. A hodgepodge of outdoor displays, a giant di-nosaur, a working 1890s carousel, the gothic fantasy of Smithson'ssandstone castle, and NASA rockets hint at the range of time andspace explored in the surrounding museums. Here, old-fashionedmethods of systematically ordering and identifying artifacts havegiven way to displays intended for immediate sensory impact. Giantcollages include authentically historical objects like The Spirit ofSt.Louis, supported by simulated backgrounds and sounds that recallLindbergh's famous flight. In the Air and Space Museum, airplanes,rockets, and space capsules are suspended inside a huge centralcourt, slick graphics direct visitors to the omni-max theater, and giftshops offer smaller replicas ofthe artifacts on display.P! The barrageof images, the dazed crowds, are all too familiar; the museum couldeasily be mistaken for the WEM. The Museum ofScience and Indus-try in Chicago presents a similar spectacle. Mannequins in glasscases reenact significant moments in the history of science; visitorsline up to tour the full-size coal mine; families sample ice cream inthe nostalgic ambience of Yesterday's Main Street, complete withcobblestones and gaslights. In the museum shops, posters andT-shirts serve as consumable surrogates for artifacts that stimulatethe appetite but cannot themselves be purchased.

If commodities no longer dominate, this i,she.!

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24822840 the World in a Shopping Mall