Malls: Fight to the death or Accept
"If the world is understood through commodities, then personal identity depends on one's ability to compose a coherent self-image through the selection of a distinct personal set of commodities." - Margaret Crawford
After reading "The World in a Shopping Mall," I am quite frankly scared to go back to a mall again. The lucrative and rigid guidelines put into place by both developers and managers to create revenue quite frankly sickens me. What's even sadder is the mall is acting as a "mediator" between the shopper and the commodity in order to make a profit. There's this constant battle of figuring out how to balance what the shopper needs and how can I get as much money from this person to do this over and over again!
Then there's the point of realization for me... I am one of these people.
Is it possible for architecture to serve a greater purpose providing spaces for people to have recreation, public space, and social interaction? How? How can spaces like this create reality that is not about providing people with a "distinct personal set of commodities" or an escape from reality?
After reading "The World in a Shopping Mall," I am quite frankly scared to go back to a mall again. The lucrative and rigid guidelines put into place by both developers and managers to create revenue quite frankly sickens me. What's even sadder is the mall is acting as a "mediator" between the shopper and the commodity in order to make a profit. There's this constant battle of figuring out how to balance what the shopper needs and how can I get as much money from this person to do this over and over again!
Then there's the point of realization for me... I am one of these people.
Is it possible for architecture to serve a greater purpose providing spaces for people to have recreation, public space, and social interaction? How? How can spaces like this create reality that is not about providing people with a "distinct personal set of commodities" or an escape from reality?
What can we do to create public spaces that are focused on creating enhancement for the public good rather than for the profit of its developers? Or does this idea have to retain the profit aspect to be brought to reality?
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