Shopping Malls and the Proliferation of Junkspace

“Intended for the interior, Junkspace can easily engulf a whole city. First, it escapes from its containers – semantic orchids that needed hothouse protection emerging with surprising robustness – then the outdoors itself is converted: the street is paved more luxuriously, shelters proliferate carrying increasingly dictatorial messages, traffic is calmed, crime is eliminated.”

Junkspace, Rem Koolhaas, page 186

Why is Junkspace so contagious? We see this trend of sprawl in our cities and suburbs, rapidly increasing since the 1950’s. One such example is Edina, MN, in which the city quite literally grew out of the Southdale Mall. In the aerial photo from 1956 you can see the mall as an isolated object in farm fields.  As the mall grew, appendages were added, the interior went through a series of renovations, and streets and parking were developed to support it. The Junkspace of the mall expanded so quickly that an entire city was formed around it as its nucleus.

However, over the past two decades the mall has been on the brink of closure. Yet the city that grew around it continues to grow, supported by an entirely new mall that was built adjacent to Southdale, one offering higher-end stores. If this trend continues, the viability of the city will be under constant threat in which the only way to improve is to expand. Is it possible to slow or contain Junkspace, so that our cities remain viable? Koolhaas stated, “Words that start with re-produce Junkspace.” Do you think it is possible to revitalize the cities we already have, or would that only proliferate Junkspace?

Southdale Mall, Edina 1956

Southdale Mall, Edina 2016

 Southdale Mall Interior 1956

Southdale Mall Interior 2000