"The Egyptians have the pyramids, the Chinese have a great wall, the British have pure meadows, the Germans have castles, the Dutch have canals, the Italians have giant churches, and the Americans have shopping malls."
This is how the American historian Kenneth T. Jackson wrote about the place of malls in American society in the nineties of the last century, and their subsequent transmission to all cities of the world as a landmark of the spread of American culture.
If you are a city dweller, you know the atmosphere of the malls in the heart of the city, and if you are a suburban resident, you may be eager to visit them when you have to go to the capital, to wander through its corridors and watch the shows of major brands, dazzled by the lights and charming atmosphere of the building. These buildings, which have been around for nearly five decades, have transformed shopping and our lifestyle in one way or another. (1)
Old markets. Modern "malls"
The old market in Aleppo. (Image Source: Shutterstock)
Before that day, the markets were simpler, sheltered from the scorching sun by the shade of wooden planks or old umbrella fabrics, or perhaps by thick stones such as those covering the old markets of Aleppo, from which sunlight sneaks without fully illuminating them, on the sides are piled small shops, from which mixed smells fly, perfumes, spices and fabrics.
The voices of passers-by, and the voices of vendors calling for identification of their goods, overlap with the voices of customers and vendors who entered into bargains over an appropriate price for goods, an atmosphere created by the needs of the place, and imposed by the local culture, an experience that was not planned by anyone who was crossing the markets, although it was brewed throughout the history of the city, these are the markets as the cities of the East have known. (2)
Later in time and far in place, architect Victor Gruen presented the design of the first mall in the United States, inspired by the aesthetic elements of his city in Austria, from which he fled in 1938 after the Nazi occupation. It was intended that every day was an ideal day for shopping, and on that day in 1956, when the first shopping mall opened in Edina, Minnesota, snow covered the streets, but strolling between the shops in elegantly decorated lanes was possible, and soft music kept hikers feeling comfortable. (3)
Southdale, designed by architect Victor Gruen, is a $20 million complex of shops, shops and restaurants. (Image Credit: AP)
By 1986 the United States was packed with nearly 25,50 shopping malls, and other malls architects were inspired by Gruen's design, calling the Austrian architect the "father of business centers." Consumer Reports magazine ranked mall design as one of the top 4 inventions that revolutionized consumer life. (<>)
This shift in the shopping pattern has made an impact on the whole world, and has become an element that is frequently seen in large cities and modern gatherings, with many purposes ranging from commercial, recreational and cultural educational purposes, as cafes, cinemas, games and entertainment, as well as places to take care of children. (5)
However, the basic aesthetic elements developed by Groen were disappearing, the corners of the malls became employed to perform a purely commercial task, and the prices of land in the surrounding areas rose, and the "malls" acted as squares in the city, (6) where teenagers hang out and young people meet, in many ways the face of cities changed in a way that prompted the man at a public event two years before his death to say that it was time to announce his repudiation of that paternity, but the "malls" were developing and spreading anyway. (7)
That's what attracts you.
With the expectation of large numbers of malls' visitors, those in charge of managing them are keen to have enough employees to avoid long waits at peak times. (Image Source: Shutterstock)
Architecture does its job to keep you inside these buildings, and the simple rule is that staying longer means rushing to buy something, which you didn't plan to buy, so once you walk through the gate, you find yourself in a maze, and it doesn't seem easy to get out of it.
The beginning of the tour, at the entrance to the "mall", is a space that can be said to be designed to separate you with every step from the outside world, and gradually integrate you into the internal world of the "mall", here are only service companies, perhaps post offices, banks or beauty salons, three or five meters that you travel to adapt to the new lighting and temperature, so you are ready for shopping.
Designers know how to attract you to travel a long distance to the stores you intend to visit, perhaps the most famous brands, some of the services that shoppers go, such as banks or restaurants, are located on the edges to take a long way to them as well, on the way there are small stores, it is okay to look. (8)
Besides diversifying between tenants to offer more diverse entertainment options, as well as shops, the managers of these malls do a lot to give shoppers an enjoyable experience; of course, things start with understanding the nature of the groups that frequent the malls and providing them with appropriate recreational offers at peak times, to maintain a flowing traffic.
The matter extends to continuous communication with shoppers through new messages and offers, especially those that can be shared with friends, and include discounts or offers offered by the centers to shoppers and those close to them, the provision of snacks, and entertainment places for children, which attracts more shoppers, increases traffic within the mall, as well as attracting buyers and online shoppers, who can choose products through websites and receive them from stores.
With the expectation of large numbers of visitors to the malls, those in charge of managing them are keen to have a sufficient number of employees to avoid long waits at peak times, and to provide a distinguished service, the number has become large, so who keeps these for hours inside the building - the maze? (9)
Completely consumable space
You hardly see the windows inside the malls and you don't know the clock, it gives you safety and takes away your visibility. (Image Source: Shutterstock)
In malls, all your senses work, and the effect under which you are carefully designed, the scenes, sounds and things that you can touch, the sense of sight is the first influential senses addressed by marketers in malls, and the effects of colors and their association in the culture of the country are used to influence shoppers.
The entrances to cinemas are designed to take a short route to them, before watching the film, but the director passes through a number of stores, you are no longer busy after watching the film, and perhaps you have become more relaxed and you can pass by your gaze on the exhibits whose details seem very shiny glass, and you have some time and some tendency to buy impulsively. (10)
There are other elements that are able to make movement fast or slow, safe or anxious, here the sound and smell are present, the smell of coconut emanating from the beachwear in the store is not a coincidence, it is here to evoke the atmosphere of summer and buy more, and designers do not neglect to use these effects to give the character we know about movement inside the "malls", where we are safe from the weather outside, pollution, noise and crowding, here you hardly see the windows and do not know the clock, it gives you safety and takes away from you Clarity. (11) (12)
The rhythm of the music (fast or slow) and the pitch of the sound also choose to control the time that the designers wanted you to spend, in fast food restaurants fast music will push you to leave, while slow music in stores invites you to spend more time, stairs and escalators are there in this way to guide the walk in the form of a full circle that shoppers cross, so their movement looks like flocks of birds all going to the same destination. (13)
The feeling of disorientation is intentional so clarity is absent here by an active action, and the purpose is to keep walking and to trample on your feet as much of the lobbies of the big center, this confusion is able to make you change your destination, change your plan, and spend more money. (14)
IKEA stores are a good example here, you go a long way, without being able to exit except from one destination, you have to go around the whole store in order to get out, so about 60% of purchases happen to products that customers had not planned to buy, everything we talk about about spending money only happens if you have money to spend of course, and this does not always happen. (15)
The "malls" of the developing world. Poor mania
For some, wandering through malls seems like a good way to escape reality and escape the daily hardships that beset them and the poverty that besieges them everywhere. (Image Source: Shutterstock)
On the other hand, there are other visitors – perhaps many – who can be sure with a little contemplation that they do not benefit from all the products and services offered by the malls, simply because they are above their purchasing power, and this raises the question of what they do in the corridors of the malls.
For example, Jory-Annie Rico and Kim Robert C. de Leon trace the culture of those hikers in Philippine shopping malls, many of whom cannot afford the products or services provided by those centers or "cathedrals of consumption" – as described by the authors – in which the gap between the haves and the have-nots is evident, those who cannot afford the high cost of a home air conditioner find in the cold corridors of large buildings a "haven" from the sweltering heat and suffocating traffic outside. It is good to escape from reality, and to get a break from the daily hardships that beset them, and from the poverty that besieges them everywhere.
It is the act of "malling", which does not exclude that colonialism is one of the most important elements that contributed to its establishment as a culture, along with ineffective urban planning and weak governance that allowed such centers to spread amid the surrounding poverty, to become a "mirage of comfort, safety and wealth." (16)
A study published in EPJ Data Science in 2018 indicated that shopping centers have become one of the most prominent components of urban space, especially in developing countries, and are today one of the main elements in influencing popular culture in Chile, for example, which includes a large number of shopping centers, and constitutes a center for attracting people of different social classes, many of whom visit "malls" to eat, entertain and interact with others, not for the purpose of shopping, and the poorest consider it a safe and pleasant place To spend time. (17)
Despite all this, these huge buildings that spread around the world and are distinguished from afar by fluorescent lights are threatened in many cities with closure thanks to the possibility of online shopping, and in other cities they are witnessing the emergence of another form preferred by the consumer who no longer likes to be completely separated from nature: outdoor stores with green spaces, but in many other cities they are still the heart of the city and the destination for those who want to "enjoy", and for all its reasons. (18)
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