Margaret Crawford Mall California, Architecture California, 14. no. 2, November 1992, p. 14
[p. 14] "Is California the shopping capitol of the world? Although the title has not yet been officiously conferred. The only body capable of awarding such a distinction, the International Council of Shopping Centers, has thus far remained silent. Here are some of the fact: A recent Coldwell Banker survey listed more than 5000 malls in California alone-more than anywhere else in the nation. In spite of tough competition from mega-malls in West Edmonton and Minneapolis, California's malls are still record holders: At 2.65 million square feet of selling space, Del Amo Fashion Plaza in Torrance is America's largest shopping mall; last year South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa generated more sales than any other shopping mall in the country. There are 17 square feet of mall space for every Californian. The system of malls as a whole dominates retail sales in the state, accounting for more than 53 percent of all purchases. To put these abstract figures into perspective, imagine the entire state covered by an uneven pattern of overlapping circles representing mall-catchment areas [The image strikes me as being the Baldessari equivalent of "The Music of the Spheres. KR], each circle's size and location dictated by demographic surveys measuring income levels and purchasing power. Clearly, California has been malled.
The Science of Malling
"How did the malling of California occur? Like the 23,500 other malls in North America, California malls are all governed by strict rules of finance and marketing. These rules date from the golden years between 1960 and 1980, when the basic regional mall paradigm was perfected and systematically replicated. Developers methodically surveyed, divided, and appropriated suburban cornfields and orange groves to create a new landscape of consumption. This was accomplished by honing standard real-estate, financing, and marketing techniques into predictive formulas. Generated initially by risk-free investments demanded by pension funds and insurance companies, the successful malling process quickly became self-perpetuating. Specialized consultants developed techniques of demographic and market research, refined their environmental and architectural analysis, and produced econometric and locational models. Mall architect Victor Gruen proposed an ideal matrix for mall-building that combined the expertise of real-estate brokers, financial and marketing analysts, architects, engineers, transportation planners, landscape architects, and interior designers-each drawing on the latest academic and commercial methodologies. Gruen's highly structured system was designed to minimize guesswork and to allow him to accurately predict the potential dollar-per-square-foot yield of any projected mall thus virtually guaranteeing profitability to the mall's developers. In their first twenty-five years, less than one percent of shopping malls failed: profits soared as making malls, according to pioneer developer Edward DeBartolo, proved to be "the best investment know to man."
For the consumer, the visible result of this intensive research is the mix-each mall's unique blend of tenants and department store anchors. The mix [p. 15] established and maintained by restrictive leases with clauses that control every detail from decor to prices. Detailed equations are used to determine exactly how many jewelry stores should be put on each floor. Since branches of national chains are the most reliable money-makers, individually owned stores are admitted only with shorter leases and higher rents. Mall managers constantly adjust the mix, using rents and leases to adapt to the rapidly changing patterns of consumption.
[p. 15] "The various predictable mixes are fine-tuned to the ethnic composition, income levels, and changing tastes of a particular shopping area. Indexes such as VALS (the Value and Life Styles program), produced by the Stanford Research Institute, correlate objective measures such as age, income, and family composition with subjective indicators such as value systems, leisure preferences, and cultural backgrounds to analyze trade areas. For example, Brooks Bros. and Ann Taylor are usually solid bets for areas populated by outer-directed achievers ("hardworking, materialistic, highly-educated traditional consumers; shopping leaders for luxury products") and emulators ("younger, status-conscious, conspicuous consumers"). Sustainers ("struggling poor; anger toward the American system") and Belongers ("middle-class, conservative, conforming shoppers, low to moderate income"). on the other hand, tend to be "value oriented," making KMart or J.C. Penney good anchors for malls where these groups predominate. According to the Life-Style Cluster system, an alternative index, even with identical incomes, the black enterprise and pools and patios groups will exhibit very different consumption patterns. Careful study of such spending patterns can generate a mix that makes the difference between a mere profit-maker and a 'fool money-machine.'
The Utopia of Consumption
[p. 15] "As central institutions in the realm of consumption, shopping malls constantly restructure both products and behavior, transforming them into new combinations. Most directly, the mall, as its domination of retail sales indicates, [p. 16] functions to efficiently circulate large numbers of goods. However, the rigid financial and merchandizing formulas that guarantee and maximize its profits restrict the range and variety of goods it can offer. At the same time, the shopper arrives at the mall with a "confused set of wants." Presented with constantly increasing numbers of products, each promising specialized satisfaction, the shopper exists in a state of fluctuating desire. The mall must simultaneously address these contradictory demands: stimulating nebulous desire and encouraging specific purchases. To survive profitably, it must operate within the enormous disjuncture created between the objective economic logic necessary for the profitable circulation of goods and the unstable subjectivity of the messages exchanged between consumers and commodities, between the limited goods permitted by this logic and the unlimited desires released by this exchange. This subjects retailers and shoppers to a commercial logic that forces both to constantly realize the abstract concept of consumption in money terms. Faced with such restrictions, the mall can realize its profits only by efficiently mediating between the shopper and the commodity. The shopping-mall mix is calculated to organize the disorienting flux of attributes and needs into a recognizable hierarchy of shops defined by cost, status, and life-style images. Merchandise contextualized by price and image orients the shopper, allowing the speculative spiral of desire and deprivation to be interrupted by purchases.
"The physical organization of the mall environment mirrors this disjuncture. All the familiar tricks of mall design-limited entrances, escalators placed only at the end of corridors, fountains and benches carefully positioned to entice shoppers into stores-control the flow of consumers through the numbingly repetitive corridors of shops. The orderly procession of goods along endless aisles continuously stimulates the desire to buy. At the same time, other architectural tricks contradict commercial considerations. Dramatic atriums create floating spaces for contemplation, multiple levels provide infinite vistas from a variety of viewpoints, and reflective surfaces bring near and far together. The resulting weightless realm receives substance only through the commodities it contains.
"These strategies are effective; almost every mallgoer has felt their power. The jargon used by mall management demonstrates not only their awareness of these side-effects, but also their partial and imprecise attempts to capitalize on them Joan Didion saw malls as an addictive environmental drug: "One moves for a while in an aqueous suspension, not only of light, but of judgement, not only of judgement, but of personality." William Kowinski identified Mal de Mall as a perceptual paradox created by simultaneous stimu- [p. 17] lation and sedation. The jargon used by mall management demonstrates not only their awareness of these side effects, but also their partial and imprecise attempts to capitalize on them [sic]. The 'Gruen Transfer' (named after Victor Gruen) designates the moment when a 'destination buyer,' with a specific purchase in mind, is transformed into an impulse shopper, a crucial point immediately visible in the shift from a determined stride to an erratic and meandering gait. Yet shoppers do not perceive these effects as negative; the expansion of the typical mall visit from twenty minutes in 1960 to nearly three hours today testifies to their increasing desirability.
Retail Magic
"Malls have achieved their commercial success through a variety of strategies that all depend on 'indirect commodification,' a process by which nonsaleable objects, activities, and images are purposely placed in the commodified world of the mall. The basic marketing principle is "adjacent attraction,' where "the most dissimilar objects lend each other mutual support when they are placed next to each other." This logic of association allows noncommodified values to enhance commodities, but it also imposes the reverse process-previously non-commodified entities become part of the marketplace.
"At an early stage, malls began to introduce a variety of services, such as movies and restaurants. As customers grew more jaded, new attractions such as symphony concerts and skating rinks become commonplace accompaniments to shopping. This expanded the mall's social and recreational role, for teenagers hanging out at the mall replaced cruising the strip; mall walkers began to exercise in the safety and shelter of small corridors; many young adults regard malls as safe and benevolent places to meet other singles. Proximity has established an inescapable behavioral link between human needs-for recreation, public life, and social interaction-and the commercial activities of the mall, between pleasure and profit in an enlarged version of an adjacent attraction. Developers and retailers have recently upped the ante even further by combining shopping with theme park attractions, transforming the mall into a tourist destination. Entertained and stimulated by rollercoasters and merry-go-rounds, shoppers will stay longer and ultimately spend more. Indeed, the two forms had already converged-malls routinely entertain, while theme parks function as disguised market places. Both offer controlled and carefully packaged public spaces and pedestrian experiences.
"With 'mall time' an increasingly standard unit of measure, the conflict between private and public space became acute. Despite Justice Thurgood Marshall's argument that since the mall had assumed the role of a traditional town square, it must also assume its public responsibilities, the Supreme Court confirmed an Oregon mall's legal right to be defined as a private space. Most malls now emphasize this by posting signs and prohibiting picketing, petitions, and anything else deemed detrimental to carefree shopping.
"The contrived packaging, obvious manipulations, and mass-marketing imagery of formula entertainment malls was not without critics, particularly among affluent and educated shoppers. To please this more demanding audience, developer James Rouse expanded the definition of adjacent attraction to incorporate Authenticity-genuinely historic and scenic places-into the world of the mall. Festival marketplaces, such as Ghirardelli Square and the Cannery in San Francisco and Faneuil Hall in Boston, reject mall formulas by mixing historic setting with tasteful renovation and recreational [p. 18] shopping. Highlighting the unique character of a single significant location, these festival marketplaces, use simple themes rooted in genuine contexts as a means of enlivening predictable shopping experiences.
[p. 18] "If actual historic places are not available, they can easily be manufactured. Shopping mall architects easily adapted another theme park concept, Disney's lands, appropriating geographic, historic, or fictional places and reconfiguring them into a specialized shopping environment. This produced a series of specialty centers with invented themes, such as Ports O' Call village in San Pedro, a New England fishing village with a touch of Mississippi steamboat, Oakland's Jack London Village, a timber mining camp, or Beverly Hills new nineteenth-century European shopping street Two Rodeo Drive. Whether rooted in a real context or totally simulated, these malls reduce the complexity and messiness of real places. The demands of marketing erase the uniqueness of place. Still it works: The implied connection between unexpected settings and familiar products reinvigorates the shopping experience. Faneuil Hall attracts as many visitors each year as Disneyland, confirming Rouse's slogan: "Profit is the thing that hauls dreams into focus."
Hyperconsumption: Specialization and Proliferation
"Throughout the period of shopping-mall expansion, economic and social changes were significantly altering the character of the consumer market. Precision in locating and satisfying consumers has become increasingly important since 1980, when malls began to approach the saturation point. In this unstable situation, the continued development of existing mall types was no [p. 19] longer assured. Heightened competition-between corporations, entrepreneurs, and even urban regions-forced a series of shakedowns in the industry. Although the system of regional malls continued to flourish, it was clear that the generic formula mix no longer guaranteed profits. The system demonstrated a surprising adaptability: in spite of its history of rigidly programmed uniformity, new economic and locational opportunities prompted new prototypes. Malls expanded by multiplying and diversifying into as many different fragments as the market.
[p. 19] "Existing malls renewed themselves by upgrading their decor and amenities. Future archeologists will read Orange County's social history in south Coast Plaza's successive extensions, the older wings featuring Sears and J.C. Penney's recall the suburbs' original lower-middle-class roots; the elaborate new corridors with stores such as Gucci and Cartier reflect the area's more recent affluence. In the richest markets, luxury malls like the Rodeo Collection in Beverly Hills offer expensive specialty goods in sumptuous settings, more like luxurious hotels than shopping malls. At the other end of the market, outlet malls sell slightly damaged or out-of-date goods at discount prices; since low cost is the major attraction, undecorated, low-rent buildings only enhance their utilitarian atmosphere.
"New smaller malls eliminate social and public functions to allow more efficient shopping. Strip malls, with parking in front, are the most flexible type; their false fronts can assume any identity, their format can be adjusted to any site, and they can contain any mix of products. In Los Angeles, more than three thousand minimalls supply the daily needs of busy consumers with convenience markets, dry cleaners, video store, and fast food outlets.
"In this overcrowded marketplace, imagery had become increasingly critical as a way of attracting particular shops and facilitating acts of consumption. Through a selective manipulation of images, malls express a broad variety of messages about the world outside.
"Large diverse cities offer veritable encyclopedias of specialized mall types that cater to recent immigrant groups. Here the images retain a vestige of their cultural heritage: Korean malls have blue-tile temple roofs, Japanese malls combine Zen gardens with slick modernism to attract both local residents and touring Japanese. Minimall developers also style their malls according to location: postmodern on the affluent Westside, high-tech in dense urban areas, and Spanish in the rest of the city.
"Malls have not only responded to changing market conditions, but have also become trump cards in the increasing competition between developing cities and regions. Faneuil Hall's success in generating adjacent development development led cities into private-public ventures with the Rouse Company to build waterfront centers as catalysts for urban revitalization. This strategy can also backfire: Horton Plaza, San Diego's spectacular, enormously profitable, and heavily subsidized urban theme park, has remained a city in itself-with little effect on its seedy surroundings. These conditions have been particularly difficult:
The World as a Shopping Mall
[p. 19] "The spread of malls around the world has accustomed large numbers of people to behavior patterns that inextricably link shopping with diversion and pleasure. The transformations of shopping into an experience that can occur in any setting has led to the next stage in mall development: spontaneous malling, a process by which urban spaces are transformed into malls without new buildings or developers. As early as 1946, architects Ketchum, Gina and Sharp proposed restructuring Main [p. 20] St. in Rye, NY, as a pedestrian shopping mall; later Victor Gruen planned to turn downtown Fort Worth into an enclosed mall surrounded by sixty thousand parking spaces. More recently, a number of cities have reconstituted certain areas of malls simply by designating them as pedestrian zones, which allows the development of concentrated shopping. In California, where weather encourages year round outdoor shopping, self-regulating real-estate values allow these new market-places to create their own tenant mix, organized around a unifying theme; this, in turn, attracts supporting activities such as restaurants and cafes. Even without removing automobiles, urban streets like Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills have spontaneously regenerated themselves as specialty malls, thematically based, respectively, on new-wave and European chic. Now, developers are reproducing the city itself in a shopping mall. Still under construction, Universal City Walk in the San Fernando Valley will provide a prepackaged urban experience, a shopping mall combining simulated fragments of Los Angeles-Melrose Avenue, Hollywood Boulevard, and Venice Beach-into a four-block hyperreal city.
"Clearly, the mall has transcended its shopping-center origin. Today, hotels, office buildings, cultural centers, and museums virtually duplicate the layouts and formats of shopping malls. The principal of adjacent attraction is now operating at a societal level, imposing an exchange of attributes between the museum and the shopping mall, between commerce and culture. The world of the shopping mall-respecting no boundaries, no longer limited even by the imperative of consumption-has become the world.
[p. 20: Picture Caption: City Walk, Universal City. The Jerde Partnership, Inc., design architect; Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall (DMJM), executive architect; Emmet L. Wemple & Assoc., landscape architect, Model maker, Randy Walker. Photo, Annette Del Zoppo.]