By Bill Ouko

Like the “six blind men of Hindustan, who for the sake of therir eyes, had gone to see the great elephant,” pundits have sought to unravel the American mall phenomenon, often with theories as varied as their own backgrounds. Jon Pahl, professor of History of Christianity in North America at Lutheran theological Seminary at Philadelphia sees a religeous twist to this saga. In his article, “The Mall as Sacred Place,” Dr. Pahl recounts one of his visits to the Southlake Mall in Merrillville, Indiana, and the ensuing ultercation between his students and the mall security with sturtling revelation. He sees a deliberate attempt by the institution’s management to confuse or “disorient” the consumers so they don’t realise why they come to the mall in the first place.

Malls communicate the “spirit” of market place through a common formula.They disorient us using natural and religeous symbols and spatial patterns in an enclosed door setting and then reorient us to one or another of the purveyors of goods (464).

Pahl points to a marked relationship between the use of water, plants an light in the mall and their religeous significance. Drawing from Ira Zepp, profesor of religeous studies at Western Maryland College, he argues that since “water dissolves boundaries,” it is used in the mall setting to “prepare” the consumers to “go with the flow of shopping” even as they go through the process of purification (464). Light on the other hand represents the energy in the mall while green plants are used to creat a feeling of eternity. The mall therefore claims to provide salvation from the realities of every day life (465).

Similar sentiments are expressed by William Kowinski in hi article titled, “Mallaise: How to Know if You Have It.” He argues that malls are designed to turn your mind off and let you float.” The lighting, the music and the aesthetic appeal by the items on display and other comfort provisions help loosen the consumer and eventually set them up for spending (493). David Guterson Refers to tha mall frequenters as “pilgrims” in his article titled, “The Mall as Prison, “even as the Mall of America’s Director confesses that they intended it to be a “Mecca” of sorts (452-454).

Vincente Verdu et al, in their November 2000 article, “Shopping Heaven,” featured on UNESCO’s Courier magazine, had this to say:

All shopping malls currently boast similar fountains, waterfalls, tropical plants, ocean blue partios, marble sightliness, and the latest pop tunes. This host of links between the holiday and the shoppingcenter helps alleviate distress caused by regimented time. There are no clocks in shopping centers and no impatience over wasting of valuable time. In contrast to nature’s boundless space, the mall offers an illuminated cavern that has neither beginning nor end…The place has become a kind of sacred site discussed by the late Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade. It has the same power of attraction as Mecca or the Vatican where one has to go atleast once in a lifetime (2).

Richard Francaviglia, director, Center for Great South Western Studies and the History of Cartography at the University of Texas, Arlington, argues that mall designers borrowed greatly from Disneyland’s Main Street America. He contends that malls, like Main Street America, are carefully crafted to invoke eighteenth century small town nostalgia devoid of everyday realities. The climate controlled environment, the parking lots and the safety and security policies are all mirrors of the Disneyland Theme Park (448).

If there be room for another school of thought, then, Richard Keller Simon, Profesor of English and Director of Humanities program at California Polytechnic State University’s view of the mall is equally compelling. He sees a reincarnation of the 20th Century “Walled Gardens” in mall design and set up where the ancient staircases are replaced with escalators, the automata originally used for lifting statues become elevators now used to lift consumers and the statues replaced with manaequins. He continues:

Like the gardens before it, the mall is a construct of promenades, walls, vistas, mounts, labyrinths, fountains, statues, archways, trees, grottoes, theaters, flowing plants and shrubs, trellises, and assortment productions of architectural history, all artfully arranged (459).

Inspite of the differences in opinion as to the origin and symbolism of mall designs; there is a general concencus among schollars on the role of shopping centers in the lives of the target consumers. According to Annelena Lobb, CNN/Money staff writer, in her article titled, “A Decade of Super-sized Shopping,” statistical data from the International Council of Shopping Centers indicate that, an average American visits the mall 41 times a year, parting with an average of $75.00 every visit, which translate to some $3075.00 a year (1). Bill Tallen, famously known as Reverent Billy for his crusade against the American Spending pandemic, in an interview with the Times of London, says, “What we are seeing is a shopacalypse. We are all buying, we are all dying, we are being consumed.”(Jagger).

Guterson points out that the Mall of America for example, was never built with commity needs in mind: With all its social ammenities, it is intended to bring together people from all walks of life for the sole purpose of liberating them from their hard earned dolar while deliberatly discouraging socialization. This view is reinforced by the mall’s general manager’s words: “I believe there is a shopper in all of us,” featured in their promotional video, There is a Place for Fun In Your Life (453).

Robin Fox, in his article, “Shoping Malls: The New Village Green,” provides a very interesting connection betweenthe shopping mall and the social ammenities situated within its environs such as restaurants and movie theaters among others. He portrays the Movie theaters as dumping grounds for children while parents go shopping while restaurants ensure that people stay longer and shop more. The policies that require minors to be accompanied on Saturdays and Sundays are specifically designed to bring adults to the mall and subsequently do some shopping (1). Richard Simon concurs with the forementioned authors in his conclusion remarks, but from a comparison and contrasting point of view:

In the formal gardens of the past where nature was rearranged to fit the aesthetic taste of the period, one walked through the landscape contemplating the vistas and approaching the beautiful. In the mall where nature is similarly rearanged to fit the commercial needs of the period, one walks through the landscape contemplating not the vistas of nature, which have been completely blocked out, but the vistas represented by entrances of the anchor department stores and now not approaching the beautiful, but contemplating the commodities by which one can become the beautiful. These are the practical times. The earlier aristocratic citizens who walked down the garden paths admired the flowers and smelled their scents; the twentienth-century middle-class citizen who walks down the path of the shopping mall buys the flower scented bottle and then smells like the flower or musk of ox. The focus has shifted, from the individual in reverie facing an artificial version of nature to an individual in exitment facing a garden of consumer products (461).

With all the prevailing views within the scholarly corridors, it is safe to conclude that, in the heart of America resides a great void; a vacuum we seek to fill with material things and the business community has found a niche.

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Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:34:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: martin ouko
Subject: Mall: The American Pandemic