{"id":68777,"date":"2022-07-04T22:18:56","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T22:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/?p=68777"},"modified":"2022-07-04T22:18:56","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T22:18:56","slug":"the-evolution-of-mall-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/blog\/the-evolution-of-mall-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evolution of Mall Architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"100%\" height=300vh src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EEwPOUm3ZXA?autoplay=1&#038;mute=1\"><\/iframe>Art is an important part of the shopping experience. From shooting ranges to art galleries, malls have been integrating art into their designs for years. Here we examine the evolution of mall architecture and how it has changed shopping as we know it today.<\/p>\n<p>About: The Evolution of Mall Architecture is a blog to talk about the history of mall architecture. We will also discuss what makes a good mall and what makes a bad mall. We will also be looking at some of the major players in the industry such as Simon Property Group, Westfield, and General Growth Properties.<\/p>\n<p>The History: The first known shopping center was built in London in 1869 and was called arcades. These were small side by side shops that people would often walk through to get from one place to another. In 1881 a man named Louis Sullivan designed his first skyscraper which happened to be the first ever department store. This store was also one of the early forerunners of indoor shopping malls we see today. Later in 1928, The North Shore Country Club built a shopping area inside its compound to increase sales for their golf course and swimming pool facilities which led to the development of enclosed shopping malls. By 1940, about 30 enclosed malls existed throughout America with more being constructed every year up until 1980 when the &#8220;m<\/p>\n<p>The evolution of mall architecture has been a slow process that has taken place over the past fifty years. The first enclosed shopping malls were built in the 1950s, and in the 1960s and 1970s they became very popular. In fact, they were so popular that many developers started building them all over the place. This led to a decline in the quality of their design, as many of them looked uninteresting, boring and ugly. However, things have started to change quite recently.<\/p>\n<p>Today there are plenty of examples of malls that look great and offer the shoppers excellent facilities. Some of the best examples are located in Asia, especially Japan and China. These Asian malls have set new standards for mall architecture, which are now being copied by builders all over the world.<\/p>\n<p>The mall is the most American thing there is. It&#8217;s the epitome of everything we are, and the apex of our architectural achievement.<\/p>\n<p>The history of the mall is a microcosm of American history itself, from the early days of individual stores in strip malls through suburban sprawl and into the present day, when malls have become more than just stores but also a place for people to live and work. I&#8217;ll try to talk about that here.<\/p>\n<p>After the war, new opportunities opened up in the United States. For one, there were many small towns that had never had a department store before. Then there was a surge in automobile ownership and the growth of suburbs. After all, why live in the city if you didn&#8217;t have to?<\/p>\n<p>The first suburban shopping malls were created as an answer to this question. The first one opened in 1954 in Edina, Minnesota. It was called Southdale, and it is still open today. It has been expanded and remodeled over time, but it is basically the same mall it was in 1954.<\/p>\n<p>Leaving aside its influence on architecture, Southdale led to some other innovations. There was a movie theater inside \u2014 not just a small box-office but an actual movie theater showing movies! And because more people lived in suburbs than cities now, there had to be parking spaces for them all. So there were lots of parking spaces, which meant that visitors could drive directly into the building instead of having to walk from a street entrance.<\/p>\n<p>However, architecture being what it is, these innovations soon showed their flaws too. The lots of parking spaces made it hard for owners to reach their customers or for customers to get to the stores they wanted to shop at. So soon<\/p>\n<p>I would like to discuss the evolution of the modern shopping mall and its similarity to the way the Neanderthals lived. This subject relates to my blog post on &#8220;What is a Mall?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Today, there are thousands of malls in the United States, and hundreds more under construction. The largest mall in the world is the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta. As of 2006, it has over 800 stores and services and is about 1.5 times as large as the Mall of America.<\/p>\n<p>The West Edmonton Mall receives more visitors annually than Disney World or any of the Disneylands, making it one of the most visited attractions in North America. It attracts over 20 million visitors per year. Over 25% of Canadian visitors to Alberta visit this mall each year.<iframe width=\"100%\"\" height=300vh src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FyftxHczQAE?autoplay=1&#038;mute=1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Art is an important part of the shopping experience. From shooting ranges to art galleries, malls have been integrating art into their designs for years. Here we examine the evolution of mall architecture and how it has changed shopping as we know it today. About: The Evolution of Mall Architecture is a blog to talk [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68777"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68779,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68777\/revisions\/68779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}