Mallrats of America
I’m sure some reading this can still remember the way commerce used to be when they were growing up - clean, modernist, comfortable, smart, and cool. In our area, there are still a few remaining vestiges of beautiful, untouched, old-growth shopping - such as the Cherry Hill Mall Macy’s entrance, and the Neiman Marcus at the King of Prussia. Everything else that we’re used to seeing now has been post-modernized, remodeled, dumbed-down, and blandified so as to make malls more accessible and shift the focal center of sprawling suburbia to a single acute point.
The Malls of America blog showcases the best (or at least most nostalgic) design in shopping centers during the mid 20th-century. Some highlights include the mid-60’s Cherry Hill Mall courtyard, the Kahala Mall Stag Party ad, the Moorestown Mall monkey cage, and the Chris-Town Mall Court of Birds.
December 31st, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Willy Wonka decor is wonderful–living things being incorporated into architecture ia always wonderful. Sadly, the only evidence of this aesthetic seen today are the waddling shoppers who look like Oompa Loompas.
January 1st, 2007 at 10:39 am
“shift the focal center of sprawling suburbia to a single acute point.”
Amen, amen amen. Let the suburbs be the suburbs, sez I.
January 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 am
Yeah, this Malls of America stuff is solid gold. I really wonder though how pre-”post-modernized” malls didn’t focus suburbia to an acute point? I guess we’re beginning to periodize suburban malls and establish a divide between the less accessible, complicated, community-building, old-growth malls and the more recent “blandified” (sic) brands. Any way I slice it I want my malls pretty basic.