Mallification: The shopping mall isn't so dead after all

2018-01-23T14:13:00-05:00

[...] the ever increasing mallification of our environment threatens to undermine the public common ground on which our societies were founded: public places should address an abstract, inclusive notion of the public, instead of a defined, limited, and exclusive (in the literal sense of the word) audience. Conversely, we should not confuse or conflate trite stores (even if they place trees inside and call themselves town squares) to be an ersatz public domain.

Janno Martens' essay for Failed Architecture explores the many deaths and resurrections of the shopping mall and highlights three phenomena of mallification — the creeping privatization of public spaces and replacement of the organically grown city with an imagineered 'experience' of what only resembles an urban, collective space.

Non sibi sed aliis

2016-06-09T03:15:00-04:00

An approach called Projective Preservation brings speculation about the future into a dialectical relationship with preservation of a city’s historic and pre-existing environments. Historic architecture, sites and cities can and should be preserved, but they must also be open to reinterpretation and adaptation to meet the needs of present and future generations.

Ryan Madson (an urban planner and landscape designer who also teaches architecture at SCAD — Savannah College of Art and Design) published an essay digging into authenticity, "memory values" and the "paradox of mainstream preservation ideologies". He also proposes 'Projective Preservation' an alternative approach. Along with A (5 point, draft) Manifesto for Savannah*

Archinect - News

Mallification: The shopping mall isn't so dead after all

Non sibi sed aliis