Might there be a world, Lange wonders, in which malls might reverse their decline and serve a civic function? Could malls of the future minimize their environmental footprint and peacefully coexist with online shopping? The response was nearly always an impassioned “Oh, let me tell you about my mall.”ĭespite being “a compromised and often architecturally despised form, an ersatz version of a more ancient high street,” malls have much to offer, Lange writes: an air-conditioned respite on hot days, a location where the isolated can get a taste of social life and all-day seating (as long as you abide by mall rules). Lange, a design critic, writes in the book’s introduction about her anxiety that malls were “potentially a little bit embarrassing as the object of serious study.” The fear diminished when she discovered how responsive people were when she mentioned the project. Jackson may have been stretching the case to make a (brutal) point, but it’s hard to argue against the mall as a ubiquitous feature of postwar America. Jackson wrote that “the Egyptians have pyramids, the Chinese have a great wall, the British have immaculate lawns, the Germans have castles, the Dutch have canals, the Italians have grand churches. Perhaps the signature American institution in a 1996 issue of The American Historical Review, Kenneth T. They are recreational zones, community hubs, surveillance centers, temples to consumerism, places where loitering is encouraged until the mall cops kick you out for loitering too much or in the wrong fashion.Īlexandra Lange’s “Meet Me by the Fountain” is a well-researched introduction to the rise and fall and dicey future of an American institution. Malls are an ambiguous blend of public and private space - open to all in theory but inaccessible to many in practice. A handful of these are physical: food courts, escalators, kiosks, benches, plants, restrooms, parking. But malls have certain bedrock commonalities. Like people and clouds and cars, malls come in many shapes and colors. MEET ME BY THE FOUNTAIN An Inside History of the Mall By Alexandra Lange Illustrated.

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