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The Rotunda is the ceremonial center of the Mall of America, the site of most of its planned events and the favored hangout of teenagers. (courtesy Mall of America) |
| " The Mall of America tries to evoke a kind of urban culture--but,
as a recent curfew controversy proved, not too urban." by Daniel Herman While academics have started to adopt a more nuanced approach to the profound role of the shopping mall in American culture--most recently at the conference "Learning from the Mall of America," held there last month--the retail industry continues to conduct its own investigations. At this past spring's International Council of Shopping Centers Conference in Las Vegas, a panel of hotshot mall developers presented their findings on the burning question: What is the future of entertainment in retail? After all, it had seemed of late to be the developer's menu for success to have a 32-plex, a record megastore, a book superstore, a theme restaurant, and, for dessert, Sega Gameworks--part video arcade, part coffeehouse. The kids, they love it. But in Las Vegas the consensus was clear: While entertainment is necessary, it's not enough anymore. The sense of the "new, different, and exciting" that entertainment brings to a mall is passé. The developers all agreed on shopping's elusive El Dorado: "a sense of place." In their words, "theme" had reached its "saturation point"; what was now needed was "compelling public space," something "architectural." It should offer an "experience" that is "particular" to a given place. The pot of gold was, in a very pregnant word, "authenticity." What could make a mall authentic? And would it, as they suggested, arise out of more attention paid to architecture? Not surprisingly, these questions are far from new. South of Minneapolis, a mere four miles apart, are two enormous malls. One, Southdale Center, was, when it opened in 1956, the first enclosed mall in America. The other, the Mall of America, which opened in 1992, is still the largest in the country. Southdale was designed with lofty goals. Victor Gruen, the architect, envisioned the mall as the germ of a future city that would spread out across the plains, replacing the older urban centers. And it would be an ideal city. In a day spent shopping in a conventional downtown, one had to take into account quotidian nuisances like the weather, which in Minneapolis can be harsh. In an enclosed mall such as Southdale, though, "every day is a perfect shopping day," as opening-day leaflets trumpeted. Most important, the mall was a real city. Gruen wanted, above all, to create a center where people would want to stay well beyond their shopping time to enact the rituals of urban life. Southdale contained more than just shops: it had a school, an auditorium, an ice-skating rink, even a petting zoo; it had public sculpture. Theoretically, the mall could host any public urban function. Just down the road from Southdale, the Mall of America boasts enormous aspirations to urbanity. Every day, the mall has a population of 100,000 (at least during business hours); it haselaborate transportation links, from direct highway off-ramps to flights chartered from around the world to the nearby airport, where shuttles run regular service to and from the mall. It has a weekly newspaper, though it is mostly advertisements. It has the armature of culture: 14 cinemas, 25 restaurants, 27 fast-food joints, eight music venues, and a large exhibition gallery. It has an aquarium, a mini-golf course, and an amusement park complete with roller coaster and Ferris wheel. And it has a wedding chapel, an assembly hall, a school, a bank, and a medical clinic. The enclosed mall, 40 years after its invention, still emulates the inclusiveness of a downtown. The mall's public spaces are linked by four "streets," forming a giant, three-level shopping rectangle. But this "street" or "galleria" model of public space is a rather lazy one. It's the lowest common denominator for malls everywhere, a mere passage to get you from store to store. The skylights and palm trees are ordered from catalogues. Such space does not usually evoke a sense of urbanity. For this, the Mall of America is focused on another space. That space is "The Rotunda," the mall's ceremonial heart. A circle 80 feet across, rising some 90 feet and punching through four levels of shopping and entertainment, the Rotunda has the geometry of ceremony and reverence. Had it an oculus open to the sky, it might invoke something of the majesty of Rome's Pantheon. The Rotunda is the site of most of the mall's 300 "events" each year, which range from a gardening show to a Hulk Hogan wrestling match to a David Hasselhoff appearance. (The latter generated a line 10,000 Baywatch fans long.) Mall officials plan only events that they think will have wide appeal. Although many are product promotions, according to events coordinator Scott Behmer, even these are supposed to be entertaining. "Rollerblade comes in here, and they set up a giant half-pipe," he explains. "That's sort of a product promotion, but it's so phenomenal and so amazing to see that we don't charge them, and my Rotunda is full. I do get media." Decisions as to what is entertaining rest with Behmer and his events department coworker. Their criteria, Behmer admits, is "completely subjective... but [the event] has to appeal to kids." Which has less to do with interesting kids than with attracting the whole family. A recent controversy at the mall showed just how much they prefer families to individuals. The "Parental Escort Policy," introduced this year in response to the unseemly activities of groups of teenagers, permits kids under 16 to stay in the mall after 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights only in the company of a parent or guardian. Indeed, it was at the railings of the Rotunda that more than 5,000 kids would gather on weekend nights. These gatherings usually amounted to people-watching and jeering. A more recent teen pursuit was to spit from the railings. The perhaps apocryphal final blow to the kids' fun had something to do with a gun, though its denouement (no shots were fired) was in the food court rather than the Rotunda. Apparently, mall officials weren't so keen on the unplanned events of urban space. The events coordinator likes it better now: "[The curfew] has changed the way the mall feels at night. It feels like a family atmosphere now. People are coming into the mall, and they're smiling again." But it isn't all family values at the mall. What is equally important to the likes of Scott Behmer is "getting media." The opening bash for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Jingle All the Way, which was filmed at the mall, was held in the Rotunda. Behmer says it generated close to $4 million "in free media... so it was well worth it." A near-gunfight, while generating plenty of "free media," surely shows up in red rather than black ink in the mall's ad budget. The Mall of America is thus still adjusting to its aspirations to urbanity. The pointed pursuit of family entertainment and free advertising places it at odds with Gruen's idea that a true public place is inclusive of all kinds of people in whatever combinations they might choose, and that the value of events rests in their ability to surprise and thus to liberate. While their patrons may be "smiling again," mall officials are still worried. They are terrified by the unplanned event. (Research for this article was done as part of The Harvard Project on the City. Some of this research was presented at "Learning from the Mall of America: The Design of Consumer Culture, Public Life, and the Metropolis at the End of the Century," a conference organized by the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis.) |
Keywords:
shopping mall, Mall of America, authenticity
