By Zach Mortice
Associate Editor
After reading Mike Davis’ and Daniel Bertrand Monk’s Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism: Evil Paradises, it occurred to me that I, myself, have witnessed the great invisible elephant of 21st century anti-urbanism without even realizing it: The Mall of America (MoA) in suburban Minneapolis, the first of the world’s mega-malls.
I won’t beat myself up for it. It was built to avoid external scrutiny. From the chapter by Marco d’Eramo (with the Philip K. Dick-inspired name of “Bunkering in Paradise—or, Do Oldsters Dream of Electric Golf Carts?”)—“Like so many contemporary suburban homes whose street façade is simply an ugly and massive garage, the exterior of the Mall of America is irredeemably ugly for the simple reason that no one cares: the outside public environment has been devalued to a service area of parking and traffic.”
d’Eramo’s piece continues to critique the general withdrawal from and splintering of urban spaces through the subsuming of public activities into private places like the MoA (think mall walkers), faux-historical suburban town squares (complete with buildings of different styles and materials to simulate historical stratification in organically grown districts), and planned senior citizen communities where young people are not allowed to live. In all these cases, the street life that defines cities is sterilized, privatized, and annexed for cars that whisk people from place to place at 65 miles an hour; too fast a pace to bother with the look of things from the highway. Interiors become the only spaces that matter. It all takes a toll on architecture and urbanism.
I’ve to the MoA twice and I can’t remember what it looks like. I do remember the parking garages. And the atrium-sheltered roller coaster. Today, of course, the MoA is outdated and much larger malls have sprung up from Canada to China.
So basically, an entirely new building typography was invented and built, grand and monumental as a national monument, and no one knows what it looks like from the outside. That’s amazing.
The anti-neoliberal intelligentsia aren’t the only critics that have noticed a turning away from substantive public architecture. In a Robert Campbell, FAIA, column in the Boston Globe, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic argued that we don’t get better architecture because people simply don’t care about the public realm as much as they used to. Starting with radio, he wrote, "Americans have had access to a cavalcade of services and gadgets that isolate us in our homes: television, DVDs, computer games, elaborate sound systems." (He even dings air conditioning for keeping us inside and off our front porches.)
On the other hand, there is a museum building boom that’s been accelerating, and people are moving back into cities at higher rates, though cultural critics have argued that when they bring their suburban values and expectations back to the city, the quality of urban life again suffers.
What can architects do to remind people of the importance of the public forum and of architecture’s role there? Should they even try?
Comments (2)
Regarding the role of the architect in the public forum clearly architects have something to add to the solutions and definition of the problems. Duh!
Architecture, as a profession, will not get better until the central business function of the profession, serving the speculative developers & builders, currently driven only by profit motives, can acquire some maturity and embrace a broader purpose. Our building come to form from the crucible of a given time, the circumstances and the aggregate of the forces applied in that time.
The better question is; Does the Architecture Profession have potency as a change agent to drive the evolution of the built environment towards a more desirable, sustainable and enduring future? Can we overcome the system of constraints arising from speculative interests and build appropriate design responses that serve future generations?
My critique of your little article Zach:
Dull. Discussions of other author's published critiques generally will fail to capture much in the way of a meaningful response in any forum. You have a target rich environment. There is a lot worth talking about out here. Provoke comment.
As a general rule, stale bread is less desirable than fresh bread but better than no bread. This article has a high vapor index and insufficient content to capture much interest or provide much food for thought.
TLW
Posted by Terry L. Walker, AIA | February 29, 2008 9:34 PM
Posted on February 29, 2008 21:34
MoA isn't "the first of the world's mega-malls" (a distinction that probably belongs to Canada's West Edomonton Mall), nor is it "an entirely new building typography". It is nothing more than a 1950s suburban mall on steroids, with all the ugliness magnified.
The question is what can architects do to promote the importance of the public realm, and I have a few suggestions:
1. Be an engaged citizen. If we as citizens had elected to direct the cost of the fraudulent war in Iraq at our urban infrastructure instead, each of our 50 states could have been $20 billion richer.
2. Avoid hyper-moronic twaddle such as "anti-neoliberal intelligentsia" in writing about the plight of our cities. (Reading the published definitions of the N-L critics, George W. Bush would qualify as a neoliberal, but isn't he a neo-con? Or just a hyper-moron?)
3. Don't cite the opinions of unnamed "cultural critics" and their disdain for "suburban values and expectations", but do read Robert Campbell's columns; he's perhaps the most thoughtful of our cultural critics.
Posted by William Beyer, FAIA | February 29, 2008 4:00 PM
Posted on February 29, 2008 16:00