The Architecture of Consumption

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the importance of mall architecture vis-a-vis the anchor stores, the effect that these anchor stores have on other stores and several of the ways in which the physical design of malls tends to manipulate the behavior of shoppers in those malls.

From the Paper:

"Most of us have probably never thought a great deal about the ways in which the typical shopping mall, such as the Galleria, is laid out. We all know that there are anchor stores that are at the psychological (although not geometric) "corners" of the mall, and that in between these anchors are smaller, more specialized stores, most of them selling clothes, make-up and jewelry, with the second most important category of merchandise being items that are sold for the purpose of entertainment, including books and CDs and other forms of recorded music. The third most important single category of stores/merchandise at a typical mall (and the Galleria is in no important way substantially atypical in terms of the ways in which architecture is designed to lead to an increased degree of both the desire to consume and the actual process of consumption itself) is that of the restaurant. "

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