The mall society : illusion, exclusion, and control in the urban center

Pre-planned, centrally-managed, privatized public space is rapidly replacing the traditional downtowns of our communities and increasingly, the centers of our largest cities--in the form of the shopping mall. This thesis explores some of the powerful implications of this shift: 1) the deepening of a consumer culture; 2) a heightening of socio-economic polarity; and 3) the institutionalization of a new form of subtle, omnipresent, largely consensual control. Three key tools of mall design and private management--illusion, exclusion and control--are examined in case studies of two malls in downtown Boston: the urban mall as megastructure, Copley Place; and the "festival marketplace", Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Then, an exemplar of an illusory, exclusionary and controlled environment is presented: Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Finally, a speculative short story, The Mall Society in 2038,is presented, illustrating the potential society that could develop given the continued mallification of our socio-spatial environment.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1989

Author dc:creator

• Glenn, Daniel J

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Tunney Lee.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74348

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/74348