A Real Retail

“Specifics of the department store: the customers perceive themselves as a mass; they are confronted with an assortment of goods; the take in all the floors at a glance; they pay fixed prices; they can make exchanges” (Benjamin 50).

The prevailing state of retail architecture, international commercial construction strategies of malls, necessitates a transformation. The ubiquitous sales envelope needs an expansion of its spatial strategies. Too much capital has been channeled to the support of limited tools, most often manipulated by developers, unaware of depth of architectural possibility. A conservative palette of materials has been tirelessly re-constructed in the same commercial forms. A retail Architecture could be the result of a transformation of current retail models. An increased acceptance, between Architecture and spatial producing economic powers, is made necessary by the lack of amenity and resource presented by the current retail forms. Re-thinking the idea of envelope and commercial frame, and re-investing Architecture’s rigor in dealing with the idea of shopping, the middle class, and consumerism is the trajectory.



in response to World Exhibitions and Their Legacy:

With the rise of the middle class comes a shift of focus within the industrial apparatus, or perhaps its creation following the death of cottage industry. European passages are initially presented as a collection of autonomous commercial ventures, the unified control of which allows for the formation of a ruling body and the homogenization necessary under this system of control; this provides the means of change in the realm of production. Machines enabling mass consumption and the masses demanding products are inseparable and occur simultaneously. Equally inseparable are the ideas of technology and commodity, an idea manifested in the most popular and renowned products. Is the iphone more commodity or technology? As consumer’s we are encouraged not to care as smart and sexy advertising demonstrates this bundle of connective capabilities and software applications.