Terragni to the GAP

The Danteum was designed by Giuseppe Terragni in 1938 as a series of rooms which together compose a ‘journey’ governed by both light and materiality. This journey draws to an end in a room representing fascist Italy containing monumental columns and seemingly no visible way of exiting the building. Like Terragni, large retail stores today aim to design stores to pull potential shoppers through towards the depth of the building, leading them to the most popular product and far away from the cash register. However, unlike Terragni, retailers across the country seem to cater to different sexes as a result of shopping patterns between men and women. While the Danteum represents an experience or journey, The Banana Republic in New York City aims to adapt parts of the store to the habits of male shoppers by placing shoes, socks, pants, and add-ons in close proximity to the cash register. Paco Underhill notes that today “people want to come in, be serviced, and go out” (12). It is quite possible that throughout the history of shopping, male shoppers have demonstrated this impatient behavior, but it is only recently that there has been a shift in the behavior of female shoppers. Today, Paco accounts that women seem to want their own answers, thus “women want to draw their own conclusions” (8). This observation is brought to fruition mainly by the study of make-up sales. In the past make-up was a product recommended or chosen for you. In present day, like most consumer products, make-ups are chosen by the buyer and then brought to the cash register and purchased. The “Science of Shopping” becomes interesting because its roots are seemingly grounded to historical architecture such as the Danteum, but also represent suburban movement across America as shopping centers “…are both public and privately owned, but for public use” (Zukin, 142), and account for much of the consummation of “culture” (Zukin,138) in the twentieth century.