The Architecture of the Marketplace
Buildings are among the most lasting of
human creations. Their forms and
functions are evidence of the dynamic
social life that has long been tied to centers of
economic and political power. One ancient
structure and gathering place, the marketplace,
has evolved into what we call today the
regional shopping center or mall. It is often
constructed on a site so big that it requires a
location outside of the crowded urban center.
There it sometimes develops into a commercial
rival to the older city center.
In many ways, these 21st-century malls are
nothing new. In fact, they follow a long tradition
of commercial expansion that began with the
development of the first long-distance trade
networks and markets. These markets were
temporary at first, but they became more
permanent with the rise of cities in the Middle
East about five thousand years ago. They gresalongside the rivers, harbors, and overland
caravan routes that connected the swelling
towns of the agricultural era.
The population growth and economic
prosperity of the agricultural society made
possible the advancement of specialized
craftspeople and merchants. These people met
to barter, buy, or sell their merchandise in a
place that was accessible, safe, and regulated. Br'
2000 BC, in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur (in
what is now Iraq), the covered bazaar and the
shop-lined street had established itself.
The traditional bazaar consists of shops in
streets that can be closed off by gates at each
end. This follows the historical town-planning
requirement that commercial and residential
areas be kept strictly apart. Though they are far
from uniform., bazaars are typically divided into
various sections that each specialize in a single
trade or craft. In small towns, the bazaar can be
as small as a single covered street, while in large
cities it can be a vast area filled with mazelike
passageways. The Grand Bazaar of Tehran is ten
kilometers long, while the one in Istanbul,
dating from the 15th century has more than
58 streets and 4,000 shops. Historically, as in
Modern times. the bazaar was a source of tax
revenue for the government. In return, the
government provided the bazaars with a system
of internal security and justice.
In the Greek cities of the 5th century BC, the
marketplace was the agora. The historian Lewis
Mumford describes the agora as an open-air
"place of assembly ... where the interchange of
news and opinion played almost as :important a
part as the interchange of goods." The agora was
also a place for seasonal festivals and sports
such as horse racing. The expansion of the agora
in both physical size and variety of
traded goods reflected the shift in
the Greek economy from
neighborly rural trading to long-distance multicultural exchange.
The descendants of the agora are
the piazzas and plazas in both
Europe and the Americas.
One of the most appealing
variations on the model of the
ancient marketplace was the
European arcade that appeared in
the 18th century. An arcade was
typically a covered set of city
streets similar to the bazaar, but it
retained some of the openness of
the agora through the use of
vaulted, or arched, skylights. One
of the first arcades was the Gostiny
Dvor in St. Petersburg, Russia, built
between 1757 and 1785.It has an open floor that
so simulates the Italian piazza but is covered by a
glass roof that imitates the openness of the
agora even during cold Russian winters. The
Gostiny Dvor remains one of the finest shopping
centers in Northern Europe.
In Southern Europe, the Galleria Vittorio
Emanuele II, named after the first king of united
Italy, opened in Milan in 1857. Vaulted iron and
glass ceilings provide both shelter and light for
shopping in the middle of a dense city.
A young Viennese architect named Victor
Gruen was among the many visitors who were
favorably impressed by the Galleria. In the
1950s, Gruen was commissioned to design a
regional shopping mall in the state of
Minnesota in the northern United States. The
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II served as the
starting concept for his mall design.
The cold weather in Minnesota posed a
special challenge to shopper comfort. Gruen's
approach was to enclose the whole building.
The mall was built away from big cities and
was accessible mainly by automobile, so it
required a sea of automobile parking spaces
outside. The result, called Southdale, was a
spacious suburban destination. It attempted
to retain the inviting festivity of the agora,
the energy of the bazaar. And the lightness
of the arcade. It included enhanced climate
control, easy access. and range of other
inviting conveniences and attractions.
Southdale soon became the archetype for
The modern mall.
Since Southdale. Huge regional shopping
Malls have sprung up all over the world. They
Commonly include several main “anchor” stores,
an ice skating rink. Movie theaters, a themed
hotel, and an amusement park or other major
attraction. Such huge shopping and entertainment
centers depend on the willingness and ability of
people to travel some distance and shop or play
for long periods of time.
In the early 2000s. hundreds of such malls
Were constructed in the People's Republic of
China. In 2008. a vast complex in the Uunited
Arab Emirates, the Dubai ,Mall. attracted over
37 million visitors in its first year alone. The
Mall , one of the largest in the world, features
over 1,200 stores, a marine aquarium and an
Olympic-size ice skating rink. It is a magnet
For visitors, and its surrounding neighborhood
has beer-r called the new heart of the city."
Other world malls of note include the Istanbul
Cevahir, The Mall Taman Anggrek (Orchid
Garden Mall) in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the
West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada, which
features a water park.
From moveable markets, to bazaars and
agoras, to the sprawling modern regional
mall, the social function of a marketplace has
changed greatly. One thing remains the same:
these centers of trade and retail marketing
indicate economic prosperity and serve as
global status symbols.